Health system intelligence profile
University of Iowa Health Care (UI Ventures, Office of Innovation)
Editorially verified · Last reviewed August 30, 2026
Intelligence summary
Established 2019
Documented successes: Droste Drape, a plastic bed base cover by OR nurse Jill Droste that contains surgical fluids and reduces cleaning time between operations; StomaCoach, 3D-printed customized ostomy wafers by pediatric skin/wound/ostomy nurse Kayla Piplani, which won third place and $10,000 at the 2024 pitch competition; Hygiene Tracker by Julie Boothby, nursing practice leader at UIHC; annual Nurse Innovator pitch competition held November 14, 2024 at UI Health Care Medical Center; five years of operation as of 2024; Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation grant support; partnership with MakerHealth
Mandate and remit
The Nurse Innovators Program helps nurses and other front-line clinicians across Iowa turn the informal workarounds they invent at the bedside into real, scalable products. Program staff meet with each innovator, assemble a customized materials kit for that specific idea, run ongoing technical check-ins and connect participants to Protostudios for prototype refinement. Innovators typically move through the program in about a year and can compete for funding at an annual Nurse Innovator pitch competition. The program is open to nurses, nursing assistants, nurse practitioners, nurse anesthetists, physical and occupational therapists, respiratory therapists and chaplains statewide, and is staffed by a Nurse Innovator Liaison who is herself a working MICU staff nurse. It has partnered with MakerHealth and is supported by Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation grant funding.
These routes appear in the program's sourced public record.
Documented successes
Droste Drape, a plastic bed base cover by OR nurse Jill Droste that contains surgical fluids and reduces cleaning time between operations; StomaCoach, 3D-printed customized ostomy wafers by pediatric skin/wound/ostomy nurse Kayla Piplani, which won third place and $10,000 at the 2024 pitch competition; Hygiene Tracker by Julie Boothby, nursing practice leader at UIHC; annual Nurse Innovator pitch competition held November 14, 2024 at UI Health Care Medical Center; five years of operation as of 2024; Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation grant support; partnership with MakerHealth
Organizational home: Nurse Innovators Program, University of Iowa Health Care (UI Ventures, Office of Innovation)
Use the program's published contact route for partnership, licensing, innovation, or program inquiries.
Comparable records based on shared public taxonomy, location, or commercialization route.
Same state · Same program type · Same commercialization route
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
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Iowa City, Iowa
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UI Ventures is the startup and commercialization arm of the University of Iowa Office of Innovation, focused on spinning out companies built on University of Iowa technology, much of it from UI Health Care.
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Winston-Salem, North Carolina
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Albany, New York
Office of Translational Research, Innovation, and Technology Transfer (OTR)
The Office of Translational Research, Innovation, and Technology Transfer supports Albany Medical College inventors in moving biomedical discoveries toward commercialization.
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Reviewed August 30, 2026. External source links open in a new tab.
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