Dive Brief:
- The Cleveland Clinic's business development arm has begun taking orders through ADEO, an online marketplace for digital healthcare products. The e-commerce company will sell directly to hospitals, private practice physicians and patients.
- The site was quietly launched in October and now offers 13 products from the Cleveland Clinic and other partners. Under normal circumstances, the Clinic says, these products would have to be licensed to a third party before going to market.
- Current offerings include a data management software intended to track family-based medical studies and a smartphone app developed by ProMedica that monitors ambient noise levels to help users protect their hearing.
Dive Insight:
ADEO is yet another example of a provider trying to find ways to monetize its own innovation work. Some, like UPMC, market their products directly; the Cleveland Clinic is going the retail route, not only selling their own products but providing a platform for the sale of their partners' products as well. Epic is doing this as well. The EHR giant will soon launch its own app store—a company-branded iTunes or Google Play Store for healthcare apps—aimed at creating an independent marketplace for apps related solely to healthcare.
Another consideration: The Cleveland Clinic, which describes ADEO as "one of the nation's first online marketplaces for medical innovations," will probably have to walk a fine line in terms of its product offerings since it intends to sell directly to both patients and providers.