Innovation, Collaboration, and Human-Centered Problem Solving Take Center Stage at the Roux Institute’s Northern New England MedTech Conference IdeaJAM
When more than 200 clinicians, payers, researchers, startup founder, industry leaders, and technologists stepped into the Roux Institute this past November for the Northern New England MedTech Conference, hosted in partnership with MedTech Collaborative, they weren’t just there to listen—they were there to build.
This year’s conference featured a new addition: IdeaJAM, a human-centered design challenge sponsored by Aetna and designed to spark breakthrough thinking around one of the most pressing issues in healthcare today:
How might we enable payers and health systems to leverage data and workflows to improve rural metabolic and maternal health outcomes despite reimbursement and interoperability barriers?
For participants, tackling a challenge of this scope in a single afternoon required curiosity, flexibility, and a willingness to work with people they had met only minutes earlier. For the organizers, that was exactly the point.
Grounding Innovation in Lived Expertise
The session opened with insights from two experts on the front lines of this issue: Dr. Lee Washington, Senior Medical Director for Aetna National Accounts, and Jamal Jones, Strategy Executive for Aetna/State of North Carolina Health Plan.
Drawing from their extensive experience across payer operations, health equity initiatives, and clinical leadership, Washington and Jones provided a real-world lens on the overlapping barriers affecting rural metabolic and maternal health—fragmented data systems, inconsistent reimbursement environments, challenges with care coordination, and the persistent inequities rural communities face in both access and outcomes.
Their framing set the stage for the work ahead: creating solutions that were visionary enough to reimagine what’s possible, yet grounded enough to be achievable in the complex realities of healthcare.
Designing With, Not For
Using a human-centered design framework, facilitators guided participants through fast-paced collaboration: identifying root problems, mapping stakeholders, generating concepts, and crafting workable prototypes.
What emerged from the process was a broad spectrum of creative, pragmatic solutions—from data-sharing tools and innovative reimbursement models to community-based navigation programs and workflow redesigns to better connect low-resource patients with care.
Eight teams advanced to the final pitch round, where they presented their ideas to a panel of judges: Dr. Lee Washington, Dr. Elena Brondolo, Director, Entrepreneurship – Health & Life Sciences at the Roux Institute, and Lauren Bass, General Manager at OVR.
Impact Beyond the Room
After an energetic round of pitches and thoughtful feedback from the judges, two teams were selected for top honors. Both teams donated their winnings to Maine-based organizations supporting maternal and family health: Birth Roots and Zoe, A Women’s Center.
For organizers and participants alike, this gesture underscored the deeper purpose of IdeaJAM—not simply generating new concepts, but demonstrating a shared commitment to improving health outcomes in the communities that need it most.
A Catalyst for Future Innovation
IdeaJAM marked a meaningful step in the Roux Institute’s mission to foster collaborative problem-solving across the healthcare ecosystem.
By blending payer expertise, clinical insight, design thinking, and cross-sector teamwork, the event created a rare space where innovation was not only encouraged, but made actionable.
“Events like the Northern New England MedTech Conference’s IdeaJAM show what’s possible when diverse stakeholders come together with openness, urgency, and the tools to co-create solutions,” said Brondolo. “This kind of interdisciplinary collaboration is essential to driving more equitable healthcare — especially in rural communities.”
At the Roux Institute, the momentum from November is already fueling conversations about what comes next. The Roux Institute and Aetna are committed to supporting teams that want to advance the ideas they developed during the event. If this year’s event proved anything, it’s that when people come together to rethink entrenched challenges, meaningful change isn’t just possible — it’s already underway.
