Schneider Innovation Center

Schneider Children's Medical Center is the only Pediatric Hospital in Israel and the largest one in the whole Middle East and Africa.

The Innovation Center of Schneider Children's Medical Center is aligned with Schneider's main goal:

• To Improve Patient Care, and ensure the kids of today become the healthy adults of tomorrow.
• Our Innovation Center does so by supporting the development of breakthrough technologies such as diagnostic tools, new drugs, new medical devices, and new digital tools; as well as by supporting improvements in the internal
  Processes in our hospital.
  

Innovation Medical Staff

Dr. Sivan Achituv, Deputy Director of Schneider Children’s
Dr. Achituv is a specialist in Pediatric Hemato-Oncology. She graduated from the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University and previously served as the Head of the Pediatric Lymphoma Service in the Oncology Department at Tel Aviv Medical Center and as a pediatric hematologist at Hillel-Yaffe Hospital.

Dr. Achituv participated in the establishment of a Neutrophils Function Laboratory at Tel Aviv Medical Center and worked tirelessly to train students, interns and young residents. She believes in leading with professionalism, in conducting rigorous research, while simultaneously seeing the world through the eyes of the child and his family.

At Schneider, she serves as a Deputy Director, and oversees the Innovation initiatives.


The Innovation Center Team: 

Mel Larrosa, Chief Executive Officer of the Innovation Center
Mel Larrosa is a Head of Innovation and Business Developer with a valuable mix of technological/scientific and management/financial capabilities. She specializes in developing industry partnerships in the Life Sciences, Biotech and Pharma sectors.

Originally from Brazil, Mel brings over 15 years of experience in ideation, tech evaluation, market analysis, IP strategy, regulatory affairs, business modeling, contract negotiation, leading to hundreds of deals and to the establishment of 20+ well-funded startups.

She served at the Board of Directors in several Biotech Companies, and has extensive experience in Technology Transfer, and Structured Export Financing in multicultural environments (Israel, Europe, US, LATAM, India, China).

Mel holds an MBA from Open University and an MSc from the University of Brasilia. She earned her BSc in Biology from the University of São Paulo and is currently pursuing an additional MSc in Nutrigenetics & Nutrigenomics.

Dr Patrick Stafler, Chief Medical Officer of the Innovation Center
Dr Patrick Stafler is a Pediatric Pulmonologist and Director of the Bronchoscopy Service at Schneider Children’s, where he also led the establishment of the first Aerodigestive Center in Israel. He heads a national telemedicine project developing a home sensor enabled digital platform for asthmatic children, funded with a budget of 2 million Shekels.

Dr Stafler is an alumnus of the first cohort of senior physicians enrolled in a novel fellowship program in "Medical Innovation and Entrepreneurship", under the auspices of the scientific council of the Israeli Medical Association. He acts as a consultant to several start-up companies in the HealthTech sector and was recently appointed Chief Medical Officer of the Innovation and Technology

Center at Schneider Children's. His goal in this new exciting role is to catalyze change in the world of pediatrics by promoting the integration of technology, ultimately leading to better health for our children whilst driving economic growth.

Sarit Bitan, Chief Nursing Officer of the Innovation Center
Sarit is a registered nurse (RN) with a Master’s Degree (MSc) and is currently a PhD candidate in Epidemiology, at Tel Aviv University. She is the Head of Nursing Research and a member of nursing management at Schneider Children’s, as well as a Lecturer at Tel Aviv University.

She joined Schneider Children’s in 1996 as a CICU nurse and later on worked as a Cath Lab nurse. In both positions, she saw first-hand the need for equipment and supplies developed exclusively for children. Her last role as an Infection Prevention Nurse added yet another angle to the need for technology.

Sarit leads research and innovation projects in nursing thru a large range of initiatives, and she has been recently appointed Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) of the Innovation and Technology Center at Schneider Children's.

She believes that nurses, who spend most time at the patient's bedside, are in a perfect position to promote innovation, and her goal is to promote ideation in the nursing population, and supporting its fruition into tangible results and products.


    
Contact Us

Dr. Sivan Achituv, Deputy Director of Schneider Children’s - [email protected]
 
Mel Larrosa, Chief Executive Officer of the Innovation Center - [email protected]

Dr Patrick Stafler, Chief Medical Officer of the Innovation Center - [email protected]

Sarit Bitan, Chief Nursing Officer of the Innovation Center - [email protected]

Pediatric Innovation – Our Vision

The Schneider Innovation Center dedicated to Pediatrics our goals

• To improve the diagnosis and treatment of ill children
• To ensure the kids of today become the healthy adults of tomorrow
• To lead Pediatric Innovation in Israel and the world
  

Children, defined as humans between 0-18 years old, are literally the basis of society and future of humankind. They make up about 30 percent of the world population and are especially vulnerable to Caring for children by developing proper healthcare products and services is to assure children’s rights to well-being and healthy development.

Furthermore, human’s early years (i.e childhood) set the course for the rest of our lives. We now know that the roots of many health conditions lie in childhood, and do not begin at the child’s 18th birthday, or later in life. There has been a continuous increase in obesity, diabetes and pre-diabetes, fatty liver, metabolic syndrome, inflammatory bowel diseases, mental illness, and several types of cancer among children. These growing numbers are being reflected in steady increases of such debilitating, oftentimes life-threating, diseases also in young adults and beyond. Data shows that around 20% of children suffer from chronic diseases.

This leads us to the need for preventive medicine early on in life, through the development of new medications, medical devices and digital tools to keep children healthy today so they will continue to be the healthy adults of tomorrow.

One-Stop-Shop

• Schneider has the professionals, expertise, facilities and patient cohorts needed for the development of any kind of services, studies and research in the pediatric field.
  
• Schneider counts with world-renowned team of clinicians in all medical areas and sub-specialties. We are a member of the most prestigious international organizations (ECHO - EuropeanChildren's Hospitals Organization, CHIEF - Children's Hospitals International Executive Forum, Genomic Information Commons - GIC), and we collaborate with the best children hospitals and universities in the world.

We offers DATA - simplifying access to pediatric data for Industry and Schneider Researchers.

Schneider has an extensive digital database, including the EMR of 2 million children since year 2000 (600K currently between 0-18 years old), 1 billion lab tests, 200 million diagnoses, 2.5 million hospitalization records. 

Our team is dedicated to children's health and improving child care
Schneider has an amazing team of almost 2,000 people and that are extremely happy to share plans, ideas, dreams and projects, and ready to engage with the Innovation
  
We are especially strong in Research, with some 900 programs running at the moment, and about 300 scientific publications in a year. We count with labs dedicated to basic, translational and clinical research, with cutting-edge equipment and expert professionals.
Our health profession are the leading teams in pediatrics, with pediatric nursing among the leaders in the world, which includes nurse specialist in pain, wounds, palliative care, premature, pediatric neurosurgery and pediatric heart surgery.


Long-Term Value

Create Long-Term Value for Schneider and Clalit Health Services. The innovation activities adds the advancement of science and clinical knowledge, hand in hand better care for patients in Israel and the world. Long-term value refers also to the creation of new and stable revenue streams.
All for create a world with healthier humans.

Our responsibilities

We summarize the responsibilities of the Innovation Center as follows:

• Manages technological and soft innovative projects originated within Schneider, in order to de-risk and accelerate medical developments
• Supports Industry collaborations of all kinds in collaboration with other areas of the hospital
• Creates and maintain relationships with the innovation ecosystem in Israel and the world, including Venture Capital Funds, Incubators, Universities, other hospitals and Industry
• Execute the Strategic Goals discussed above

Our Key Performance Indexes (KPIs) relate to our ability to get Schneider's team involved in innovation processes and creation of new projects from one side, while bringing investment, creating partnerships and generating income on the other side.