Breathing New Ideas into Environmental Health: IDEATOR 2026 Focuses on the Environments That Shape Us
What if improving health outcomes in Northeast Ohio starts not inside the hospital, but in the air we breathe, the homes we live in and the neighborhoods we grow in?
That question anchored the fourth annual Healthcare Transformation IDEATOR, held February 11–12, 2026, in Cleveland at the Midtown Collaboration Center. Faculty, staff and students from NEOMED joined healthcare professionals from UH for two days of immersive collaboration centered on one of the region’s most pressing and complex challenges: environmental health.
This year’s IDEATOR challenged participants to examine how environmental factors, ranging from asthma triggers and lead exposure to chronic disease, cancer risk, pre-term birth and even microplastics, shape long-term health outcomes. The goal was not simply to identify problems, but to design innovative, actionable solutions that could move the needle in communities most affected by environmental disparities.
Participants were presented with a real community story on day one, grounding the experience in lived reality and prompting teams to think beyond clinical care alone. Working in multidisciplinary groups, participants combined expertise in medicine, pharmacy, public health, administration and community engagement to develop entrepreneurial solutions over the course of 48 hours.
Throughout the event, teams received guidance from expert coaches and institutional leaders, refining their concepts in preparation for a public pitch competition on day two.
First Place: Team AIR
First place was awarded to Team AIR, whose proposal introduced an Environmental Lung Screening Index (ELSI). The team designed a data-driven model that integrates lung cancer rates with environmental exposure patterns to identify geographic areas at elevated risk. Their solution includes deploying a mobile CT screening unit to bring early detection services directly to underserved communities, including individuals who may not meet traditional smoking-based screening criteria but are still at risk due to environmental factors.
Second Place: Team Deep Breath
Second place was awarded to Team Deep Breath, which developed a subscription-based asthma navigation service aimed at reducing environmental triggers within the home. Their digital platform connects patients with vetted local remediation resources and tracks health outcomes over time, with the goal of preventing avoidable exacerbations and reducing healthcare costs.
Margaret Lamb, Master of Global Health Student, reflected:
“The IDEATOR event allowed students and health care professionals to come together to address real world problems. Every member of the team brought something from their individual experiences, background and resources to focus on our particular situation. It allowed us to cooperate and dialog with other people that we would not come in contact with during our normal day as students or health care specialists.”
Innovation Beyond the Event
In addition to individual cash awards, both teams will receive $5,000 in project funding and ongoing support from an Entrepreneur-in-Residence to help advance their concepts beyond the competition. That continued mentorship is a defining feature of the IDEATOR, ensuring promising ideas do not end at the pitch stage.
More broadly, the IDEATOR continues to strengthen collaboration between NEOMED, University Hospitals and community partners. By bringing together diverse perspectives across disciplines and institutions, the event reinforces a shared commitment to addressing the social and environmental determinants that shape health across Northeast Ohio.
As the IDEATOR closes its fourth year, its focus on environmental health signals an important evolution: improving community health requires looking upstream at housing, air quality, environmental exposure and systemic inequities that influence outcomes long before a clinical encounter.
The conversations sparked during these two days will continue long after the event concludes. And with each year, the IDEATOR reaffirms a simple but powerful belief: when innovation is rooted in empathy and collaboration, it has the potential to transform communities.
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