Welcome from the Executive Director
Advancing Health Through Digital Innovation
As the founding Executive Director of the Institute for Digital Healthcare Transformation, I am excited to welcome researchers from across the University of Houston. The Institute is a place for the full range of work that can improve health and care, whether that work begins in a lab, a clinic, a classroom, or the community. Our job is to connect that work across UH and help chart a path for it beyond the university.
Commercialization is an exploratory process. Few researchers begin with a complete
view of how their discoveries might function in an active healthcare environment,
and that uncertainty is natural. Our goal is to help investigators understand where
their work sits and what steps might carry it forward to reach patients. That transition
calls for substantial investment, combining capital with specialized guidance in market
partnerships and company formation. The Institute will work alongside you to examine
those needs early while respecting the role you want to play in that journey.
UH Health’s commitment to improving the health of all Texans, with particular attention to medically underserved and historically vulnerable communities, was central to my decision to join UH. Too many people still encounter healthcare systems that are difficult to access, afford, and navigate. The Institute has a responsibility to help ensure that the solutions it advances are informed by the actual experiences of the people expected to use them.
Allow me to finish with a promise. Commercialization at the Institute will never ask researchers to surrender their work or abandon the questions that first made it matter. Over the past decade, I have learned that the translation gap researchers face today isn’t a science or technology problem. It’s a scaffolding problem between the researcher, the community, and the market. I look forward to building the missing scaffolding with you at the University of Houston
Beto Lopez, M.S.
Executive Director · Institute for Digital Healthcare Transformation, University
of Houston