New Haven, CT (June 1, 2026) – Yale New Haven Health (YNHHS), through its Center for Health Care Innovation (CHI), announced the winners of the 2026 YNHH Innovation Awards following a live finalist pitch competition highlighting high-impact solutions to some of healthcare’s most pressing challenges.
The Innovation Awards program is designed to accelerate new models of care, advance digital and AI-enabled solutions, and support frontline innovation across the health system. This year’s competition centered on the theme, “Breaking Barriers, Building Access,” with submissions addressing access to care, workflow design, decentralized and community-based care, and applications of generative AI and advanced analytics.
A total of 43 applications were submitted from across YNHHS and Yale University, with 27 advancing throughout initial screening and 12 finalists selected to compete in the live pitch event.
Gold Award Winners ($50,000 each plus a data validation opportunity)
• Neuroprobe (Team Lead: Hitten Zaveri; Dennis Spencer, MD; Emily Gilmore MD) – Implantable multimodal neuro-monitoring system integrating ICP, EEG, temperature, and oxygenation sensors for neurocritical care.
• Enrich Health (Team Lead: Monique Rainford; Andrea Lee, MD) – Digital platform improving early prenatal care access for Medicaid and underserved populations.
Silver Award Winners ($50,000 each)
• ECG OMI (Team Lead: Rohit Sangal; Rohit Sangal, MD; Lovedeep Dhingra, MBBS; Rohan Khera, MD, Philip Kroon MD; Sumukh V. Shankar; Arjun Venkatesh, MD) – AI enabled ECG surveillance to detect underrecognized heart attack patterns in emergency workflows.
• Lumen (Team Lead: Jonathan Tefera; Jonathan Tefera, MD; Chaitu Dandu, MD; Daniel Webb; Julius Chapiro, MD; Edouard Aboian, MD) – Mixed reality platform streaming live fluoroscopy into clinicians’ field of view.
• Elevare Health (Team Lead: Lucas Favazza; Kayla Walsh; Sofia Hirschmann) – Maternal care platform supporting patients from pregnancy through postpartum.
Bronze Award Honorees
• PROMPT CKD (Team Lead: Angela Victoria-Castro; Francis P. Wilson, MD) – EHR integrated decision support for chronic kidney disease care.
• SterileVision (Team Lead: Scott Isreal; David Israel; MD; Katie Israel) – AI-assisted tool for real-time surgical instrument inspection.
• Hygieia (Team Lead: Tianyu Liu; Wangjie Zheng; Feiyang Wen; Hua Xu; James Zou; Hongyu Zhao) – Multimodal AI agent supporting rare-disease diagnosis and genomic analysis.
“These awards highlight the extraordinary depth of innovation across our health system and academic partners, and the commitment to turning ideas into real-world solutions that improve access, efficiency, and outcomes,” said Christopher O’Connor, CEO of Yale New Haven Health, “Through the Center for Health Care Innovation, we are accelerating the work of teams who are solving meaningful challenges for patients and providers.”
The live finalist event brought a venture-style energy to the health system, with teams delivering rapid presentations and engaging in real-time discussions with judges.
Solutions spanned clinical decision support, workflow automation, advanced diagnostics, and new care delivery models designed to expand access to improve equity.
“This format challenges teams to go beyond the concept and demonstrate how solutions can be implemented and scaled,” said Lee Schwamm, MD, senior vice president and chief digital health officer of Yale New Haven Health. “It brings rigor and accountability while accelerating the most promising innovations into real-world use.”
An independent panel of judges representing healthcare, technology, and investment sectors evaluated the finalists, providing external perspective on feasibility, scalability, and long-term impact.
Yale New Haven Health (YNHHS), the largest and most comprehensive healthcare system in Connecticut, is recognized for advanced clinical care, quality, service, cost effectiveness and commitment to improving the health status of the communities it serves. YNHHS includes five hospitals – Bridgeport, Greenwich, Lawrence + Memorial, Westerly and Yale New Haven hospitals, several specialty networks and Northeast Medical Group, a non-profit medical foundation with several hundred community-based and hospital-employed physicians. YNHHS is affiliated with Yale University and Yale Medicine, the clinical practice of the Yale School of Medicine and the largest academic multi-specialty practice in New England. Yale New Haven Hospital is the primary teaching hospital of Yale School of Medicine. www.ynhhs.org
