New Mexico healthcare is building a new way to innovate.
The Health ImpACT Challenge is a healthcare‑led, state‑supported initiative to develop an innovation pilot network across New Mexico.
Focus: advanced computing technology that can strengthen care, quality, access, and sustainability for New Mexico healthcare and the communities we serve.
What is the Health ImpACT Challenge?
The Health ImpACT Challenge is our 2026 flagship initiative to build a first-of-its-kind, statewide health innovation pilot and learning network—focused on finding and piloting advanced computing and digital tools that can improve care for our communities.
It gives New Mexico healthcare leaders a coordinated way to set shared priorities and evaluate new startup technologies and innovation investment or partnership models that fit our state’s needs in new ways.
HealthInno leads outreach and startup vetting, supports participating teams, and ensures lessons learned are shared across New Mexico.
Through the Challenge, participating healthcare leaders will:
Define priority healthcare challenges in New Mexico
Review and evaluate pre‑screened startup technologies that could address them—gaining exposure to startup diligence and giving direct feedback to startup teams
Host scoped, short pilot projects when there’s a fit—with support from HealthInno and potential funding to offset internal effort
Compare notes with peers and set direction for health tech innovation in New Mexico
Health ImpACT is a state‑backed initiative led by HealthInno, in partnership with NMEDD, UNMHSC, and Builders VC.
More details on participation and timelines coming in March 2026.
Why This Matters
Pressure to innovate, limited bandwidth
New Mexico healthcare teams are balancing staffing constraints, rising demand, and complex operations; most do not have capacity for long, independent innovation cycles, which makes shared, statewide support and infrastructure even more important.
So many promising new ideas, but too little time
Promising tech is evolving fast, but it rarely gets in front of the right leaders at the right moment—and when teams are busy running the day‑to‑day, it is hard to carve out space to test what it might actually do or how to judge real outcomes.
Healthcare is evolving how it invests in what’s next
Across the country, health systems are putting capital and leadership attention behind innovation to support long‑term stability—but learning how to work with startups and evaluate digital solutions is new, and many teams cannot add that on top of everything else.
How it Works
This is not a pitch competition or demo day. It is a healthcare‑led initiative to build a coordinated innovation pilot network around issues that matter most to New Mexico—so healthcare leaders can explore startup technology safely, with shared infrastructure and support that benefits organizations across the state.
01
Join the Challenge
Healthcare organizations: start where you are. Request the Participation Brief and join our recurring meetings to stay close to what New Mexico peers are seeing and what innovations exist—whether or not you ever host a pilot.
02
Name your priority challenges
Work with other leaders to name the problems that matter most for New Mexico care delivery: operations, access, workforce pressures, population health, or something else.
03
Review startup technology
HealthInno curates a list of pre‑screened startup technologies that will present at our recurring review meetings. You can listen in, provide feedback on whether they would work in New Mexico, and flag any you want to learn about.
04
Choose if and when to pilot a promising idea
If you see a promising solution, you can opt to host a time‑bound pilot project to test and evaluate outcomes—with support from us. Some funding may be available to offset effort.
05
Use learnings & results to decide next steps
Use what you learn—whether from the startup review process or from hosting a pilot—to decide next steps: refine, expand, or explore deeper investment or partnerships.
Example Innovation Pilot
1. Participants name a priority
Between-visit monitoring
Primary Care is looking for practical ways to stay connected to patients between visits and after discharge, especially when chronic conditions and transitions require closer follow‑up.
2. We issue a national call for startups
HealthInno curates a short list of promising solutions
HealthInno and its Advisory Council use market and clinical expertise to pre‑vet ideas from startups, researchers, tech transfer offices, and other partners, narrowing to a short list of solutions that appear feasible and well‑suited for New Mexico. The selected teams then present at regularly scheduled sessions, where participants can ask questions, provide feedback and decide which solutions to explore by hosting a scoped, time-bound pilot.
3. A participants sees a promising solution
Amplifier Health
An AI‑powered voice analytics platform that analyzes short speech samples to surface potential health condition signals, supporting remote check‑ins and clinician follow‑up when needed.
Solution Category: AI-powered voice biomarker technology
Focus Area: Voice-based monitoring, early detection, remote monitoring and screening support
Learn more: amplifierhealth.com
4. Participant opts to host a pilot
When a solution looks promising, a participating organization can opt in to hosting a structured pilot, with HealthInno supporting the startup and healthcare team as needed.
Duration
4-6 weeks
Population:
50–100 patients in a defined cohort
Outcomes:
Institutional level success metrics (i.e. follow-up visit rate)
This example is illustrative. Actual priorities, partners, evaluation design, and outcomes will vary.
Who It’s For
Healthcare Orgs & Execs
For executives and innovation leaders who want a clear, healthcare‑led way to explore new technology and partnership models—without needing an internal innovation team or standing up a big new program of their own.
Health Tech Startups
For pilot‑ready teams with technologies or digital solutions that could help New Mexico better serve its communities—and who want thoughtful review and a path to real‑world testing when there is a strong fit.
What is ACT?
ACT is Advanced Computing Technology—it’s a state priority.
For us, it means new technology that is clinically grounded, operationally realistic, and has the potential to transform care delivery for New Mexico communities in new ways.
Select each example to see what that could look like.
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What this refers to
Digital health & tech-enabled tools that help extend care beyond traditional settings—supporting virtual-first workflows, ongoing support, and reliable care across distance and time.Typically supports
Access expansion, continuity of care, home-based care, specialty reach, and patient self-management.What this looks like in practice
Virtual care workflows with escalation, follow-up, and care team routing
Remote support for chronic care, rehab, and recovery outside the hospital
Patient-facing tools that help people understand trends and manage goals over time
What it is not
Standalone video visits, basic portals, or tools that don’t connect to real care workflows. -
What this refers to
AI-enabled tool and data systems that connect care activity, data, and workflows across settings—so teams can act on real-time signals, route work intelligently, and reduce administrative friction inside daily operations.Typically supports
Transitions of care, cross-system referrals, integrated care, clinician time savings, burnout reduction, cycle-time improvement, and closing care gaps.What this looks like in practice
Real-time signals that trigger follow-ups and handoffs (discharge, missed visit, care gap)
Constraint-aware routing based on urgency, capacity, and available services
Documentation and task support that drafts notes and surfaces action items
Automation for intake, referral prep, prior auth, and handoffs—with human approval
Forecasting and scheduling that adapts to demand and capacity shifts
Systems that coordinate care across teams and sites—tracking what’s happening, anticipating what’s next, and routing work so patients don’t get lost between
What it is not
Data integration alone or generic task trackers that don’t fit real workflows. -
What this refers to
Smart sensing & device-enabled approaches that capture health signals through wearables or lightweight sensors—and turn them into useful insights over time for both care teams and patients.Typically supports
Rehab and recovery, movement/neuro support, safety monitoring, longitudinal engagement, and continuity across settings.What this looks like in practice
Next-gen wearables that track fine motor, gait, or tremor change (e.g., a sensor-enabled glove concept)
Low-friction sensing that supports safety, recovery, and daily function outside clinical settings
Patient-facing insights that help people spot change earlier and manage their own goals
Signal summaries that stay useful even with limited connectivity
What it is not
Standalone consumer gadgets, or devices positioned as definitive clinical tests without appropriate oversight. -
What this refers to
Immersive and spatial approaches or computing tools that strengthen training, remote support, and care delivery—especially when specialty access or staffing make in-person support harder.Typically supports
Workforce training, remote specialty support, care standardization, rehab, and patient education across distributed settings.What this looks like in practice
Simulation training for high-risk workflows without disrupting clinic operations
AR-guided support for complex procedures or equipment setup, with real-time remote expert backup
Immersive rehab or therapy support that adapts as patients progress over time
What it is not
One-off VR experiences, marketing demos, or entertainment-first tools that don’t integrate with care pathways or staff workflows. -
What this refers to
Advanced modeling and simulation that helps leaders test decisions before rollout—so programs, pathways, and operations improve with fewer unintended consequences.Typically supports
Population health strategy, pathway design, care management programs, capacity planning, and performance improvement.What this looks like in practice
Digital twin / “what-if” simulation to test changes in access, capacity, and care delivery
Scenario modeling for prevention programs, outreach strategies, and care management approaches
Pathway modeling across populations (who benefits from what next, and when)
What it is not
Static dashboards, retrospective reporting only, or analytics that can’t be tested in a small, time-bound pilot. -
What this refers to
Applied next-generation computing for complex health system decisions—when the number of variables, constraints, and tradeoffs makes standard approaches too slow or too simplified.Typically supports
Precision medicine, population health strategy, care pathway design, care management programs, access planning, capacity optimization, and system-level performance improvement.This includes high-performance computing (HPC) today, quantum-inspired methods in practice, and quantum-ready approaches as the field matures.
What this looks like in practice
Modeling and optimizing precision medicine treatment pathways across populations (who benefits from what next, and when)
“What-if” simulation for prevention programs, capacity shifts, and care delivery changes before rollout
Complex planning like access, scheduling, routing, and resource allocation across distributed settings
Finding patterns in large, messy real-world health data to improve stratification, diagnostics, and outreach at scale
What it is not
A “quantum computer product,” routine reporting dashboards, or diagnostic tools marketed for individual patient decisions without appropriate validation.
Ready to Get Involved?
Health ImpACT is a collaborative effort, with each partner playing a key role.
Stay tuned as this list grows.
IN COLLABORATION WITH
