Healthcare Innovation Cycle
Also known as: HIC, Innovation Cycle
The framework GAITS implements: ten Innovation Maturity Levels based on Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs), from Need to Standard of Care, tracked across four domains critical to developing a healthcare solution.
Full Definition
The Healthcare Innovation Cycle (HIC) organizes the path from an unmet clinical need to adoption as standard of care into ten Innovation Maturity Levels (IMLs). At each level, progress is tracked across four domains: Clinical/Workflow, Market/Business, Regulatory, and Technical/Science. All four should advance together for a project to stay on a commercially viable path.
The structure shows where a project is strong and where it carries unresolved risk. The most common pattern it exposes is technology advancing ahead of clinical, commercial, and regulatory work. In GAITS, the HIC appears as the carousel on a Solution Site's Overview tab, with one segment for each Deliverable. The full framework is described at gaits.org/foundation.
A team's carousel shows its Technical/Science Deliverables complete through IML 5, while its Market/Business and Regulatory Deliverables remain incomplete at IML 1. The gap shows the team and its mentors where to focus before the next funding round.