UW Health is launching Innovation Hub, a business accelerator program that will be led by experienced entrepreneur Thomas “Rock” Mackie, the organization announced recently.

According to a release, the hub’s goal is to offer support for creative ideas and projects that have potential to achieve better health outcomes or to solve problems facing UW Health patients, providers and the health system. The projects also must be scalable to create value beyond UW Health.

Prior to leading the hub, Mackie, an emeritus professor of medical physics and engineering at the University of Wisconsin, founded several companies, including TomoTheraphy, and he sits on the board of several organizations.

“Rock is the ideal leader to spearhead our desire to empower the medical visionaries we have all around us at UW Health and the School of Medicine and Public Health,” UW School of Medicine and Public Health Senior Associate Dean Rick Moss said in a statement. “His extensive expertise in taking innovation from ideas to reality, then scaling them up, will be a tremendous asset to guide the early stages of our efforts.”

The accelerator will be housed on the first floor of University Hospital and will be open to potential external business partners, in addition to UW Health’s own employees and medical staff.

The Hub also recently received a $75,000 grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation.