A couple of weeks ago I wrote about translational research barriers – also known as the “valley of death” – and some larger, national public and private programmatic solutions.  This week’s Mass High Tech newspaper has a cover story about how Children’s Hospital in Boston created a $1 Million fund to help their researchers bridge that gap to take their discoveries into the development process that can actually lead to better patient care.

Two things caught my eye in this article.  The first was their actually using the term “valley of death.”  And the second was that this institutional fund illustrates how the best strategies for many health problems combine large & small, and national & local complimentary solutions.  Thankfully this has been the situation in many areas such as  biomedical research, (e.g. NIH funding, local and national charities, and individual institutional funds), and healthcare services for the poor, (e.g. Federal Medicaid funding, state administered Medicaid programs, national and local charities, and individual efforts).  The success and strength of these multifaceted approaches should be remembered as we seek to solve the entire range of healthcare problems in all four spheres of our healthcare system.