The Cleveland Clinic and MedStar Health, with hospitals in Maryland and Washington, DC, announced plans to collaborate on medical inventions and innovations. The alliance is said to be the first of its kind between two large US health systems.

Cleveland Clinic Innovations, the Clinic’s s technology commercialization arm, has licensed more than 250 technologies and started 35 new companies to market products since it was created in 2000.  MedStar Health’s effort to emphasize medical innovations started more recently when it created the MedStar Institute for Innovation in 2009.

The collaboration will be for three years and Cleveland Clinic will hire two or three staff members to work with MedStar staff in Maryland and Washington.

For more on the collaboration, visit www.medicaldesign.com and click blogs.