Jun 16, 2026
Teaching future clinicians to think like innovators
Garret Westlake, Ph.D., wants health care students to stop thinking of entrepreneurship as something reserved for business schools or Silicon Valley startups.
Instead, VCU’s vice provost for innovation and strategic design believes entrepreneurial thinking is becoming essential for nearly every modern health care professional – from rehab counselors and nurses to therapists and clinicians delivering care on the front lines.
“The people that understand problems the best are the ones closest to them,” Westlake said. “That’s why solutions generated by health care professionals can be so powerful.”
That philosophy is driving a new interdisciplinary innovation and entrepreneurship course, "Program Innovation and Business Development in the Human Services,” being developed within the VCU College of Health Professions. The course – to be co-taught next spring with Jared C. Schultz, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Rehabilitation Counseling – aims to help students think beyond technical competencies and become creative problem solvers capable of shaping the future of health care.
For Westlake, innovation in health care is not simply about inventing the next medical device or launching a startup company. Rather, innovation can prepare clinicians to recognize gaps, question outdated systems and develop sustainable solutions inside rapidly evolving professions.
“We’ve become overly focused on technical skill development and workforce-ready skills,” said Westlake, who has been on the leading edge of student experiential learning and entrepreneurial activities since joining VCU in 2016. “Students are gaining all the technical skills they need, but we also have to empower them to be creative, curious and innovative.”
Curiosity, he argues, is increasingly critical as artificial intelligence and digital technologies reshape the health care landscape.
“If it was just about knowing if a client says X, then I say or do Y, then AI could replace what they’re doing,” Westlake said. “But creativity and innovation allow us to see opportunities, develop new methods or design new tools, that’s something VCU students will be uniquely prepared to do.”
“Breakthroughs and innovation in health care require us to break down traditional academic silos and embrace interdisciplinarity,” said Arturo Saavedra, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., VCU provost. “By providing our students with immersive, real-world experiences alongside industry partners, VCU is empowering the next generation of clinical innovators to not just participate in health care delivery, but to actively design its future. When we equip frontline clinicians with entrepreneurial tools, we unlock powerful, sustainable solutions that can have global impacts for human health.”
Preparing to answer emerging questions
The course is designed to help students build these new capabilities in stages. Westlake describes the process as moving from creativity – generating new ideas – to innovation, where they begin to implement those ideas. That ultimately leads to entrepreneurship, which means sustaining solutions over time, as he shifts the definition away from starting a business.
Students will learn practical business concepts, including tools such as the business model canvas, a streamlined framework commonly used by startups to map customers, operations and sustainability strategies. But the broader goal is helping future clinicians understand how products, systems and services are designed – and how they can influence them.
That matters in health care settings where providers increasingly interact with electronic medical record systems, telehealth platforms, AI tools and outside vendors.
“By learning things like empathy interviews to better understand user experience and user design,” he said, “they’re going to be better informed customers in addition to practitioners.”
Advancing interdisciplinary collaboration at VCU
The class also reflects a larger push at VCU to integrate innovation and entrepreneurship across disciplines through initiatives such as VCU Shift Labs, which embeds innovation-focused faculty fellows within academic programs. This year, Schultz served as a Shift Health Lab faculty fellow, helping bring entrepreneurial thinking directly into rehabilitation counseling education.
“We’re a comprehensive university,” Westlake said. “How can we take our expertise in business and entrepreneurship and more readily share that with our students in the health sciences?”
With a focus on human services, the course will include students from Rehabilitation Counseling, but students in related fields – including psychology, social work and even school counseling – will be invited to register. “We’re taking a holistic approach to innovation, so these learnings will be relevant across multiple disciplines,” Schultz said. “In today’s world, we know the best way to deliver services is through integration, and that translates to working collaboratively to find the best solutions to the challenges we face.”
The curriculum will include guest speakers from health care startups and industry, along with hands-on projects tied to real-world clients and organizations. Rather than teaching innovation solely as theory, Westlake wants students actively applying these concepts to authentic health care challenges.
“A hallmark of my teaching has always been close connection with industry,” he said. “Students will be exposed to a tool, and then they will apply that tool for a real-world client.”
For students in fields such as rehabilitation counseling, Westlake believes the stakes are especially high. As AI-driven tools and digital mental health platforms expand, clinicians themselves must help shape the technologies being introduced into elements of patient care - not someone solely with business or coding experience.
Ultimately, Westlake hopes the course helps students see themselves not just as providers, but as innovators capable of improving systems and shaping the future of care delivery.
“I want them to feel empowered and to demystify entrepreneurship,” he said. “Good ideas come from the people who understand the problem.”