Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and some of the region’s largest health care systems and insurers are collaborating with a venture capital firm to assist startup companies focused on artificial intelligence in health care.

The accelerator, called Techstars AI Health Baltimore, launched last year with Hopkins and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, but recently picked up more industry partners.

They included many other major names in health care — UMB, the University of Maryland Medical System and MedStar Health.

Techstars was founded in 2006 in Colorado and has since moved to New York. The company has launched accelerators for a range of startup companies across the United States and in several other countries. The next Baltimore cohort will begin a 13-week program March 10.

The collaboration comes as AI becomes more prevalent in both health care research and health care delivery, and also as the region aims to turn more of its discoveries into companies that stay and grow locally.

In this case, some Techstars startups already are based in the city or region, but others will move to offices in downtown Baltimore. That could be an extra economic development boost, said Nick Culbertson, managing director of Techstars AI Health Baltimore, who launched his own startup in the city in 2014.

That company, called Protenus, detects fraud in health care systems and was sold last year to another technology company, Bluesight.

The Techstars startups are all in later stages of development and considered promising enough to get a $220,000 investment from the venture fund, Culbertson said.

Hopkins and other local collaborators have no financial stake in the startups, but they will offer executive and expert advice and also serve as potential early customers — a pivotal arrangement that could attract more customers and more investment, Culbertson said.

“As a startup it’s hard to get investor dollars without customers, and it’s hard to get customers without solving real-world problems,” he said. “They will get valuable feedback directly from health systems and universities.”

The products and services aim to improve care delivery, clinical operations, patient engagement, community health and billing.