Today’s episode is a conversation I had a few months ago with Justin Larkin, who is a fellow Penn Med student. Justin is one of the co-founders, and current CMO of WellSheet, which is a start-up that is using machine learning to identify, prioritize, and visualize patient health data across electronic health records. This company was launched out of the Penn HealthX Labs incubator completion, and remains one of the programs greatest success stories. Now that I’ve started my clinical rotations and have been working with EHR’s, it’s so clear why we need innovation in this space – EHR’s are a total mess.

Justin studied at Brigham Young University before attending Penn Med for his MD, and taking time off to get his MBA at Stanford. He also has experience as an intern at Verily, otherwise known as Google Life Sciences, and he was the co-chair of HealthX from 2013-2015.

In the episode, we discuss a bit about his background and how he ended up in medicine, founding Well-Sheet as a medical student, going to Stanford for his MBA and participating in the Stanford Biodesign program, and what his future plans are. A great episode for anyone who is still trying to find out how they want to best use their skills and interests in medicine, business, and innovation to improve the healthcare system.

Map

2:00 – Going to BYU, playing football, and studying Portuguese

4:35 – Doing mission work for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Brazil

8:30 – Research at BYU, developing interest in health systems, and deciding to pursue medicine

13:20 – Getting involved with Penn HealthX and growing the program

15:40 – Founding WellSheet to fix EHRs and improve physician workflow

20:30 – History of EHRs – where did we go wrong?

27:30 – The early days of WellSheet – defining the problem youa re working on

29:00 – Being recognized by The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), and the next steps – figuring out WellSheet was the real deal

32:45 – Becoming the CMO and deciding how much to commit to the company

36:40 – Knowing when to get help from mentors, and partnering with the big EHR companies

42:20 – Getting an MBA at Stanford, and the difference between MBA programs

45:10 – Balancing family, school, and being CMO of WellSheet from across the country

46:45 – Stanford Biodesign – innovating in the med tech space

48:40 – Working at Verily (Google Life Sciences) and the role of tech companies in healthcare

53:55 – Where does Justin see his career going?

58:00 – Advice for those starting their medical education – branch out

Links

Justin’s LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinlarkin

WellSheet Website

https://www.wellsheet.com/

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)

https://www.healthit.gov/newsroom/about-onc

Stanford Biodesign

http://biodesign.stanford.edu/

Verily (Google Life Sciences)

https://verily.com/

STAT Article on IBM Watson

https://www.statnews.com/2017/09/05/watson-ibm-cancer/