The Modern MD

Dr. Mitesh Patel shares his entrepreneurial journey, scientific research in behavior economics and digital health, and passion for improving access to medical research at the point of care. 

The ModernMD: Dr. Mitesh Patel

Dr. Mitesh S. Patel, MD, MBA, is a board-certified general internist, physician scientist, and entrepreneur. He is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Health Care Management at the Perelman School of Medicine and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Mitesh is a Co-Founder of Docphin, a NYC-based startup that strives to improve the application of evidence-based medicine into clinical practice. As a physician-scientist, Mitesh studies how we can utilize innovative technology and connected health approaches to passively monitor activity and how we can use health incentives to motivate behavior change.

Success Quote:

“Just get started” - Unknown

White Coat to Business Suit:

Interested in medical research and technology in college, Mitesh started working with a health economist to better understand how the healthcare system works and how it fits into the practice of medicine.  During his MBA studies at Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, he started to explore more opportunities in entrepreneurship and behavior economics.  Listen as Dr. Patel shares his entrepreneurial journey.

Idea to Venture:

The Idea: Can we create a platform to unlock the power of medical research at the point of care? Listen as Mitesh shares the story of Docphin.

Failures: Docphin started expanding quickly with an initial web-based platform. With the promise of mobile and launch of the iPhone, they changed directions to focus on a mobile offering. 

Lesson Learned: Solve a problem and don’t get tied down by a specific solution. 

Business Rounds:

Best Advice: Know your customer and build ‘a must’ not a ‘nice to have’ solution.

Daily Success Habit:Mitesh creates a To Do List with top to do’s that must get done today, this week, and in the next 1-3 months. 

Healthcare Trends:

1) Healthcare has shifted outside of the four wall of the hospital with changing incentives and risks.

2) Wellness incentives are increasing which creates exciting opportunities for reward/penalties to drive behavior change.   

3) Behavior economics will allow us to design financial and social incentives to motive people to be more healthy.    

Links:

https://www.docphin.com/

Dr. Benjamin Berk shares his entrepreneurial journey and passion for improving healthcare systems and patient outcomes.

The ModernMD: Dr. Benjamin Berk

Dr. Benjamin Berk, MD, MS&E provides strategic and operational consulting services to innovative payers, providers, health services organizations, and investors.  Benjamin is a Senior Advisor and Content Consultant for Advanced Practice Strategies (APS) and Faculty member for The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice. Previously, Dr. Berk was the Vice President of Population Health for Iora Health and Principle at Boston Consulting Group.

Success Quote:

“Population health is created one patient at a time.” - Benjamin

White Coat to Business Suit:

Benjamin started as a software engineer building clinical information systems and clinical decision support software.  As he did not want to spend his career behind a computer screen, he decided to go to Stanford Medical school.  During medical school, he realized he was more interested in the ‘big picture' and made the decision to purse his ‘business residency’ at BCG. Listen as Dr. Berk shares his journey, reasons for going into consulting, and his start-up adventures.

Idea to Venture:

The Idea: How can you transform primary care and improve patient outcomes? Listen as Dr. Berk shares his journey at Iora Health and his passion for transforming primary care.

Failures: Benjamin shares his thoughts on the value of failure as a learning opportunity that drives innovation. He also shares insights into fear of failure and success motivators in the US vs. UK healthcare marketplace.

Lessons Learned: The buy vs. build technology decision - Learn when buy software and when to build and promote rapid innovation. 

Business Rounds:

Best Advice: “Opportunity is everywhere.” -  Benjamin’s parents

Daily Success Habit: Takes personal time daily to relax away from work without distractions. 

Healthcare Trends:

Value Based Healthcare: Healthcare is moving to larger systems with value based care and accountable care.

Healthcare Technology: Clinical dashboards are being brought to the point of care with actionable data.

Links:

http://tdi.dartmouth.edu/

http://www.aps-web.com/

Dr. Brad Pruitt shares his entrepreneurial journey, work in the digital health space, and his big vision for redefining the clinical trial world.

The ModernMD: Dr. Brad Pruitt

Dr. Brad Pruitt, MD, MBA, is a physician executive with expertise in digital health, medical device, pharma and contract research (CRO) companies. Brad is the Chief Medical Information Officer and Chairman of nPruv, a health IT company enabling a new era of predictive modeling for clinical trial patient matching and recruitment. Dr. Pruitt is also a Principle at Prucor, a management consulting firm specializing in disruptive digital health technologies, and Lecture Rady School of Management. 

Success Quote:

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

- Calvin Coolidge

White Coat to Business Suit:

Brad went to medical school with a business mind and initial interest in building medical practices that would combine western and eastern medicine.

During his final year of medical school, he was given a life changing offer from a CEO of Contract Research Organization (CRO). After seeing how unhappy the residents were at his dream surgical residency program, Brad decided to take the offer.

Listen as Dr. Pruitt shares his direct transition from medical school into the business world, the reasons he got an MBA,  and his current work in digital health and clinical trials.

Should you do a residency if you want to be an entrepreneur?

This decision depends on if you want to do anything with patients. There are some opportunities in the business world that require an active medical license such as being a Chief Medical Officer or Medical Director. There are plenty of opportunities that do not and you have to evaluate all the opportunity costs.

Idea to Venture:

The Idea: How do you create a marketplace to match patient and doctors with available clinical trial opportunities? Listen as Brad shares nPruv’s big vision to improve the ‘n’ in patient recruitment, create the ‘Match.com’ of the clinical trial world, and provide everyone with access to clinical trails.

Challenges: It is hard to be a first time MD entrepreneur with no track record.

Success: Creating a successful pricing model to get into clinical practices. 

Lesson Learned: Spend time working with customers to better understand their needs to push your product forward.

Business Rounds:

Best Advice: Jim Collins Hedgehog Model - Find something you are the best in the word at, you are passionate about, and drives our economic engine.

Daily Success Habit: Keep yourself healthy and sustainable - Block personal time everyday to get away from work.   

Healthcare Trends: Dr. Pruitt shares the power finding the knowledge within the data, focusing on data that changes opinions or treatment, and having the right data, at the right time, and that can be shared between the physician and the patient.

Links:

http://www.npruv.com/

Dr. Jordan Shlain is practicing primary care doctor who questions everything. Jordan share his entrepreneurial journey, innovative approach to healthcare delivery, and his passion for the atomic unit of healthcare - the doctor and patient relationship.

The ModernMD: Dr. Jordan Shlain

Dr. Jordan Shlain is a nationally recognized physician for his innovative approach to the delivery of healthcare. Jordan is the Founder and Chairman of Healthloop, a cloud-based platform that automates follow-up care; keeping doctors, patients and care-givers connected between visits with clinical information that is insightful, actionable, and engaging. Dr. Shlain was appointed commissioner by the Mayor to the SF Health Service System Board and sits on the Board of Hope Street Group, a bi-partisan Washington, DC policy think tank. He was named one of the top healthcare innovators by HealthSpottr. Jordan is a frequent speaker at various conferences; Health 2.0, RockHealth, Economist Big Ideas, Futuremed and UC Berkeley’s Pre-Med 101, and consults with the investor community as a due diligence expert.

Success Quotes:

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” - John Muir 

“The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.” - Voltaire

“It’s very difficult to find a black cat in a dark room, especially when there is no cat.” -  Ignorance: How it Drives Science by Stuart Firestein 

White Coat to Business Suit:

After finishing his training in 1997, Jordan joined a private practice in San Francisco with the promise of taking of the practice in a year. Jordan’s deal to take over the practice fell though at the end of the year. He decided to take a walk home that would change his direction as he made an unexpected stop at Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Listen as Dr. Shlain share this life altering experience as he learns the art of five star patient care from the hotel concierge and the story of how he accidentally started HealthLoop. 

Idea to Venture:

The Idea: How do you digitally enable a five star experience for patients while decreasing the burden of routine processes in a doctors office? Listen to the big vision of Healthloop to improve the patient experience and unburden the doctor from the mundane.

Failures: Started with a spreadsheet, a single question, and daily patient phone for real-time tracking. Jordan decided to scale this initial experiment and design a software product that would proactively and asynchronously reach out to his patients.

Success: HealthLoop honors the physicians life and respects the patient’s journey through their illness. It provides a voice to happy patients and benchmarks physician performance. 

Lesson Learned: How do you know what is happening with your patients now? Predictive analytics and claims based big data fail to tell you what is happening. The big opportunity for intervention is the present. 

Business Rounds:

Best Advice: Take some time off and go see the world.

Daily Success Habits: In the morning, Jordan learns two new things that he will keep forever. At the end of each day, he spends five minutes reflecting on his day and what he failed at.

Healthcare Trends:

Healthcare is moving from a world of interventions to a world of advocacy. It won’t just be about what is the matter with you, but what matters to you. Below are some highlights.

Access: Large focus has been on healthcare access with the creation of telemedicine, minute clinics, and video visits.

Genetics/Personalized Medicine: We are far away from applying this in meaningful way. Exciting opportunities exist with genetic markers and drug therapy.

Medical Board Certification/Medical Training: Technology will change medical school training and process for board certification.

Artificial Intelligence/Algorithms: Humans can’t scale and algorithms can have empathy. There will always be a role for the healing arts.

Links:

Dr. Ron Greeno, a pioneer of the hospitalist medicine, shares his entrepreneurial journey and his big vision for healthcare.

The ModernMD: Dr. Ron Greeno

Dr. Ron Greeno, MD, MHM, is the Chief Strategy Officer for IPC Healthcare. Dr Greeno was the Founder of Cogent Healthcare and served as Executive VP for Strategy and Innovation. Dr. Greeno is the co-creator of the Greeno-Hawley Hospital Medicine Index, the industry standard for evaluation of Hospital Medicine programs. Ron is a pioneer in Hospital Medicine and served as founding member of the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM). He was awarded a Master in Hospital Medicine by SHM. Three times Modern Healthcare has named Dr. Greeno to the “50 Most Influential Physician Executives" and was the first hospitalist physician ever to make this prestigious list.

Success Quote:

“And those that were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” - Friedrich Nietzche

White Coat to Business Suit:

Dr. Greeno was always interested healthcare transformation and recognized the early movement and shift of primary care physicians to hospital based physicians in capitation models before the term ‘hospitalist’ was coined. Ron never set out to be an entrepreneur, but with the exciting new hospitalist model he founded Cogent healthcare to scale and build a new model of healthcare.

Idea to Venture:

The Idea: Started Cogent Healthcare, a hospitalist medicine company.

Failures: You learn by doing and from your mistakes. You will learn more from a bad meeting than a good meeting. Listen as Ron share’s his first meeting with a venture capitalist!

Success: The key to success is forward motion. Continue to move forward, take risks, and be creative.

Lesson Learned: Ron shares two important lessons.

1) Make Decisions: Make decisions even if you don’t have the answer. The only really bad decision is one you don’t make. 

Learn to Trust Yourself: If you want to be as successful physician entrepreneur you must learn to trust yourself and have an insider’s knowledge and an outsider’s perspective. 

Business Rounds:

Best Advice: Credibility is the currency of leadership - Tell the truth, tell it all, tell it often, and tell it yourself.

Daily Success Habit: Take care of your health and exercise daily. Keep running!

Healthcare Trends: Listen as Ron shares is vision for healthcare as we shift from fee-for-service to the population health with integrated delivery systems and alternative payment models and the big opportunities for physicians. 

Links:

http://www.hospitalist.com/

http://www.hospitalmedicine.org/

Dr. Trishan Panch shares his entrepreneurial journey and vision for building healthcare technology that matters.

The ModernMD: Dr. Trishan Panch

Dr. Trishan Panch, MD, MPH, is the Co-founder and Chief Medical Officer at Wellframe, a healthcare technology company comprised of engineers, clinicians, and data scientist dedicated to reorganizing healthcare resources around the needs of patients. Dr. Panch is a primary care physician and Harvard trained health systems expert. He was an MIT lecturer in health sciences and technology and the inaugural recipient of Harvard’s Public Health Innovator of the Year award in 2012. Previously he served as Clinical Director of Sana Mobile at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

Success Quotes:

“If you are not feeling like you are at the edge of your ‘license’ you are not trying hard enough.” - Dr. Trishan Panch

“Starting a company is easy, but building a business is really hard.” - Wellframe Investor

White Coat to Business Suit:

Where are all the patients coming from? How can we organize our healthcare resources more efficiently? To answer these big questions, Trishan went from practicing primary care in Britain to studying Health Policy and Management at Harvard. Listen as Trishan describes his transition from academic clinical medicine to building Sana Mobile with a student group at MIT, and his big vision to use information systems to better manage patients with chronic diseases at Wellframe. 

How can physicians add value in the entrepreneurial space?

Physicians can add unique value with their detailed context and understanding of clinical systems, help build and develop detailed specifications for technology products, and drive clinical implementation of new technical solutions.

Idea to Venture:

The Idea: How can you organize care around each patient’s needs using mobile technology? How can you provide patient’s with daily feedback, enhance communication, and drive meaning? Listen as Trishan shares Wellframe’s big vision for the future.

Failures: In healthcare, the person with the problem is generally not the one with the ability to solve it. Dr. Panch shares Wellframe pivot from it’s initial product in the consumer health space to its focus on the cardiac rehabilitation space and then the expansion to all chronic diseases.

Success: Build quickly and learn from your all successes and failures.

Lesson Learned: Don’t just have big ideas, but also have little ideas. All the little ideas add up into a big change. It is critically important to have both going on at the same time.

Business Rounds:

Best Advise: “Stay humble and stay persistent.” - Jacob Sattelmair, CEO of Wellframe

Daily Success Habit: Regular physical exercise to help improve focus and mental health.

Healthcare Trends: Listen as Dr. Panch brilliantly discusses three major trends in healthcare.

Process Science/Standardization - How do we improve process design and allow for massive customization?

Reengineering of the Incentives system - How are new payment models and incentive driving change?

Technology and Mobile Devices - What is the impact of cheaper device costs and increasing wireless access?

Links:

http://www.wellframe.com/

http://sana.mit.edu/

Dr. Maulik Majmudar shares his journey from academic cardiology to the entrepreneurial world and his vision of changing personal heart health and academic innovation.

The ModernMD: Dr. Maulik Majmudar

Dr. Maulik Majmudar, M.D. is an Associate Director of the MGH Healthcare Transformation Lab, a clinical cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, and an Instructor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Majmudar is a founding member of Quanttus and currently serves as their Chief Clinical Officer. He is an active member of the healthcare innovation and entrepreneurship community, and is a Clinical Advisor to AliveCor and Medical Advisor to Prevently. 

Success Quote:

“Life is too short to let fear make big decisions for you” - Unknown 

White Coat to Business Suit:

Completed the traditional medical track and during his postdoctorate in Cardiovascular medicine, he became interested in the changing healthcare economy. Listen as Maulik discusses his career pivot from academic cardiology and basic sciences to spending 85% of his time in healthcare innovation and entrepreneurship.

Idea to Venture:

The Idea: Can we fundamentally transform how people think about their personal health? Can we for the very first time continuously measure physiology and can we learn something about the individual and how that individual fits into the population? Listen as Maulik shares the story of Quanttus’s big vision to solve heart health.

The Idea (BONUS): How do you innovate in academic medical centers? Listen as Maulik shares the story of Co.Create, an academic incubator at Massachusetts General Hospital, and its vision to support collaboration among entrepreneurs and the healthcare community to build scalable and sustainable ventures. 

Failures: The probability of success is very low with 95% of ventures not making it to the finish line. You can’t be a part time entrepreneur and think you will have full time success.

Success: How do you drive adoption? You must understand all the different pieces that govern your success and failure. Effective navigation and understanding of the healthcare ecosystem will reduce your market adoption risk.

Business Rounds:

Best advice: Advise from Bill Aulet, Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, “You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take” - Wayne Gretzky.

Success Habit: Keep your mind open and read things outside of your domain to make important connections.

Healthcare Trends: Listen as Maulik shares his thoughts on exciting trends.

Next generation of mobile, digital, and wearable technologies that address a specific healthcare need.

Digital healthcare transition from consumer and wellness to a focus on clinical and disease based care.

Increase in companies seeking FDA clearance.

Big Data with a focus on big knowledge and big insights.

Links:

http://quanttus.com/

http://healthcaretransformation.org

Dr. Garry Choy shares his dream to impact healthcare and help healthcare solve problems.

The ModernMD: Dr. Garry Choy

Dr. Garry Choy, MD, MBA is the Co-founder of CredSimple, a platform that digitizes and automates the currently labor-intensive and manual processes of medical credentialing. Garry is the Assistant Chief Medical Information Officer for Advanced Technologies at Massachusetts General Physicians Organization at MGH. His clinical interests are focused on cardiothoracic, abdominal, and emergency imaging.  Garry is an active faculty member teaching at Harvard Medical School and Harvard College.

Success Quote:

“Keep things simple” - Garry Choy

White Coat to Business Suit:

Radiologist by night and business school by day. Garry Co-founded CredSimple during business school and recruited key founding team members to build the venture.

Idea to Venture:

The Idea: Make medical credentialing simple.

Success: Listened to our customers and allocated resources in a smart way.

Lesson Learned: Work hard and keep focused on a goal. CredSimple has been successful by distilling the most important features a customer wants and using technology to keep medical credentialing simple.

Business Rounds:

Best advise: Spend time making sure you are connected to the people that are most important to you in your personal life - Advise from Top Fortune 500 CEO. 

Success Habit: Daily cup of coffee and plan/prioritize top three things that must get completed before bed.

Healthcare Trends: Population health management - How can we make sure are patients stay health?  How do we take care of more than one patient in an efficient manner? Listen as Garry shares more exciting trends.

Links:

http://credsimple.com/

@garrychoy

Dr. Sandeep Pulim shares his journey learning, creating, and building healthcare technology.

The ModernMD: Dr. Sandeep Pulim

Dr. Sandeep Pulim, MD is the Chief Medical Information Officer at @PointofCare, and Venture Partner of LiftOff Health. Previously, Sandeep Co-founded Health Recovery Solutions, which created a unique mobile platform to engage patients and their families and connect them with providers in hospitals to reduce readmissions. Sandeep is an advisor at the Blueprint Health accelerator. He previously served as Senior Medical Editor at MDLinx, an award-winning, medical information tool that aggregated information from 1,200 medical journal sources to keep healthcare professionals up to date.

Success Quote:

“Learn something new everyday” – Sandeep Pulim

White Coat to Business Suit:

After graduating with his MD, Sandeep took a break from the traditional pathway to focus on important family matters and started a digital media company. Sandeep wanted to use his clinical background in a more meaningful way and worked with Stephen Smith, co-founder of Medscape, at MDLinx to build their clinical content, editorial team, and user base.  Below are some highlights:

What are the key skills for a physician entrepreneur?

Everyone has different talents. To be a successful physician entrepreneur, you must learn new skills and figure out your strengths.

Idea to Venture:

The Idea: How can mobile tools be used to manage obesity? Created a program that would send a series of daily health challenges to patients that would build and escalate to keep patients engaged. 

Failures: Hackatons are a great way to validate an idea, but are not enough to confirm if you have a real business. Sandeep missed the enrollment deadline for for Blueprint Health 2nd class and did get an opportunity to build the company.

Success: Joined Blueprint Health as an advisor and met Health Recovery Solutions team.

Business Rounds:

Best advise: Make sure you are always doing the right thing when no one else is around.   

Healthcare trends: Many opportunities are being driven by the Accountable Care Act and the Triple Aim - Better quality, lower cost and better access. Listen as Sandeep breaks down the large healthcare trends which include payment models, delivery, preventive health, data, and mobile.

Links:

http://atpointofcare.com/

http://betweenthecharts.com/

http://liftoffhealth.com/

http://www.blueprinthealth.org/

Dr. Nguyen shares his journey as he reshapes healthcare with technology, global clinical services, and informatics.

The ModernMD: Dr. Anthony Nguyen

Dr. Anthony Nguyen, MD, MBA is the Chief Medical Officer of Cognizant, and sets the company’s clinical direction for the Healthcare Business Process Services (BPS) Practice. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President and Medical Director for WellPoint, and was responsible for all aspects of care delivery 34 million members. Anthony was a partner physician for Kaiser Permanente and served as Vice President of the Medical Staff, Orange County, CA. His accomplishments in the healthcare industry have lead to his recognition as Dorland Health’s 2010 Medical Director of the Year. He is also a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and is board certified in Internal Medicine.

Success Quote:

“Go to work each day not being afraid to get fired” – Anthony Nguyen

White Coat to Business Suit:

Dr. Nguyen started his career as internist and realized that there was an entire ecosystem supporting care. Anthony decided to get his MBA with the vision of improving healthcare system and helping physicians practice better care. Listen as Anthony shares the importance of physicians taking action, making an impact, and leading in a practical way.

Idea to Venture:

The Idea: How do we improve our world today? He shares his work at Cognizant with healthcare coaches and personalized care plans.

Lesson Learned: With the changing healthcare landscape, it takes a team to manage and support patients.

Business Rounds:

Daily success routine: Wakes up at 4 am, drinks coffee, and watches news. Anthony then goes surfing and watches the sunrise!!!

Best Advise: How do you decommoditize yourself? How are you different from the newly minted board certified physician? It is important to create and bring additional value.

Healthcare Trends: Listen as Anthony discusses three trends.

1) Alternative payment models are creating incentives for physicians to work as a team and be accountable for outcomes.

2) Cost of drugs – How can we afford and who should get them?

3) How do we leverage technology? How do we infuse wearable technology into the clinical work?

Digital tools or resources: He shares his exciting vision for the use of Artificial Intelligence with social preference data to enable physician to make better-personalized patient decisions.

Links:

http://www.cognizant.com/healthcare