Daniel Cane is co-CEO and cofounder of South Florida-based ModMed®, a healthcare IT firm that’s remodeling healthcare by means of specialty-specific, clever platforms to extend observe effectivity and enhance affected person outcomes.
Based in February 2010, ModMed has grown to over 1,200 staff and has raised over $332 million in complete funding. Recognized for its progressive progress as a medical expertise firm, ModMed is steadily acknowledged each nationally and regionally for its achievements below Daniel’s management. In 2020, the corporate was named one of many Finest Workplaces within the Nation by Inc. journal. Between 2016 and 2018, the corporate was named one of many fastest-growing corporations in North America on the Deloitte Expertise Quick 500™ listing. Beginning in 2015, the corporate has been named yearly to the unique Inc. 5000 listing, a prestigious compilation of the fastest-growing non-public corporations within the nation.
Are you able to share some insights into your background and the way it has influenced your work at ModMed?
My journey into tech started throughout my undergraduate years at Cornell after I co-founded Blackboard. We remodeled schooling by digitizing class notes and making a platform that gave college students and college unprecedented flexibility and interplay. For me, Blackboard’s success culminated in 2004 with its IPO, and whereas our options had been game-changing in edTech, I couldn’t assist however preserve an eye fixed out for brand spanking new challenges.
One such problem introduced itself after I went for a routine checkup with my dermatologist. We had an unbelievable speak in regards to the struggles of utilizing outdated paper-based methods and methods to repair them. Realizing the bridge between his medical experience and my technical know-how, we determined to crew up and create ModMed together with our first digital well being document (EHR) platform.
On the time, some EHRs already existed, however sadly, research usually cited them as one of many main causes of doctor burnout. We took a special method and designed our EHR to adapt the consumer expertise to the precise workflows of a medical specialty. Our flagship cloud-based EHR, EMA, is and continues to be designed by medical doctors, for medical doctors, which has set us aside and defines our secret sauce available in the market. Over time, we’ve expanded our product choices to incorporate a full suite of options that assist medical suppliers simplify and streamline their observe operations and expedite the supply of care.
How do you see the battle for efficient AI in healthcare being gained or misplaced with knowledge?
We’re beginning to see an increase within the adoption of AI expertise inside practices to streamline workflows and maximize effectivity. As we transfer into an period of utilizing AI to do extra subtle duties – equivalent to suggesting therapy or different clinical-support suggestions – it’s paramount to have the correct knowledge and AI coaching technique in place. AI has the chance to considerably enhance the expertise for sufferers and suppliers and create systemic change that can really enhance healthcare, however making this a actuality will depend on giant quantities of high-quality knowledge used to coach the fashions.
Why is knowledge so important for AI growth within the healthcare business?
Information is the lifeblood of AI, and poor knowledge high quality will impair an AI’s efficiency, resulting in suboptimal outcomes. This will have dire penalties in a healthcare setting as affected person lives could also be at stake. However a extra possible state of affairs is that these unfavorable experiences may undermine each sufferers’ and suppliers’ belief in AI, slowing down progress and the constructive influence this revolutionary expertise can have on healthcare.
For instance, within the examination room, AI-enabled ambient listening instruments are designed to counsel content material for scientific notes for the supplier to assessment and approve. Ideally, this could cut back the period of time a supplier spends documenting throughout the EHR and permit for extra high quality time with the affected person. Nevertheless, poor knowledge sourcing and ill-trained AI instruments may have the alternative impact, leaving suppliers to as an alternative spend an inordinate period of time fixing errors and re-writing notes.
Moreover, bias is a big danger related to AI algorithms, and high quality knowledge can play a key function in mitigating healthcare disparities. AI fashions can be taught patterns that successfully deal with one affected person inhabitants preferentially in comparison with different populations, together with legally protected teams. By monitoring the info inputs and coaching on sturdy and consultant knowledge, AI outputs could be extra inclusive and correct.
Are you able to elaborate on the kinds of knowledge ModMed makes use of to coach its AI fashions and the way this knowledge is sourced and managed?
At ModMed, we use complete specialty-specific knowledge to assist prepare our AI fashions with precision. Over the past 14 years, we’ve created specialty-specific, de-identified structured knowledge units per privateness legal guidelines and at the moment are leveraging this in-house knowledge to coach our AI fashions. For instance, our ambient listening software ModMed Scribe has been educated for dermatology, our first specialty launch, on thousands and thousands of structured parameters from de-identified affected person information sampled from a set of 500 million affected person encounters.
How does ModMed outline “moral AI” within the context of healthcare?
The potential for AI to have biases or present inaccurate data within the type of “hallucinations” or omissions can influence affected person lives. Because of this, moral AI in healthcare is about setting a excessive normal for accuracy and precision. It means growing algorithms fastidiously and responsibly and utilizing high-quality and various knowledge to assist allow extra correct predictions for each consumer.
Moral AI can be about making certain that people stay within the equation. An AI mustn’t “out physician the physician” however as an alternative cut back the executive burden physicians and their workers expertise to allow them to focus extra on serving to sufferers.
What measures are in place at ModMed to permit AI applied sciences to be developed and deployed ethically?
Our structured knowledge method—curating high-quality, consultant coaching knowledge units—helps us make accountable AI a actuality. Related and de-identified knowledge collected from our EHR methods from all kinds of practices supplies us with a various set of coaching knowledge that displays totally different affected person populations.
Moreover, our growth crew embraces knowledge cleansing to facilitate amassing and using high-quality knowledge. This course of permits our groups to establish, rectify, and take away inconsistencies, errors, and lacking values from the info set. By way of this common upkeep, we will persistently replace the AI primarily based on efficiency knowledge, particularly scientific knowledge, the place affected person outcomes could be impacted.
Are you able to focus on the significance of transparency and accountability in AI growth, particularly in healthcare?
Transparency makes accountability doable, which is why it is such an important underpinning to any AI resolution in healthcare. Physicians’ prime priorities are affected person care and security, so it is no shock that 80% of physicians need to know the traits and options of the design, growth, and deployment of AI instruments.
Moreover, not all knowledge is created equal. It is essential to know the place and the way knowledge is saved and sourced and the way recurrently it’s up to date. We’re lucky that since ModMed’s inception, we have now been dedicated to an information technique that prioritizes transparency and accuracy. We’ve got a radical understanding of our knowledge’s sources and high quality and are assured that our AI integrations will ship appreciable worth to our purchasers.
How is AI being built-in into ModMed’s specialty-specific EHR methods like EMA and gGastro?
Throughout our portfolio, we have now been using machine studying for a while and strengthening our funding in superior and generative AI to simplify the enterprise of drugs and expedite high quality care. We’re constructing out a whole AI-powered observe expertise that begins earlier than a affected person walks within the door, extends by means of the examination room, all through to the billing division.
Within the scientific setting, we’re within the remaining levels of our AI ambient listening pilot program for EMA, which we imagine will probably be a game-changer for its downstream performance and urged structured content material. Our AI-powered documentation resolution is designed to streamline the care course of past simply transcription or drafting a SOAP observe. Using huge quantities of structured knowledge, we’re coaching our AI fashions to seize important data from doctor-patient conversations and, working alongside our EHR, to counsel related content material for go to notes, together with ICD-10 codes, surgical codes, and prescriptions. This protects physicians valuable time and permits them to spend extra high quality time with their sufferers.
What particular advantages do specialty-specific AI options present to healthcare suppliers and sufferers?
No two medical specialties are alike. They range broadly with the sufferers they see, the circumstances they deal with, and the medical codes used for reimbursements. AI options should be tailor-made to accommodate these variations to be efficient in any really significant approach.
For instance, ModMed’s EHRs and AI ambient listening instruments are tailor-made explicitly to every medical specialty, offering extremely related and exact assist to clinicians. Every specialty’s documentation course of requires totally different parts throughout the structured knowledge observe, together with distinctive medical codes and terminology. This specialization permits the AI to raised perceive and anticipate the distinctive wants and workflows of various specialty practices, which we imagine will lead to extra environment friendly implementation, sooner adoption, and higher total effectiveness in enhancing operational effectivity.
The place do you see probably the most important alternatives for AI in healthcare over the subsequent 5 to 10 years?
Sooner or later, AI will undoubtedly permeate practically each facet of healthcare in methods we will’t think about. Already, AI is being harnessed for administrative duties, and within the close to time period, this development will possible surge as AI’s worth turns into extra obvious.
I additionally see a future when AI is seamlessly built-in all through doctor-patient interactions, the place the ‘consumer interface’ or UI is nearly invisible. As a substitute of right this moment’s screen-based interactions, AI may supply a mix of actuality and augmented actuality. This future state AI may probably analyze well being information to establish important insights, predicting a affected person’s danger for numerous ailments. The huge quantity of information in medical information presents a possibility for AI to anticipate future care wants and create and assist handle preventive care therapy plans.
This expertise may lengthen past the observe setting and turn out to be integral to a affected person’s each day life. AI-powered wearables may present customized assist, reply questions, and schedule appointments amongst different issues. AI may additionally monitor important indicators remotely, detecting and alerting suppliers to potential well being points. Personalised therapy plans, tailor-made to particular person sufferers primarily based on knowledge and preferences, may turn out to be the norm.
That is really an thrilling time for healthcare. The subsequent 5 to 10 years are ripe with alternatives to additional rework the business and enhance the affected person expertise.
Thanks for the nice interview, readers who want to be taught extra ought to go to ModMed.
