June 20, 2024
Symposium: 3-6pm
Social Hour: 6-7pm
Location
Courtyard Mariott University Heights
The Heights Rooftop Ballroom & Patio
Iowa City, IA
About the Symposium:
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the healthcare industry, with AI-powered medical innovations playing an increasingly important role in diagnosis, treatment, and patient care. However, with this innovation comes a new set of regulatory hurdles. Join the University of Iowa Office of Innovation for the AI in Healthcare Symposium, where industry pioneers and national policy experts will delve into the challenges and opportunities presented by starting and scaling AI-powered healthcare startups.
Industry Experts
John Bertrand
Co-Founder and CEO of Digital Diagnostics
John Bertrand is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Digital Diagnostics, a pioneering AI diagnostics company on a mission to transform the accessibility, affordability, equity, and quality of healthcare. During his 12-year career with Epic, he led cross-functional teams in a variety of product, customer success, and business development roles with a focus on commercial growth and expansion. Most recently Bertrand served as Executive in Residence at 8VC, a leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm focused on healthcare technology. His time in this space focused on the application of artificial intelligence and computer vision in healthcare. Through his 20 years in the healthcare technology industry, he has developed expertise in identifying market opportunities, creating new products, pivoting existing businesses, and building strong teams. During his time at Digital Diagnostics, he strives to benefit patients by transforming the accessibility, affordability, equity, and quality of global healthcare through the application of technology in the medical diagnosis and treatment process. By leading his team to further healthcare tech advancement, Bertrand has been able to put life changing medical technology in healthcare facilities around the world.
Dr. Susan Wood
CEO of VIDA Diagnostics, Inc.
Susan A. Wood, PhD President and CEO Dr. Wood has 25 years’ experience championing innovative clinical solutions into routine clinical use. Dr. Wood was recognized as one of the top 50 CEOs by Healthcare Technology Report; she also received the Joe Rosenfeld Award for outstanding leadership. VIDA Diagnostics Inc. (VIDA), led by Dr. Wood since 2009, was named one of “15 Companies That Are Saving the World From Covid-19” by Forbes and “AI for Lung Care Company of the Year” by Frost and Sullivan. Prior to VIDA, she held executive positions at Vital Images, Inc. (now Canon) and R2 Technology (now Hologic). Dr. Wood has been issued multiple patents in the field of artificial intelligence and quantitative imaging; authored numerous peer-reviewed papers and abstracts. In addition to serving as CEO of VIDA, Dr. Wood is currently a board member for iCAD (NASDAQ: ICAD), serves on the Board of Governors at the University of Maryland, and is past Chair of the Board of Visitors of the Graduate School at Duke University. Dr. Wood received her Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, School of Hygiene and Public Health. Her Ph.D. work combined quantifying three-dimensional lung structure with changes in lung function using high-resolution CT imaging. She also holds a Master of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University, and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Alec Whitters
CEO of Higher Learning Technologies
Alec Whitters - In 2012, Alec was a 3rd-year grad student at The University of Iowa's College of Dentistry when he became frustrated that he could not use his smartphone to study. Fast forward five years and he has built a global mobile learning platform used by over 10 million students. HLT has raised over $15M in investment capital and now has 45 employees. Alec was also recently recognized as a winner of "Forbes 30 under 30."
Tom DeLay
Chief Business Officer, RespondHealth and CEO, Healthspottr Capital
Tom is Chief Executive Officer of Healthspottr Capital and Chief Operating Officer of Healthspottr LLC. For more than 25 years, Tom has leveraged his legal and banking background to support the growth and commercial success of innovative and established firms in the tech, financial services and healthcare industries.
Early in his career, Tom served as General Counsel and head of exotic debt (pre-Brady debt) for New Capital Markets, a DC-based hedge fund focused on privatization in Russia and Eastern Europe. He later helped launch the family office business for Wells Fargo and served as Senior Vice President at U.S. Trust, where he managed a $2.5 billion portfolio for several ultra-high net worth families in the Bay Area.
In tech, Tom held senior business development roles at startups including Bang Networks and BeNotified Software. He entered healthcare by co-founding iHealth Analytics, a comparative analytics and resource utilization platform that sought to bring the same state-of-the art operating efficiencies long-used in finance to healthcare providers and payers for the first time.
Tom joined Healthspottr as COO in 2013 and most recently launched Healthspottr Capital, which provides capital raising and M&A services to large and small firms. Tom is a senior advisor to several companies including Axenic Health Solutions, which offers a novel, long-lasting sanitizing and disinfecting solutions for retail and healthcare settings, Care Angel, an AI-based nurse assistance provider, AIMO, a German startup leveraging motion analysis and AI to detect injury, pain and anxiety, and RespondHealth.
Tom earned his B.A from University of Iowa and a J.D. from Kansas University School of Law with a focus on international law and the impact on contracting in the oil and gas industry in Russia and Eastern Europe.
Angela Adams, RN
CEO inflo Health
Angela Adams is a nurse and CEO for a healthcare technology company Inflo Health. Angela started her career at Duke University Medical Center in cardiothoracic/transplant ICU and CCU. Her passion became improving care while decreasing staff mental workload. Her career continued into medical device where Angela began quality programs for educating clinicians on appropriate medical device selection and usage for ICU patients to prevent infection. During her time in medical device, Angela was a member of the critical care mergers and acquisitions team responsible for reviewing new technologies and devices. Her first intro into the world of healthcare AI came while reviewing a technology company focused on predicting negative outcomes early enough to prevent the outcome from occurring. Angela was part of the early start-up team of Jvion, an AI for healthcare company focused on combining SDOH purchased data with EHR clinical data to predict over 50+ different outcomes. With a successful exit in 2021, Angela was passionate about tackling another patient safety issue around missed radiology follow-ups leading to poor outcomes. Inflo Health developed an LLM and NLP focused identification system for tracking all radiology follow-ups combined with powerful care orchestration automation to ensure no patient falls through the cracks of our health systems.
Policy Experts
Dr. Vicki Seyfert-Margolis
CEO + Founder, RespondHealth and Former Senior Advisor for Science Innovation + Policy, FDA
Dr. Seyfert-Margolis founded RespondHealth (previously known as My Own Med, Inc.) to disrupt incumbent methods of clinical trialing, new product trialing and patient registry development - all in service of her aim to deliver better health outcomes to those afflicted with disease, both in care settings and out in the real world, where patients live their best lives. Prior to RespondHealth, Vicki served in the Obama Administration as Senior Advisor for Science Innovation and Policy in the Office of the Commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, where she oversaw the development and execution of an agencywide strategic plan for regulatory science. In this capacity, Vicki worked with academic and industry leaders on myriad science, regulatory and policy initiatives, encompassing mobile technologies, innovation in drug development, and companion diagnostics. Previously, Vicki served as Chief Scientific Officer at the Immune Tolerance Network (ITN), a non-profit consortium of researchers seeking new treatments for diseases of the immune system, where she guided more than 20 leading-edge assay development and centralized laboratory facilities to GLP and CLIA compliance. Vicki also previously served as Director of the Office of Innovative Scientific Research Technologies at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases within the National Institutes of Health, where she focused on integrating emerging technologies with NIH’s existing immunology and infectious disease programs. Over her career, Vicki has designed and implemented more than 35 innovative Phase II and registration clinical trials. She is the author of 31+ academic white papers and peerreviewed research papers, and she is a frequent keynote speaker on the topics of regulatory and drug discovery trends and the transformative impacts of digital technology on healthcare. Vicki completed her PhD in immunology at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine, and her post-doctoral fellowship work at Harvard University and the National Cancer Institute. Vicki serves as a Board Director for the EveryLife Foundation for Rare Diseases, and the Eureka Institute for Translational Medicine.
Dr. Michael D. Abramoff
Founder and Executive Chairman, Digital Diagnostics and Member of the National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee
Michael D. Abramoff, MD, PhD, is a fellowship-trained retina specialist, computer scientist and entrepreneur. Dr. Abramoff, (Gold Fellow, ARVO and Fellow, IEEE) is the Robert C. Watzke, Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Iowa, with a joint appointment in the College of Engineering. Dr. Abramoff is also Founder and Executive Chairman of Digital Diagnostics, the autonomous AI diagnostics company that was the first in any field of medicine to get FDA clearance for an autonomous AI, where the AI makes a medical decision without human oversight, and which, in primary care, can instantaneously diagnose diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema at the point of care. Dr. Abramoff developed an ethical foundation for autonomous AI that was used during the design, validation, of AI and regulatory and reimbursement pathways for autonomous AI. The results of randomized controlled trials show that the autonomous AI increases clinician productivity, lowers cost, and improves health equity, patient outcomes, and care access. Finally, he is founder of the Healthcare AI coalition, representing many healthcare AI companies, and a founding member and treasurer of FDA’s Collaborative Community on Ophthalmic Imaging. As the author of over 400 peer-reviewed publications in this field, he has been cited over 50,000 times (h-index 82) and is the inventor on 25 issued patents and many patent applications. Dr. Abramoff has mentored dozens of engineering graduate students, ophthalmology residents, and retina fellows. His passion is to use autonomous AI to improve the productivity and accessibility of healthcare.
Blake Thelander
As a Health Policy Advisor for Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks, M.D., Blake manages a diverse policy portfolio which includes the Energy and Commerce Committee, Healthcare, and Veteran's Healthcare. He has over four years of Hill experience and have developed comprehensive skills in policy research, writing, communication, and constituent services.
Blake conducts policy analysis, draft bills and amendments, prepare memos and talking points, and liaise with stakeholders and colleagues on various health-related issues.
Dr. Michael Main
CEO, Saint Luke’s Physician Group and Chief Clinical Officer, BJC Health System. American Society of Echocardiography advisor to the American Medical Association (AMA) Specialty Society Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC) and the AMA Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) Editorial Panel.
Dr. Michael Main serves as Chief Executive Officer of Saint Luke’s Physician Group and as Chief Clinical Officer for BJC Health System (West Region). He is a practicing cardiologist at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute, with clinical interests including valvular heart disease and echocardiography. A professor of medicine at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, he is the author or co-author of more than 100 peer reviewed publications in medical journals.
He received his medical degree from the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in cardiovascular diseases at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, followed by an advanced cardiac imaging fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. In addition to his medical training, he completed a Master of Business Administration (MBA), a Master of Science (MS) in Healthcare Leadership and Management, and graduate certification in Health Informatics Leadership, all at the Naveen Jindal School of Management at the University of Texas at Dallas.
He formerly served as medical director of the echocardiography laboratory at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute, as chair of the Saint Luke’s Physician Group Cardiovascular Division, and as Co-Executive Medical Director of Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute.
Dr. Main is an active member of multiple professional societies including the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) with previous service including the ASE Board of Directors, chair of the Scientific Sessions Planning Committee, chair of the Advocacy Committee, and member of the editorial board of the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography. He served for ten years as the ASE advisor to the American Medical Association (AMA) Specialty Society Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC) and as the ASE advisor to the AMA Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) Editorial Panel. He has also served on the American College of Cardiology Board of Governors, the International Contrast Ultrasound Society Board of Directors, and the American Board of Internal Medicine Cardiovascular Board Cardiovascular Disease Exam Committee.