South Florida Tech HubSouth Florida Tech Hub
18
Apr, 2024

By Nikki Cabus

ModMed & Medtronic Collaborate to Drive Efficiencies in Documenting Colonoscopies Using Artificial Intelligence

Read Time 3 Minutes

Practice technology leader and EHR pioneer ModMed® announced that it will collaborate with Medtronic, the world’s largest medtech company, to enhance the documentation of polyp detection by utilizing the AI capabilities of the GI Genius system sold by Medtronic.

Boca Raton -based ModMed empowers medical practices to grow and scale by delivering better patient experiences with cloud, data, and AI technologies. Leveraging extensive clinical outcomes data, the company designs intelligent software solutions that simplify, automate and streamline clinical workflows and drive practice efficiency. With specialty-specific EHRs, practice management, revenue cycle management and analytics solutions as well as products for patient engagement, payment processing and marketing, ModMed is trusted by over 35,000 providers to drive clinical and operational success.

“ModMed’s mission is to place doctors and patients at the center of care through an intelligent, specialty-specific cloud platform,” said Sam Cicogna, General Manager of Gastroenterology, ENT & Allergy at ModMed.

“Our goal is to ensure that physicians have more time to focus on patients by building efficiency into the documentation process. Providing integration with GI Genius is an essential step towards achieving that goal.”

Medtronic has publicly stated a goal of supporting gastroenterologists in detecting lesions in the colon that could lead to one of the deadliest and most preventable forms of cancer. ModMed supports this goal and believes that additional efficiency can be built into the colonoscopy process.

The GI Genius system enables AI-assisted colonoscopies, which have been shown to achieve a 50% reduction in missed colorectal polyps over a standard colonoscopy. The companies intend to interface data from GI Genius into ModMed’s gGastro platform with the expectation of reducing manual effort in documenting procedural metrics captured during the colonoscopy process.

“Through our collaboration with ModMed, we can continue to help gastroenterologists achieve greater efficiency by streamlining workflows and leveraging augmented decision-making, freeing up valuable time for patient care,” said Raj Thomas, Endoscopy President at Medtronic. “We are committed to working with industry leaders and focusing on where we can best offer innovation, addressing unmet clinical needs and elevating the standard of care.”

“We’ve been a customer of both Medtronic and ModMed for years, which has been beneficial to help address the sharp rise in demand of patients seeking colonoscopies since guidelines for screening for colon cancer changed,” said Dr. Michael Weinstein, Chief Executive Officer at Capital Digestive Care. “By having these two technologies work together, we will see significantly faster reporting and processing times, enabling us to see more patients.”

Dr. Jason Sugar, Gastroenterology Team Lead at ModMed, added: “This is a true game changer for physicians… it represents precisely how physicians want AI technologies implemented and it will allow us to focus our energy on thinking about the patient and providing the best care possible.”

For more information, visit ModMed Gastroenterology.

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22
May, 2023

By Nikki Cabus

Getting to know Boca Raton-based ModMed’s new CTO Venkatesh Jayaraman

Read Time 5 Minutes

Boca Raton-based practice technology leader ModMed® appointed Venkatesh Jayaraman (VJ) as the company’s Chief Technology Officer.

Jayaraman leads the strategic direction and technical leadership for the product engineering organization, including cloud operations.

With over 25 years of technology and software development experience, Jayaraman brings an extensive record of success in technical leadership, cross-functional product development and software architecture. He has a proven record of building business agility using Lean-Agile practices while managing large-scale enterprise organizations across multiple geographies.

ModMed is transforming healthcare by placing doctors and patients at the center of care through an intelligent, specialty-specific cloud platform. With electronic health records (EHR) and practice management (PM) systems, and revenue cycle management (RCM) services, their all-in-one solution empowers specialty medical practices by providing clinical, financial, and operational software solutions. ModMed’s staff physicians help to develop products and services for allergy, dermatology, gastroenterology, OBGYN, ophthalmology, orthopedics, otolaryngology, pain management, plastic surgery, podiatry, and urology practices, as well as ambulatory surgery centers.

“VJ’s background and experience will deliver tremendous value to our organization, as he embodies ModMed’s cultural values around aligning passion with purpose,” said Daniel Cane, ModMed Cofounder and CEO. “We have welcomed him to our team as we work together to transform how healthcare information is created, consumed and utilized to increase practice efficiency and improve patient outcomes.”

Jayaraman most recently served on the executive leadership team at Vertex Inc., where he led the cloud/SaaS transformation of the product engineering organization, including cloud operations using agile methodology, modern DevOps and site reliability engineering principles. Prior to Vertex, he was in various leadership roles at Citrix Systems and Motorola, where he built and scaled agility across a globally distributed engineering team to achieve software engineering excellence. He holds a master’s degree in engineering management from the University of Florida and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from India’s National Institute of Technology.

 

GETTING TO KNOW VJ:

1. What are you looking forward to most in your new role with ModMed?
Using cutting edge technology to transform how healthcare information is created, consumed and utilized to increase practice efficiency and improve patient outcomes. Really looking forward to the opportunity to create simple workflow solutions for complex problems with valuable, meaningful impact. ModMed’s product portfolio does align passion with purpose where we can impact the lives of practice providers and patients in a big way by creating excellent software that delights them.

2. What do you love most about the healthtech industry?
The healthcare industry has always been full of untapped opportunities for technology innovation and workflow optimizations. COVID just exposed some of these opportunities in many ways. Healthcare is unique with respect to regulatory and interoperability demands. Coupled with the fact that healthcare software is only expected to benefit from the overall growth in US healthcare spend makes it a very exciting ground for making a positive impact.

3. What advice would you give to someone who wants to enter the healthtech industry?
Keep an open mind in terms of connecting their passion, skills, knowledge and experience for the various innovation opportunities that present using technologies like cloud, ML / AI, big data etc.

4. Any insight into what’s next for ModMed?
ModMed has had a phenomenal journey so far. From the initial momentum that we have gained, we are very well poised for creating our own flywheel effect to accelerate faster and faster, and gain even more momentum while building this organization for scale and growth. I am very excited by what’s to come and truly honored to be part of defining this journey.

5. From the 90s to now, what has been the biggest change you have seen in our local tech markets?
There have been quite a lot of changes in the local tech markets in the last 2-3 decades that have followed the industry trend largely. The tech industry itself has evolved from the PC computing, hardware & communications related innovations to more software based innovations with the advent of internet and cloud. Back in the 90s, we had quite a few tech companies like Siemens, IBM, Motorola etc. and they all have evolved with this changing landscape. With the advancements in cloud computing, even concepts as esoteric as Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence have become so accessible to the engineering community that they can be easily harnessed for the next generation of innovations. The core to this evolution is “business agility” and the companies that do that with the right talent and leadership thrive in the face of this changing landscape. Also, the promotion of STEM education in local schools and colleges has really propelled this pace of innovation and South Florida is on a path to excellence in making its mark in the tech industry.

6. All in on AI? What’s your thoughts on the future of generative AI in healthcare? 
Generative AI can be applied in various use cases to generate virtually any kind of content. The technology is becoming more accessible to users of all kinds thanks to cutting-edge generative AI interfaces like ChatGPT, Dall-E and Bard that can be tuned for different applications. With generative AI technology, doctors, hospitals, clinics and beyond may be able to streamline patient care and improve health outcomes with significant advantages like personalized healthcare for patients, predictive maintenance of medical devices and supporting administrative tasks to improve efficiency. Despite their promise, the new generative AI tools open a can of worms regarding accuracy, trustworthiness, bias, hallucination and plagiarism — ethical issues that likely will take years to sort out. None of the issues are particularly new to AI though. Just like any other technology, I am confident and cautiously optimistic that the generative AI would mature to bring the bigger benefits that we all aspire for.

7. No matter our role or level, we are always learning. What’s one thing – either industry-related or not – you learned in the last month?
I am a big believer of being a continuous learner while pivoting and adapting to changing landscape of needs. The mantra should be to plan the work and work the plan but be flexible and realistic to adapt for best outcomes. One of the books that I have been reading of late is Limitless by Jim Kwik. In this book, he overturns the conventional ideas of intelligence, achievement and perceived limitations with a compelling and practical handbook for change. It is based on the concept of all of us having boundless capabilities and what we make of them has everything to do with mindset and application.

8. Outside of work, do you play any sports or have any hobbies? What do you do for fun?
Yes, I play tennis, volleyball, chess etc. whenever time permits. Also, I like to read different books and spend time with my family. Love to explore and  experience the world through various travels to create a wholesome life!

9. What’s something about you (a fun fact) that not many people know?
I used to play cricket early on in my career and I received a trophy from the cricketing legend Clive Lloyd for my performance in the finals of a tournament that was played in the Central Broward Cricket Stadium in Lauderhill. Another fun fact is that I had to find a way to overcome acrophobia (thanks to the constant nudge from my daughter) to do ziplining with my family in Costa Rica recently.

 

Learn more about ModMed’s leadership team here. 

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06
Mar, 2023

By Riley Kaminer

Here’s to another 13 years of healthtech innovation for Modernizing Medicine

Read Time 3 Minutes

The US healthcare sector is rife with inefficiencies – from uneven care to overworked medical professionals to outdated digital systems. In a country that spends almost 20% of our GDP on healthcare, there remains a large opportunity to create better outcomes for patients and better working environments for providers.

For the last 13 years, Boca Raton-based Modernizing Medicine, now known as “ModMed.” has worked tirelessly to improve the tech tools that keep us healthy. They have developed a wide range of specialty-specific electronic health record (EHR) systems and solutions, practice management platforms, revenue cycle management software, and more.

And in an interview with South Florida Tech Hub, co-founder and CEO Daniel Cane said that this is just the beginning for the 3,400-person company.

“You can expect to see more growth, including coverage of more specialties throughout the US – and we will certainly become international,” Cane said of his plans for the company’s next 13 years. 

As for what accomplishment he is most proud of in Modernizing Medicine’s history thus far, Cane said that it was “creating an incredible culture and environment for all our team members.” Building a strong company culture creates lots of work and is a top down effort at ModMed, with Cane still personally meeting every new member of the team.

So is Cane ready for his next venture? Not quite yet. The entrepreneur, who previously co-founded EdTech giant Blackboard, said that he is still laser focused on tackling some of the many issues still plaguing the healthcare industry. “I’ve got a lot more work cut out for me, fixing healthcare and making sure that ModMed is incredibly successful.”

Of course, ModMed has already reached a level of success that most companies will never see. It has 3,400 employees around the world – 700 of whom are based in Modernizing Medicine’s headquarters at the Boca Raton Innovation Campus, IBM’s former R&D facility.

So what advice would Cane give to budding entrepreneurs?

“100% of big companies you see today started off as a small company, so remember to dream big.” Cane also admitted that he has had more failed companies than successful ones, and that is normal. “If you’re going to fail, fail fast. You can learn a lot from those failures.” He noted that while someone might be born an innovator, entrepreneurship – building, running, and scaling businesses – requires a specific set of skills that can be taught.

As ModMed has grown over the last 13 years, so has South Florida’s tech ecosystem, noted Cane. But he urged us to recall that South Florida has had a long tradition of innovation, not least of which includes IBM’s storied past in Boca.

“South Florida is on the map as a strong entrepreneurial hub,” he asserted. This is despite any turbulence caused, for example, by the decline of crypto.

“Our biggest challenge is our geography,” said Cane, noting that South Florida is very long but not very wide, and lacks a main downtown area. “South Florida Tech Hub is essential for bringing all of our amazing companies together.”

 

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ModMed & Medtronic Collaborate to Drive Efficiencies in Documenting Colonoscopies Using Artificial Intelligence
Getting to know Boca Raton-based ModMed’s new CTO Venkatesh Jayaraman
Here’s to another 13 years of healthtech innovation for Modernizing Medicine