New York, NY September 2023: HTD Health, a boutique consultancy focused on virtual care delivery, healthcare technology infrastructure, and advanced data engineering, has launched a new Artificial Intelligence Practice to meet the growing need for AI engineering rooted in deep healthcare domain knowledge.
The firm works with healthcare organizations across the sector to plan, design, and build software systems to improve patient engagement, clinical efficiency, care quality, and interoperability.
The new AI practice comes out of a growing call for more knowledgeable artificial intelligence and machine learning services tailored to the unique needs and safety considerations of the healthcare industry. CEO Zach Markin explains: “This year has brought a lot of excitement and buzz around the opportunity for AI to transform the way we live and work. However, we’ve also seen some of these AI tools and technologies falling short when applied to healthcare because of this sector’s unique needs related to data infrastructure, compliance, patient safety, and complex clinical workflows. Our goal is to support healthcare organizations with AI engineering rooted in deep domain expertise.”
The AI Practice will be led by Erkin Ötleş who brings over a decade of experience working in healthcare technology infrastructure and implementing artificial intelligence and machine learning within clinical settings. Ötleş began his career in engineering at Epic before pursuing his MD/PhD at University of Michigan where he developed machine learning models for risk stratification that support treatment of cancer, in-hospital deterioration, occupational injuries, and medical trainee evaluation. He has published 20 papers on healthcare IT and machine learning, leveraging data from electronic health records, insurance claims, and natural language.
“I’ve seen firsthand how complicated it can be to implement machine learning models within US hospitals,” explains Ötleş. “Unlike the tech sector, healthcare lacks some of the technical and people infrastructure to make AI efforts successful. Artificial intelligence in a clinical setting requires a thoughtful, human-centered approach contextualized by deep knowledge of healthcare data sources and software systems. I’m really excited to work with the HTD Health team to move the needle on smarter, safer application of AI and ML in the healthcare sector.”