When two people with common backgrounds come together, share ideas and dreams, that's usually when startups form. At least, that's what happened when Pelu Tran, Chief Product Officer at Augmedix, and Ian Shakil, Chief Executive Officer at Augmedix, met as students at Stanford.
"Ian was in the business school and I was in the medical school. We connected over a class project in a class called Biodesign," Tran told Tech Times.
Shakil and Tran both came from medical device backgrounds.
"Ian previously worked at Edwards and I developed and patented medical devices for minimally invasive surgery as an engineering undergraduate at Stanford," said Tran.
Wearing Google Glass Inspired Augmedix, A Live Transcription Service For Doctors
Shortly after, the two tried Google Glass and came up with the idea for Augmedix, a live transcription service that uses Google Glass. Shakil quit his job and then Tran stopped pursuing his MD degree with only four months left.
Other people in the industry were approaching Google Glass by creating business models that required breakthroughs in complex technologies, such as facial recognition or speech recognition in wearable technology.
That's why the two entrepreneurs decided to develop a simple solution for doctors that can be measured and used from day 1, which meant they needed a human as a scribe.
"We're confident that was the right path forward now that we are serving millions of patients per year on our platform and unlocking incredible additional value through automation and expanding our offerings," said Tran.
Challenges Of Building Augmedix
"Before Google Glass, the role of smartglass developer or smartglass designer didn't really exist. Similarly, our users didn't know how they wanted to interact with the technology or which features made sense to build," said Tran. "We had to work extensively with our early doctors to iterate on the smartglass form factor to create an intuitive and enjoyable user experience."
How Augmedix Works
Since then, the company has inspired hundreds of doctors within major Health Care providers to use Augmedix and changed the way doctors interact with their patients.
When health care professionals walk into the clinic, they will simply log into their glass and connect to their Augmedix scribe.
"We're with them for the entire day, and for every patient, they'll see we're completing their notes in real time so that by the end of the visit, the medical record is complete and the doctor can move on to the next patient," said Tran.
Building A Product Like Augmedix
"The most inspiring part of building a product that helps doctors and patients at the point of care is that our doctors are always thinking of new ways to use the service to improve the care they provide," said Tran.
The company has also been asked by doctors to assist with chronic care management, revenue cycle, and other administrative tasks, such as patient messages in the inbasket, and are now offering those services to providers.
Augmedix And Privacy
"Patient empowerment is an important part of the Augmedix patient experience, and we work with our clinics to ensure patients are educated at the front desk about what we do and why their doctor is using us," said Tran.
"From a privacy perspective, the only people interacting with the patient are the members of their care team. Our patient acceptance is at 97 percent nationwide, regardless of age, gender, or demographics, for those reasons," he said.
"Now that Augmedix is serving millions of patients every year, we've become a platform for the patient visit and are helping our doctors and patients with much more than scribing. Given our unique position embedded in the patient visit, we're working closely with our doctors and technology companies like Google to deploy machine learning and automation technologies to improve service quality, accelerate growth, and expand our service offerings," said Tran.
In the past few months, the company has deployed speech and natural language processing technologies that help make their scribes even more efficient, allowing them to take on more tasks that usually keep providers and the care team occupied.
