Tales from the Trenches with Frank Naeymi-Rad, Founder of Intelligent Medical Objects

Last month, Dr. Frank Naeymi-Rad, founder of Intelligent Medical Objects (IMO), joined us at MATTER to share the entrepreneurial story behind a revolutionary breakthrough in health IT.

Frank’s work has been monumental in helping to pioneer a standard approach to clinical language. His doctoral research became the foundation for some of the earliest electronic health record (EHR) systems — sold to Allscripts in 1990 and Glaxo in 1994 — and for IMO. Today, IMO provides the EHR vocabulary for more than 80% of healthcare delivery organizations.

Here are some key moments from the conversation.

In the beginning
“I came to the U.S. in 1969 [during] the Armstrong landing on the moon…I was very proud to be in this country at that time. Seeing that touched me a lot.

“I was born into a military family in Iran…My father wanted me to [stay there and] go to military school, but I really wanted to work in the U.S. and be an entrepreneur. I believed that you could really do anything in the U.S. — you could have your dream come true.

“I became interested in healthcare when I met my wife…She had just lost her brother to leukemia and she was an art major but wanted to be a doctor. I was just so impressed. Everything changed for me when I met her. We’ve been together since.”

“I became interested in healthcare when I met my wife…She had just lost her brother to leukemia and she was an art major but wanted to be a doctor. I was just so impressed. Everything changed for me when I met her. We’ve been together since.”

The case for standard clinical terminology
“When I was [studying] at the Chicago Medical School, I taught four courses. What I learned is that from the second year when the students go from basic science to clinical science, there’s a massive change depending on what specialty [the students] want. That even changes their vocabularies and how they talk: [when faced with] the same problem, they’d describe it differently.”

Making IMO profitable
“We were passionate about what we were doing. We were the best at it in the country. But what we didn’t look at was how to make money. Many of our angel investors [told us] that we really needed to focus on that.

“2004 really started this movement. I focused on bringing investors in with the focus of creating recurring revenue…With every [product] release, we’d create an operational team, a tactical team and a strategic team. When you’re a small company, you have to be very careful and [understand] what it means if there’s an operational problem — if something was going on on the front lines, the person running the operational team became the CEO. That model actually worked for us. We tripled our recurring revenue.”

“Focus on cash discipline and financial discipline. The funding will come as you project appropriately.”

Advice to entrepreneurs for financing early growth
“When you look at our portfolio, we have over 12 patents. [But] the question goes back to: What will it take to get you to that cash-positive model? Chart it out: Until you get to cash positive, you’re at risk, and that’s really a huge issue. Focus on cash discipline and financial discipline. The funding will come as you project appropriately.”

Working with private equity
“Working for your own company and working for private equity is not easy. The demand and expectations are there. They do not allow you to make a mistake. But when you get the right private equity [firm] and the right management team, it’s just the best feeling.”

The state of EHRs today
“[EHRs] are coming alive in the way that they’re becoming more concerned about outcomes. When you start [transitioning] from fee-for-service to value-based care, it’s clear that the transparency is there, and they’re realizing the importance of it.

“I think the challenge right now is actually the users, rather than the EHRs. They are very advanced in many aspects… the biggest problem that [EHRs] have is needing to make sure the user community is prepared for some of the changes that are coming — they’re coming very fast.

“The biggest gap is education. How can we allow the care providers — including the patient — to learn about how to use these tools?”

Explaining new and emerging technologies
“It’s still hard sometimes for me to explain this stuff. Having a good marketing team is important…[Also] understanding the problem you’re trying to solve and making it as easy to understand as possible. Changing the naming conventions within our organization has been majorly successful in increasing client understanding. Naming a product [in a way] that resonates with your customers is a key issue.”

How to make healthcare data more actionable
“The biggest risk is knowing who, when and why. Who is the person who collected the data? When was it collected and at what phase of the care? Was it the diagnostic phase of the care or the management phase of the care? Is there an admission or a discharge? Third, why was it collected? Many machine learning technologies are not focused on separating these data types.”

“My interns became my early developers and my early partners. Many of them, even to this day, are some of the geniuses behind IMO.”

Hiring teams
“My interns became my early developers and my early partners. Many of them, even to this day, are some of the geniuses behind IMO.”

“I have to say that internships are everything for me…I use the internships to select the right talent — talent with passion, talent who believes in what they’re doing — and then take that internship to employment.

“About eight years ago when I saw [the introduction of] meaningful use and the Affordable Care Act, I knew that was the golden goose for us. The problem [we were solving] was at the center of all those changes. I went ahead and opened an office right in the middle of the University of Illinois with the objective to bring in interns.”

Building a sustainable culture
“What is your mission in life? When you look at the mission of the people at the top of IMO, they want to give back, they want to make life easier for physicians, they want to facilitate better care for the patients…and that audacious goal of being an influencer in the movement has kept the IMO team together — not only our team but [also] our clients. They know what we do has a purpose.”

“I truly want to give back to Illinois. It has brought me the opportunity to innovate in ways that I didn’t know were possible — from working at Kroger to running a company is just amazing.”

The next chapter of IMO
“I truly want to give back to Illinois. It has brought me the opportunity to innovate in ways that I didn’t know were possible — from working at Kroger to running a company is just amazing.”

“The [challenge] I’m looking at now is: How can I learn from what I’ve done and drive innovation? So I’m creating a new initiative to bring academic innovations to Illinois in a way that [will allow] us to give back to the people of Illinois.

“When you say innovation in informatics, you are talking about something humongous…you are now talking about actionable workflow, data analytics…a lot of things going on there. I thought that what I could do is create the funding and the environment for innovators [in that space] to test their stuff, and that’s what we’re trying to do right now.”

On keeping the vision
“We are in the most fascinating growth space: that’s the intersection of biological science and technology. I tell you, there is so much happening, there’s so much opportunity that we can bring to the market in a way that will transform healthcare as we know it.”

Want to hear from more healthcare innovators like Frank? Join us for our next Tales from the Trenches™ with Sean Nolan, on June 25.