Physician burnout is one of the most critical public health issues we face. A few years ago, I knew I wanted to start a company in healthcare. I wanted to do something where I could go home every day and feel like I was adding value to society. I spent several months studying our healthcare system and shadowing doctors, and it became very obvious that doctors carry a huge administrative burden. They have to work with poorly designed technology, try to meet extensive documentation requirements and sacrifice time with patients, as well as personal time, to do so. Physicians spend two hours on administrative tasks for every hour of patient care. I felt that technology had evolved to a place where it could really help alleviate the documentation burden placed on physicians. So Suki was born.
Suki’s mission is to bring joy back to medicine. We want doctors to be able to focus on what they love, which is taking care of patients. We are working to reimagine the healthcare stack into one that is assistive yet invisible, omnipresent yet unobtrusive, all in the service of the doctor. Suki is a voice-enabled digital assistant that uses AI, machine learning, and natural language processing to help doctors complete their clinical notes faster. Our time motion studies show that doctors who use Suki complete their notes an average of 76% faster. Suki understands context and intent and learns each doctor’s preferences to create a 100% accurate note each time. Suki uses machine learning to get smarter, and with time, will become sophisticated enough to create notes, order prescriptions or labs, and pull up relevant patient information from simply listening to the conversation between the patient and the physician. That is when we will truly have an assistive yet invisible solution.
We often hear from our users how they’ve been able to spend more time with their patients, their families, or on their hobbies because they are no longer spending nights and weekends completing their notes. I’m gratified and proud of these results and credit them to the fact that we’ve built a truly diverse team, one that includes people with great technology chops as well as physicians who really understand the challenges we are trying to solve and the needs of our users. Combining these skill-sets enables us to think deeply about doctors’ workflows, understand where the challenges are, and build features that provide real value to physicians. Physicians are at the center of everything we do, from the solutions we design to the training we provide. Maintaining a laser focus on serving doctors is what will help us accomplish our mission as a company.
