Becker's Speaker Series: 3 Questions with Qventus Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder, Ian Christopher

Ian Christopher serves as Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Qventus.

On Thursday, September 21, Mr. Christopher will speak on a panel at Becker's Hospital Review 3rd Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle Conference. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place Sepember 21 through September 23 in Chicago.

To learn more about the conference and Mr. Chrisopher's session, click here.

Christopher Ian headshot

Q: Finding top tech talent is always a challenge. Say a CIO called you up today to ask for an interview question that would distinguish the best candidates from the mid- to low-performers. What question do you suggest he or she ask?

IC: We've found there is no one perfect question to distinguish the quality of candidates we interview. Instead, the important characteristics we try to look for is genuine empathy and a passion for healthcare. Especially in Silicon Valley, there is not enough intersection between technologists and healthcare. You have to understand who truly wants to work on these initiatives. We need to find and hire individuals who are aligned with our goals to improve the industry so that front-line teams can focus on helping people.

Of course the technical questions are incredibly important as well. Its equally important to find people who are enthusiastic about making a difference in people’s lives with the amazing knowledge they bring to development.

Q: We spend a lot of timing talking about the exciting innovation modernizing healthcare. It's also helpful to acknowledge what we've let go of. What is one form of technology, one process or one idea that once seemed routine to you but is now endangered if not extinct? What existed in your organization 2-5 years ago but not anymore?

IC: Previously, we saw a lack of willingness or comfort to adopt cloud-based technologies in healthcare. Five years ago, hospitals were not interested in partnering with vendors in the cloud. Further, the large cloud hosts, such as Amazon and Google, were not yet accepting offers to host healthcare information with their services.

Now, the relationship between healthcare and the cloud is opening up. For hospitals, this generates worlds of potential computing power, which we can dedicate to improving patient care and operational excellence. Adoption of the cloud allows us to more quickly start working with our clients so they can realize results more quickly. It also allows us to create and deliver powerful new models that would have been very challenging to create and deploy previously.

Q: Tell us about the last time you were truly, wildly amazed by technology. What did you see?

IC: The most recent technology that truly "wowed" me was Google Lens, a software app on your phone that uses machine learning and virtual reality to recognize texts and objects in real-time. The software is actually able to contextualize this information and deliver insights that are specific to your needs, i.e. reading a picture of a flower and then identifying what type it is. I saw a demo last week that I thought was pretty wild, and I'm excited to see how we can apply this technology in healthcare and everyday life.

The last "wow" moment I recall in healthcare, specifically, was the AI technology that is helping to improve radiology diagnoses. We've reached a point where machine learning is able to very accurately recognize lesions and other symptoms in CT scans and X-rays. This is obviously a very specific solution, but it is interesting to see the rise of AI as a viable tool across our industry. At Qventus, we specialize in using these technologies to provide actionable intelligence and operational excellence, but someone else could be applying similar concepts to flag patients at high-risk for developing cancer.

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