On the 23rd episode of Enterprise Software Innovators, hosts Evan Reiser (Abnormal Security) and Saam Motamedi (Greylock Partners) talk with Claus Torp Jensen, Chief Innovation Officer and EVP of R&D at Teladoc Health. Previously, Claus was the CTO at both CVS Health and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In this conversation, Claus shares how Teladoc harnesses technology to transform patient outcomes, how to build a culture of innovation, and AI's potential to revolutionize health care.

Quick hits from Claus:

On AI helping manage chronic conditions like diabetes: “If you're a newly diagnosed diabetic, one of the more dangerous things is that you don't actually know what it feels like when your blood sugar is out of whack, and it could be quite dangerous, so we make sure you have a blood glucose meter with you. What should happen is that there's an algorithm somewhere that flags that there’s a new data point saying this individual on our program has low blood sugar, and we know this person is a newly diagnosed diabetic. Why don't we call them and see if they need help?”

On what innovation truly means: “If you can find ways of applying either existing or borderline technologies in people's real lives, that is a meaningful innovation that matters to society…innovation doesn’t come in one shape, size or form. You can be in the mindset of incrementally improving something we're doing already [with technology].”

On technology’s role in improving bedside manner: “The thing about health care is people are not in a good place when they need help; it's very emotional and personal. So our ability to actually help whoever is in contact with you detect the emotional cues of ‘is this person getting increasingly distressed?’ is actually a meaningful power-up of a system. I believe that adding emotional intelligence to hybrid interactions is a meaningful use case that, again, people aren't talking about a whole lot, and the technology exists.”

Recent Book Recommendation: If Disney Ran Your Hospital by Fred Lee

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Enterprise Software Innovators is a show where top tech executives share how they innovate at scale. Each episode covers unique insights and stories that will help you succeed as a technology leader. Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/ 

Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Luke Reiser and Josh Meer.