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In this edition, we caught up with Lorin Gresser, Chief Executive Officer at Dem Dx.

Pictured above: Lorin Gresser, Chief Executive Officer at Dem Dx.

Tell us about your innovation in a sentence

The Dem Dx Clinical Reasoning Platform (DDx CRP) is used by nurses, paramedics, physician associates and other frontline clinicians to help them assess and triage undifferentiated patients at the first point of contact. The platform combines AI with medical expertise to enable allied healthcare professionals to take on more clinical responsibility safely and with confidence.

What was the ‘lightbulb’ moment?

One day working alongside a community nurse, I realised that with the support of a technical tool, we could augment nurses’ decision making to equal doctors when determining the initial steps and management of the common conditions encountered in any given clinical setting. So, after a few years of development and testing, we found a way of unpacking the clinical reasoning process and making doctors’ additional years of experience and knowledge more widely available. Dem Dx clinical reasoning platform was then born to increase frontline clinical responsibility roles for all healthcare professionals, speed up patient pathways and improve overall clinical care.

What three bits of advice would you give budding innovators?

1. Build your product in partnership with the users: Talk to the users in all stages of development, test and adjust based on the feedback.
2. Be resilient and be prepared for the rollercoaster: I don’t think people are vocal enough about how hard it is to be an innovator: you are doing a much better job than you give yourself credit for!
3. The right team is key: Bring the right people to work with you with a diverse mix of experiences and talents. It will be essential for your success.

What’s been your toughest obstacle?

Getting innovation adopted and scaled in a naturally conservative industry is really hard, especially if your innovation requires changes in how they are used to work. You will have to build trust and credibility with the key partners and a wider stakeholder base.

What’s been your innovator journey highlight?

Getting the NIHR, NHSx and AAC Artificial Intelligence in health and care awards to a value of over £1m, with less than 1% success rate. The award is a testament that our hard work with our NHS partners delivered value to date. The financial support has been a critical turning point to the company, and getting our vision vindicated by such institutions added credibility to our growth.

Best part of your job now?

The privilege of working with an innovation that I am passionate about with a team that shares the same vision. Also, seeing our technology deployed and making a difference to patients and clinicians daily.

If you were in charge of the NHS and care system, what’s the one thing you’d do to speed up health innovation?

First, it is really hard for NHS decision-makers to get the balance right between the benefits of new technologies and managing the governance and risks. I think it would help if we could work to introduce incentives for NHS trusts to test innovations safely and generate clinical evidence of effectiveness. This would lower the hurdle of adoption. Another area that would help would be to make the purchasing process more straightforward and procurement less bureaucratic for both SMEs and NHS institutions.

A typical day for you would include…

As a co-founder/ CEO, there is no such thing as a typical day! Every day is different, exciting and normally long. Your day includes everything from sales to product design, boring administrative tasks to getting interesting feedback from customers. But building and developing the business is always a very positive experience.

Where can we find you?

For more information, visit their website at demdx.com or follow them on Twitter @dem_dx