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We\u2019re all familiar with the scene: the hero of the movie faces a seemingly impossible challenge, when suddenly a moment of clarity hits. His entire life, everything he trained for has prepared him for this moment. His collective experience and opportunity have converged \u2014 and because of this, he is ready to rise to the occasion.<\/p>\n
But this is real life, not Star Wars or Spider-Man. Sitting at home in Palo Alto, David Rhew has another movie in mind for his professional path.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy career has been kind of like that movie with the hobbit: \u2018The Unexpected Journey,\u2019\u201d explains Microsoft\u2019s Chief Medical Officer. \u201cThis has been an unexpected journey for me, in large part because I did not anticipate that I\u2019d be in a position working on technologies that could help at this kind of global scale. But I love working at Microsoft; I love the culture, I love the people, and I love how we\u2019re helping our customers transform during this pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething I always wanted to do in my career was help people,\u201d he explains. \u201cAnd when I looked around to see how I could do that, I decided to be a physician.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even though his path forward to help others was rooted in medicine, Rhew was always intrigued by the potential of computers. As an undergraduate he double majored in computer science. His senior thesis: Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare. After this intellectual \u201cspider bite,\u201d Rhew often found himself envisioning futuristic possibilities that blended technology with medicine to make positive change in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter college, I went through the traditional route of medical school, residency; I focused on internal medicine, and interned at UCLA\/Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles,\u201d recalls Rhew. \u201cBut I was always curious how you came to a diagnoses, and the people I thought were truly impressive were the infectious disease doctors, because they had such a breadth of knowledge. I decided late in my residency that I wanted to go for an infectious disease fellowship, so I applied to UCLA and was accepted.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the year-long gap between residency and studying disorders caused by bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses, Rhew was presented with an unexpected stop in his career journey. He decided not to waste the time.<\/p>\n
During that year, he saw the value in looking beyond medicine as an independently practiced art, and more as a collaborative field where universal truths like prescribing beta blockers for victims of heart attacks can have a major impact. He joined healthcare startup Zynx Health and it was here that Rhew combined his tech and medicine interests to automate reminders, integrate electronic health records, and ultimately help the company become the top clinical decision support vendor in the healthcare industry.<\/p>\n
By making the most of this uncertain time in his professional life, he caught the attention Samsung. \u201cThey were very interested in what I was doing,\u201d he remembers. \u201cWhen I was offered a position, many people were like, \u2018What does a chief medical officer do for a technology company?\u2019 But what we made people realize is that these technologies all around us \u2014 the smartphone in particular \u2014 had a lot of capabilities for medicine. Today, people don\u2019t think twice to use their smartphones for healthcare, but back then it was still a foreign concept.\u201d<\/p>\n
Six years later, after spearheading such efforts as Samsung\u2019s virtual cardiac rehabilitation program<\/a>, Rhew came to Microsoft in mid-2019. \u201cI was so impressed, not only with the people, but also the vision of how the company was developing a platform that could support digital health care solutions,\u201d he says. \u201cI wanted to be a part of that, and it\u2019s been a wonderful journey from where I started to where I\u2019m at.\u201d<\/p>\n Less than a year later, Rhew\u2019s unexpected journey has placed the right person in the right place, at the right time. \u201cSince COVID-19 hit, it has been really remarkable how I\u2019ve been able to apply things I never thought I would, like my infectious disease training, alongside the broader ways Microsoft is helping.\u201d<\/p>\n Among the myriad of efforts Rhew has been a part of is Mural Virtual Care, a team-up with GE that allows healthcare professionals to remotely monitor ICU patients<\/a>. \u201cGE Healthcare created a tool that hospitals can use to monitor multiple patients on ventilators,\u201d he explains. \u201cNow, medical professionals can manage more people with less resources, so people don\u2019t have to keep going into the room to check on the machine and risk exposing themselves. It has a triple benefit: improving work force efficiency, decreasing the need to use scarce PPE, and decreasing infections.\u201d<\/p>\n Rhew has also been involved in multiple efforts involving existing Microsoft technology, nimbly adapting to face this pandemic. \u201cThe Microsoft Healthcare Bot<\/a> service, for instance, has made an immediate impact. It provides individualized experiences, at scale, that let people self-report symptoms and exposure risk to qualified health professionals,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019ve also had tremendous success with Teams Virtual Visits; I was just on the phone with a healthcare provider who shared that two weeks prior to our call, they had never even used Teams. They were now ramping up to have all their virtual visits on Teams \u2014 and were very thankful for a tool that has been a lifesaver.\u201d<\/p>\n The adoption rate for these and other technologies has soared in recent months, serving a vital need. \u201cIt\u2019s remarkable when you think about the adoption rate for these,\u201d he marvels. \u201cThe bot service has had millions of user sessions for COVID-19.<\/a> We\u2019re talking those kind of numbers after only the first two months. It has been adopted by hospitals, healthcare systems, countries, the CDC; the Teams collaboration has also just been phenomenal in terms of collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n Rhew\u2019s role at Microsoft and the success technology is having in finding new ways to combat this infectious disease mean his expertise is widely needed. As the international coordinator for the internal COVID-19 disaster response team, Rhew is remotely assisting in Microsoft\u2019s efforts around the world.<\/p>\n Hopefully, the next turn in this journey will focus on recovery and a return to normalcy. Rhew and those around him have already begun planning accordingly \u2014 particularly regarding how technology is best used for our healthcare needs.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve seen a lot of things that have changed, and some things that haven\u2019t,\u201d he says of his career bridging the gap between medicine and tech. \u201cTechnology has allowed us to pool information together, draw insights and become more proactive. But what hasn\u2019t changed is that there are patients, and then there are doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and others who care about them.\u201d<\/p>\n Ultimately, Rhew is thankful for his unexpected journey \u2014 one that put him in a position to do something. \u201cThere are very few companies that have the right vision, the right people, and can-do things at this scale,\u201d he says. \u201cMicrosoft checks all those boxes. We have a platform, it has the capabilities to do all that needs to be done, and we have the people who know how it needs to be applied. We\u2019re transforming the industry, and I\u2019m proud to be part of the team.\u201d<\/p>\nImpactful actions in an unexpected reality <\/strong><\/h3>\n
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(The Microsoft Healthcare Bot service empowers healthcare organizations to build and deploy an AI-powered, compliant, conversational healthcare experience at scale. Learn more <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\nThe next chapter<\/strong><\/h3>\n