Jun 25
2014
Health IT Thought Leadership Highlight: Alexander Blau, MD, Medical Director, Doximity
Doximity is the largest medical network with one in three U.S. physicians as members. Physicians use Doximity to instantly connect with other healthcare professionals, securely collaborate on patient treatment, grow their practices and discover new career opportunities.
Its vision is a future where medical communication is effortless — fast, simple, seamless and secure. Its mission is to “help physicians transcend the fragmented U.S. healthcare system and succeed in the care for their patients.”
Doximity was founded by Jeff Tangney, co-founder and former COO of Epocrates (EPOC), and launched in March 2011. Based in Silicon Valley, it’s backed by Emergence Capital Partners, InterWest Ventures, Morgenthaler Ventures (now Canvas Fund), Draper Fisher Jurvetson, T. Rowe Price and Morgan Stanley Investment Management.
Here, Alexander Blau, MD, vice president of physician marketing and medical director for Doximity — responsible for marketing and user acquisition teams oversees the development of clinical programs, including a socially curated medical literature filter and case-based discussion forums, manages the aggregation, analysis and product integration of diverse healthcare data in charting the first-ever nationwide clinical expertise map — discusses the company, its future and what he’s seeing from his perch.
Give us the short story on what you do and how you came to health IT?
My background is as an emergency physician. During my training, I was drawn to the latest in mobile health technology and eventually built my own app for medical interpretation. From that moment, I knew I was hooked on health tech. Three years ago, I joined Doximity to join a larger team to develop yet more tools that help doctors practice medicine every day.
Tell me about Doxmity. There’s been some press lately about how it’s really innovating the space. What are you doing that makes for such success? Care to share the secret sauce?
Doximity is the first health tech company really built for physicians — as opposed to hospital administrators, billing departments, etc. In just three years, we’ve grown to be the largest network of verified physicians in the US, thanks to our focus on what doctors truly need from technology. Our focus on doctors is the secret sauce.
What are some of the misconceptions you face? Obstacles you must overcome?
There’s a misconception that physicians aren’t technology savvy, which is absolutely not true. Doctors have been among the earliest adopters of all kinds of communication technologies starting with pagers and the first smart phones. When it comes to social media, doctors are necessarily skeptical about privacy and HIPAA compliance. The great thing is that Doximity is specifically built to address physician privacy requirements and enable them to communicate professionally on the mobile devices they rely on.