Meet Mazin Gadir, our new and additional lead mentor, who we are excited to welcome at Health Founders! Mazin joins Health Founders with an extensive, 19+ years of healthcare field experience. We asked Mazin some questions, so you could get to know him a bit better!

How did you get into digital health?

After I graduated with an Electrical and Electronics Engineering bachelor degree, I was honored to be nominated for the Leeds University Overseas Research Scholarship (ORS) Program for a full scholarship to start my PhD. This achievement made me enter the world of medical devices through my research of Quantum Well Infrared Photodetectors and their application in medical imaging and cancer detection. When I finished my PhD and participated in multiple conferences, publishing numerous papers, I got acquainted with Hospital Information Systems, where I came across Cerner and EMR. I ended up meeting Cerner recruiters in the Leeds University job fairs while I was trying my luck applying for several companies. Cerner UK offered me a job in 2006 after completing my Management MSc degree, which enabled me to move to London, where my digital health journey began.

Besides mentoring at Health Founders, what is it that you do?

I am an External digital health advisor for healthcare government ministries and authorities with responsibility for eHealth Digital strategy development, implementation, execution and Transformation. Moreover, I have assumed the role of a Director of Partnerships, Client Relationships and Bid Management at IQVIA Payer Provider Government Group since June 2019. Currently, I am also working on a Postdoctoral research on Value Based Care and Digital Health Transformation in collaboration with the University of North Florida and Angel Kids Pediatrics. This program is part of CMS Transforming Clinical Practice initiative TCPi.

Prior to joining IQVIA, I was a Senior Consultant at Dubai Health Authority, Organizational Transformation Office. I also worked in Healthcare Transformation Strategy and Digital Health Innovation at several companies, including PriceWaterhouseCoopers PwC, Abu Dhabi Healthcare Services Co. SEHA and Cerner Limited accumulating 17+ years of experience in the field of Healthcare, innovation and transformation.

What is most challenging about being in healthtech sector?

Change management and cultural transformation is the most challenging when implementing enterprise digital health solutions. Managing change at the clinical setting has been one of the most challenging and equally exciting areas of exploration. It has helped me grow my soft skills and negotiation competencies immensely. I have learnt that a digital health solution implementation can never be done successfully without clinical involvement. This has enabled me to grow my knowledge and relationships with the clinical community of influencers across the healthcare ecosystem. When a quantum physicist enters healthcare, this is an indication of how complex this industry is. However, the wind of transformation has been transitioning healthcare into consumerism, which breaks big problems into smaller pieces allowing more innovation and agility in finding practical solutions. This impact has allowed change management and adoption to be driven effectively across the healthcare stakeholders. Other areas that I also consider challenging are:

-Data governance and patient confidentiality 

-Integration, interoperability and health information exchange

How would you characterize your mentoring techniques?

I characterize my mentoring technique in ensuring a mutual learning environment, where we can share ideas, convergence and divergence mindset and empathy, that allows start ups to feel free to express thoughts and innovate. Thinking out of the box and looking at international use cases and best practices will empower start ups to realize value from our interactions. Being realistic and managing expectations would be my approach coupled with a positive behavior and a grateful mindset to always move forward. Being creative driven by curiosity for troubleshooting will be necessary as we grow our mentoring relationship.

What kind of impact do you hope to have as a mentor?

The impact that I would hope to have as a mentor is to create momentum for driving positive outcomes and realize value from the creative solution and innovative idea that is being established to solve a complex problem. Thinking out of the box, failing fast and learning quickly from our experiences are the three critical principles that will allow startups to drive success. Agility and courage is what it takes for an impact to be realized.

What is the value of vertical accelerators such as Health Founders?

Provide a safe haven for startups to interact with experts, peers and other industry stakeholders in order to test, validate and examine the minimum viable solution or product in the complex health ecosystem. This environment will allow startups to pivot and accelerate growth by being exposed to subject matter experts and domain gurus. How to scale up, build a robust strategy and compelling business plan to identify your unique selling point are all essential traits that accelerators could train startups in.