Kartik Agusala, MD, FACC, started his professional life as an investment banker on Wall Street before changing his path to medicine, genuinely motivated by a calling to use science for the betterment of others. He joined UT Southwestern Medical Center in 2014 as a noninvasive cardiologist, specializing in cardiovascular imaging and serving as the medical director for nuclear cardiology. He draws on his business and finance background in his role as manager of clinical innovation in the UT Southwestern Office for Technology Development, promoting biomedical innovation across campus and advancing inventions by clinical faculty. To him, innovation in health care is essentially an extension of the academic mission of patient care and research, allowing high value products and services to improve the lives of patients on a larger scale in an economically sustainable way. Moreover, he believes that health care providers and academic medical institutions should be at the leading edge of the transformative changes brought on by digital health, machine learning and Big Data in order to preserve the interests of both patients and providers. The challenges and obstacles in daily clinical workflow can serve as a powerful engine of innovative ideas and solutions. He believes the ACC can continue to engage and support clinical faculty in this new and exciting path through education, networking and streamlining the innovation process.

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This article was authored by Kartik Agusala, MD, FACC, assistant professor, Division of Cardiology; medical director, nuclear cardiology clinical innovation manager, Office for Technology Development University of Texas at Southwestern. Twitter: @KartikAgusala.

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