AI @ HLTH Series: Changing the Pace of Innovation in Healthcare

In this interview, Sandy Vance discusses AI imaging and multimodal data with Ryan Tarzy, CEO of Avandra Imaging. Ryan explains the problems that medical researchers face related to accessing imaging data, and how Avandra is dealing with these challenges. The conversation explores the benefits and challenges working with imaging data and the use cases for Avandra’s datasets. Tarzy argues that healthcare is not innovating at the pace of other industries, and that access to imaging data can drive new innovations.

In this episode, they discuss:

• Avandra Imaging, which offers access to a rich library of data backed by expert support and robust security. 
• Tarzy explains imaging data’s advantages in medical research.
• The barriers to accessing and distributing data are related to file sizes, a patchwork of organizations collecting the data, and categorization difficulties.
• Healthcare has not kept pace with other industries in terms of its innovation.
• Multimodal data are datasets with different verticals of data such as EMR, imaging, and claims. 
• Avandra Imaging is focused on highly curated and difficult to find datasets by collecting data across sources.
• There are many use cases for imaging data, with one particularly exciting case being the early detection of diseases like pancreatic cancer.

A little about Tarzy:

Ryan Tarzy is the Founder and CEO of Avandra Imaging, a company focused on advancing health research and innovation by unlocking imaging and multi-modal data. With over 20 years of experience as an executive and founding roles at six startups, Ryan has a passion for problem-solving and data.

As an investor, coach, and advisor, Ryan has made eight investments in early-stage companies led by first-time founders, focusing on Digital Health, AI/ML, and eSports. His entrepreneurial journey includes co-founding and leading three startups, contributing to a cumulative $1.4 billion exit.

Under Tarzy's leadership, Avandra Imaging has become the world's largest federated network for medical imaging and clinical data, aiming to unlock and organize global medical images and create a data ecosystem for research and innovation. Tarzy is driving forward a future of impactful medical innovation by making access to critical healthcare data simple and dependable with Avandra.