2007
An Exclusive Interview with Dewey Howell, Design Clinicals’ President and CEO
Meeting JCAHO’s medication reconciliation requirement is a pain for most hospitals. A few weeks ago, a reader e-mailed me asking about it, so I did a quick Google search and listed a handful of companies offering software to help comply. One of them was Design Clinicals. My link to their site sent lots of hits their way, which got the attention of president and CEO Dewey Howell, MD, PhD, who e-mailed me offering to write something for HIStalk if I thought readers would be interested.
I did. We decided that an interview might be a better format since I also wanted to know more about the company and Dewey himself. He agreed. With that, thanks to Dewey for joining me by telephone from his first site’s go-live in Seattle.
Give me some background on the company and you.
I started out as a physician. I went to a school in Texas in a combined MD-PhD program, with the PhD in immunology. Most people who get the dual degree go into research in a sub-specialty. My path took a turn when I decided to go into a family medicine. I like general medicine more than the subspecialties.
I’ve always been a techie. When I was a resident, I start developing software because I was frustrated with the software available to me as a physician.
In our residency, like most, we do our patient management and communication using 5×7 cards with notes scribbled on them, passing them back and forth trying to communicate the plan of care. I wasn’t on the job more than week or two until I decided I couldn’t do those orange cards. I knew what we could do with technology and medicine.
I developed a hand-held application that enabled us to maintain our patient panel – the patient list, problem list, and to-do list. In the three years of residency, I got involved in consulting, helping our IT department with the physician parts of rollouts.
I founded Design Clinicals to develop a suite of products that are clinician-centric, for physicians, nurses, and pharmacists.
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