Shamit Patel

CEO of Alpha Nodus

THOUGHT

Leader

AN INNOVATOR OF INDUSTRY
“Never give up. If you believe in something, go to the ends of the earth to make it happen.”– Shamit Patel, CEO of Alpha Nodus

As Featured:

Shamit Patel is the CEO of Alpha Nodus, developer of the Gravity Healthcare system, a revolutionary tracking system that reduces patient wait times, improves physician practice workflow and productivity, and protects revenue. He has 15 years of wireless startup experience, exits with acquisitions by Intel, Qualcomm & Alereon, and was the founding chair of the Ecosystem for IoT Standards Body.

“Never give up. If you believe in something, go to the ends of the earth to make it happen.”– Shamit Patel, CEO of Alpha Nodus

My vision for healthcare is that the United States will someday have a system befitting a developed nation. We spend more money on healthcare than the entire GDP of India – yet we wait weeks, sometimes months, for a doctor’s appointment. Years ago when I needed to see a doctor for a painful condition I was told I had to wait three weeks for an appointment. I finally went to a clinic, walked in and waited three hours until a doctor would see me. I was incredulous. We wait for an appointment and then we wait once we arrive at the appointed hour. It is a frustrating, unsustainable, system in dire need of a makeover and I am determined to be the one to provide it.
The next important innovation for healthcare will be one that automates the old, sluggish, manual processes that remain the mainstay of too many physician practices. They are the root of these scheduling obstacles. I believe that kinks in the healthcare industry can be solved by technology. We need to use the tools and technologies that already exist to develop a system that introduces a high degree of automation into physician offices and removes the manual processes that serve as obstacles to patient’s access to care.

Healthcare is a fundamental right for all people. Every day I am inspired to use technology to make it more accessible to people. Healthcare must be available when and where people need it, without delay. I want to build the tools and solutions that increase effectiveness and efficiency for those who provide important care.

I am proud to be a first-generation American. As a teenager, I became enamored with technology when Bluetooth was first developed. I ate Ramen noodles for six months to save $370 to buy the first phone that used Bluetooth; the Sony Ericsson T68i, only to find that it wasn’t connected to anything. After a two-year odyssey of saving money and buying more and more technology just to use the phone, I made it my goal in life to develop interconnected technology. That was my epiphany and the driving force of my career.
Since that time, I have gained 15 years of wireless startup experience. I have exits with acquisitions by Intel, Qualcomm & Alereon and I was the founding chair of the Ecosystem for IoT Standards Body. We scaled products to more than 100 million users.

Interconnectivity created the most exciting moment in my career. Actually, it was my senior design project as an undergrad student at Rochester Institute of Technology. We developed medical devices that connect remotely from the patient to the physician and showed it was highly functional. At that time, the interconnectivity didn’t exist so providers couldn’t analyze data. Our project created remote care and telemedicine before its time. We achieved that 15 years ago and yet today we are still only scratching the surface of that functionality. It was a view of what was to come, but that still has to be realized today.

I could list the many successes I have had, but instead, I would like to relate the most transformative moment of my career – one of abject failure. I was responsible for shipping a product rated by Business Insider as the worst product of the decade; the IoGear Wireless USB HUB. I am very proud of that experience because it taught me to do what I know is right (I could have stopped it from shipping); that lack of quality has consequences, and that when determined, follow one’s gut.

Life comes down to what my father always taught me; “Never give up. If you believe in something go to the ends of the earth to make it happen.” That is the philosophy he lived by and the one that instructs me today, every day.

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