AI In The Gastrointestinal Medical Space With Ibraz Shaikh

With time-saving AI tools, doctors can save time on tasks like medical reports and focus on what truly matters – superior patient care. For this Special Labor Day episode, we’re going to dive into the cutting-edge world of AI revolutionizing healthcare, specifically in the field of gastrointestinal medicine. Our guest, Ibraz Shaikh, takes us on a captivating journey through the corridors of a medical software company at the forefront of this groundbreaking transformation. Ibraz discusses how they’ve harnessed the power of AI to reshape how doctors draft reports post-procedure, eliminating arduous tasks, enhancing patient care, and more! Tune in now and discover a new horizon of patient care.

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AI In The Gastrointestinal Medical Space With Ibraz Shaikh

In this episode, we have another fantastic guest who goes by the name of Ibraz. He is a dedicated professional with many years of experience in the medical field. He resides in Texas with his cherished family and has collaborated extensively with renowned GI physicians. He showcases prowess in sales, marketing, clinical training, and serving as a product specialist. Notably, he contributed significantly to COVID unit aid and GI procedures and is presently a territory account manager at a prominent medical software company, passionately highlighting the crucial role of AI and elevating medical practices.

That’s awesome because so many people have questions about wanting to enter the software side of medicine as a sales professional like, “How does AI fit into all of it? How can I be a part of it?” If that’s you, you’ve ever been curious about software and medicine, and what it looks like to explore that career track, then you have to read this episode. This is an episode for you. As always, we do our best to bring you guests who are doing things a little bit differently in the medical sales space. I do hope you enjoy this interview.

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Ibraz, how are you doing?

I’m doing well. How are you?

I’m fantastic. Why don’t you tell everybody who you are and what you do?

I’m working with a medical healthcare software company that properly give doctors a tool that they can write their report and do their software application through their imaging capture. We have an AI system that was introduced a couple of years ago.

Let’s get into that. Does that go along with their EMR system or is that something different?

We do support the EMR system. We have this reporting tool that specializes in any specialty. We started from a GI our owner, founder, and brothers, who also is a GI physician himself. Many years ago, they came up with this idea of how we can make this thing easier for doctors who use this report, write reports every day, and spend much time on it. They came up with this idea and started developing this application.

When you say writing the report, are you talking about when doctors write their notes after they see a patient or after they take care of a case?

Initially, that was the idea. After the procedure, they have to remember lots of things that they did during the procedure. There are lots of scenario that you forget and lots of mistakes happens. To make it easier and very user-friendly, with better patient care, you need something solid. That was the idea of developing this reporting tool.

How does the AI play into it?

Years ago, because we are an independently owned company based in New York Upstate, they were into this software development and progressed how to make things easier for doctors and clinical staff, add advanced tools into it, and save their time. When they added AI, they started with public detection, which is very common in GI where you do a procedure. You see small tumors. Sometimes, you miss those polyps and a couple of years later, becomes a cancerous tumor.

They developed this tool called the AI engine Argus. When they developed this, lots of other companies started doing the same thing with different helps and partnerships but because we haven’t had any partners or license holders, we are the sole developer of our software applications, we went ahead and thought about polyp sizing, which is a very important factor. When you find a polyp, there are polyp different sizing.

Sometimes, it’s very small. When you do endoscopy, you always see images very magnifying because that’s the lens of scope that you use. We misjudge and miss size lots of times. That also costs patient facilities with their tools and devices. At the end of the day, it’s not cost-effective. Our developer went ahead and started processing this sizing into our AI engine. We are the only one in the United States who has registered and patents on the sizing module.

In this space, do you work with a sales team or are you the only sales professional? How does it work?

I am a sales and marketing team member. I cover a couple of states in the South including Texas and four more States. We have a team growing up with a sales team. We hadn’t had that big team before. Our application was so good that people were telling each other. We never did marketing, big advertisement, or anything. We never partnered with anybody who wants to spend millions of dollars in marketing but the products are not good. We never need it.

Since we added the AI engine to our applications, we wanted to let people know that you can advance your practice using these tools and save time. We didn’t stop at the polyp detection and polyp sizing because we are a software company. We do coding and developing every single day and tweak any issues that we see or we get feedback from the doctors or clinicians.

 

We added this natural language processing to our AI engine. What it does is when you do in procedure, you have two hours of procedures sometimes. You have so many things going on in that procedure from diagnosing to finding the tools that you use. At the end of the day, you sit down on your computer and start thinking, reprocessing, and recalling your whole procedure. There are so many things you are missing out. Sometimes, you delay the next procedure because you want to write a proper report for better patient care.

We developed this AI engine. While you’re doing a procedure, we give you this Bluetooth mic, a very small mic, that you can talk to like Alexa or Google. We have command words for our AI engine like, “Argus, wake up. Capture image 5-millimeter polyp in colon ascending,” or any area of the colon. With any different thing that you want to say about the procedure, findings, or medicine, it will record everything in our application.

Once you’ve done with the procedure, you sit down on your workstation. You review whatever you said during the procedure, add, delete, or whatever you have to do with that. You click on analyze text. It will fall into the criteria that are supposed to go there. That 15-minute procedure report becomes 2 minutes. You saved at least 1 or 2 hours a day. On every single procedure, you spend 10 to 15 minutes, you get done in 2 minutes.

 

That sounds pretty revolutionary. What’s the perception been with this product?

For GI, we have huge conferences. We demo it over there. Lots of people saw it. That time we started that last module. We see and show this demo is different, which I’ll give credit to our developers and IT who are working nonstop on this and making it easier every day. We have a demo with this AI engine in many big names in the United States. They are impressed. Soon lots of people are about to try, use, and purchase it. We have lots of things going on.

Is it a decent number of people who used it already?

Yes, and it’s been out. We’re adding any additional things that doctors require. That’s the beauty of being a software company. Let’s say you want to use it for a couple of days or maybe a week. You said, “I would like to have certain things in that.” We take your feedback. We tweak a couple of things and make it the way you want. It’s very customizable for staff and doctors. We don’t just give you the product and say, “Use this and that’s it. You cannot do anything to it.” That’s that’s the beauty of being a software company.

How did you get into this space? It sounds like you were more of a SaaS person than a salesperson but maybe I have that wrong. What space do you come from?

I started in New York City. I lived there for many years. I started thinking I was going to do some Master’s in Pharmacy or some different medical field but I did my weekend jobs in the GI office. I’m like, “This is interesting.” GI is one field that has many varieties and different issues that patients come with. When I got into it, I fell in love with GI stuff. I started working with my first boss. He was a very good businessman at the same time. We used to set up practices for GI doctors and clinics. I did marketing, sales, and at the same time, clinical work for him. I learned so many things over there.

New York is fast-paced. One thing I will tell you for sure is New York will teach you the respect of time. Don’t waste any minute. I learned all these years and I wanted to do more. During my learning process, I jumped into the different areas and roles. I started training people in clinical space. At the same time, I started marketing more to other doctors on what we use and can do about your practice and all that stuff.

New York is fast-paced. New York will teach you to respect time. Click To Tweet

I then moved to Texas and found another job. I wanted to do more advanced GI. For some time in your life, you have to go, I would not say backward but a little bit back to see what you can do more. When you go see some different stuff, you learn more. You want to use that experience to build up your stronger future.

As you guys grow, do you see hiring people who want to be in medical sales in this space?

Yes. We are trying to grow our community in sales and marketing throughout the US. We do have some interviews going on or some needs that we are expanding our territories. Since we’re doing AI, lots of people are interested. People are going to that route. With that, our activities became very fast-paced. We need more help. Our company is looking into a couple of areas where they may add more team members.

Would you call it more of a SaaS sales role or a medical sales role if you have to define what type of role you’re adding?

This won’t be a medical device role. We are more into SaaS aside from salespeople. Also, this is software. I would also want to find out this. I did medical devices before but it was on a small scale and all that. When I moved here to Texas, I learned about medical devices in a deeper way. I met with all these big-name companies, reps, directors, and VPs. They will visit. I will talk to them while we’re doing the procedure. I worked at one of the largest and busiest hospitals.

There are so many tools that we are the first ones to use. I learned during that process that medical devices are very straightforward with the doctors. You give them tools. They use it. They like it. They tell their purchase manager and whoever and they go from there. When I came to software, it was different. Software includes many different varieties of people. Doctors will love your product, want to save their time, and see these AI tools in their practice but when we go forward, we have to see IT Biomed.

There are many security and firewalls in all these centers in hospitals that we have to convince. We have to give them so much back-and-forth documentation. They want to make sure we don’t get breached by any cyber hack or anything. The process becomes a little longer than medical device sales. When people come to this role, they’re like, “We are going to get it. We get trained and we sell it next month or next week,” but that’s not the case. The process is longer but the reward is better.

Healthcare software sales is an industry. That is a discipline. It sounds like that’s exactly where you guys fit. To your point, a lot of men’s devices, people from pharmaceutical or even biotech, have stepped into healthcare software sales positions. With this sales cycle that calls into all these different call points, how long would you say the typical sales cycle is for what you guys are doing?

It depends on how fast IT people are. Doctors are very ready and aggressive. This means that they are willing to get into this product but IT may have different scenarios where they want to test in the test environment and run it in the background before they go live. 3 to 6 months are usual time for the sales of software-type products.

It’s a bit of a bit of a cell cycle. That’s some time right there. You’re saying that the majority of that time is spent massaging the minds of the IT department to get them to buy this software.

It is longer so you have to be patient and hungry for your role because if you sit back and relax like, “I contacted so and so. It’s in the process,” no. They have so many things. You have to be on top of it, the same as the medical devices. If you sit back, it will delay more.

This is a nice insight into another side of what the medical sales world has to offer. It sounds like you are doing amazing things and looking to grow. All of you reading out there, you’ve read it. This is a product in a well-known industry as far as healthcare sales but a fast-developing industry with healthcare sales. We’re going to bring this to a close. I want to ask you four questions. This is called our lightning round. What’s the best book you’ve read?

I wouldn’t say the particular book but I read lots of articles on medical sales and lots of companies like backgrounds in the medical industry. That gives me exact information on what I know about my products.

Share with us what’s been the most interesting that you’ve read.

I won’t say the names of those companies but I do go to their reports, data, and all that stuff. I see where we are. I will say proudly that we are ten steps ahead of everybody else.

What’s the last movie or TV show you’ve seen?

Wakanda Forever.

The best meal you’ve had.

Chicken biryani.

From where?

Homemade.

Last question. What’s the best experience you’ve had?

It’s with my company when I met with my team and all that stuff. We introduced all these new tools, sat down together, and talked like a family at a dining table. We’re troubleshooting. They’re sharing their ideas and all that stuff. No games, no nothing. It’s straightforward. We’re helping each other. That’s the best experience I have with my company.

No games, no nothing, just straightforward helping each other. That's the best experience one can have with a company. Click To Tweet

Ibraz, thank you so much for this time with us. We can’t wait to see more that’s coming from your company and this dynamic product you guys are selling. We’ll be in touch.

Thank you so much for having me.

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That was Ibraz. What a fantastic episode. It’s wonderful. If you were reading and thinking to yourself, “That’s exactly what I want to be doing,” then you already know what I’m going to say. Visit EvolveYourSuccess.com. Select Apply Now or Learn More and learn about our Medical Sales Career Builder Program. If you know that you want to be a part of it and you’ve already seen our clients all over LinkedIn celebrating their success with the new medical sales companies that they’re part of, then hit apply, fill out that application, and get some time with one of our account executives. Let’s get you into a medical sales position.

If you’ve been reading this for any length of time, I’ll be very saddened if you ask yourself, “Have I left a 5-star review with 1 or 2 lines about the show? Have I done that?” If you haven’t done that, I’m challenging you to get it done. It’ll take you a whole five minutes or maybe less to get it done. As always, we’re doing our best to bring you guests who are doing things differently in the medical sales space. If this is where you want to be, you need to visit EvolveYourSuccess.com. Make sure you tune in for another episode.

 

Important Links

• Ibraz Shaikh – LinkedIn
• LinkedIn – Evolve Your Success, LLC

 

About Ibraz Shaikh

Ibraz Shaikh, a dedicated professional with over 13 years of experience in the medical field, resides in Texas with his cherished family. He has collaborated extensively with renowned GI Physicians in NYC and Houston, Texas, showcasing prowess in sales, marketing, clinical training, and serving as a product specialist. Notably, he contributed significantly to COVID units, aiding in GI procedures. Presently, Ibraz thrives as the Territory Account Manager for the Southern US at a prominent medical software company, passionately highlighting the crucial role of AI in elevating medical practices. His multifaceted journey stands as a testament to unwavering commitment and meaningful contributions to medical innovation.

 

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