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Dr. Thomas Kelly is the co-founder and CEO of Heidi.
Courtesy of Thomas Kelly
In 2017, Thomas Kelly graduated from medical school and eventually became a doctor – a career he dreamed of as a child and spent years working towards. But once he started practicing, Kelly realized the work was different than he had imagined.
“My time as a doctor [was] very constrained. I only have 10 minutes for the patient,” he said CNBC succeeds. “I found out that I had, you know, 100 patients to see a day, and [was] always in a hurry and always coordinating 700 tests and a million tasks.
“In a perfect world… I would spend this much time with [patients] according to their needs…I would understand their family, remember them deeply, and then check on them regularly,” he said. However, the reality is that, like many other clinicians, he faced “incredible burnout” while working in this field.
Inspired to solve this problem, Kelly created an AI tool that can transcribe medical visits, generate clinical notes and more, with the goal of reducing the burden on doctors and clinicians.
Today, the 33-year-old is co-founder and CEO of Heidi, an AI medical scribe. The company announcement its $65 million Series B round in October, valuing the company at $465 million.
First exploration
Growing up in Melbourne, Australia, Kelly was inspired by his primary care doctor to pursue medicine.
“I loved my primary care doctor…He was like the pinnacle of using your intelligence and your knowledge for good,” Kelly said. “He always had an incredible plan. He was very warm, very kind at the bedside, but also, always incredibly sharp and intelligent.”
This experience stayed with him. While in college, he explored other interests such as mathematics and computer science before ultimately deciding to pursue medicine. In 2013, he enrolled at the University of Melbourne where he began his medical studies.
While in medical school, Kelly also started a side business posting educational videos on YouTube and mentored students interested in going into medicine.
To his surprise, the videos began to attract many students, more than he could handle at the time, and what started as a hobby gradually grew into a small business. To better manage her time as part of her tutoring business, Kelly began experimenting with creating artificial intelligence tools.
“The first AI product I tried to build was an interview tutor that people could practice with,” Kelly said. The tool, called “Oscar,” allowed students to practice conversations with a medical interviewer, and as of 2020, about 20,000 students were using it, he added.
“That was the seed that gave birth to Heidi,” he said.
As Oscar improved, Kelly began to notice his broader potential. “There was no [single] light bulb moment,” Kelly said, however, he realized that if an AI tool could understand a conversation between a student and a medical examiner, it could do the same for a patient and a doctor.
“You could then create clinical notes. You could potentially do a differential diagnosis. You could complete tasks,” he said. “It’s the root [of] medicine. It’s a very advanced, very technical, deep and complicated conversation, but it’s still a conversation.”
Take the plunge
In 2021, Kelly was faced with a big decision: whether to go all-in on his medical career and begin training in vascular surgery or take a career break and try to develop his AI tool to help not only medical students, but also clinicians and doctors.
“I took the plunge,” Kelly said. “[I thought] I will regret it forever if I don’t take this chance. How many surgical trainees are good enough at math and have business experience and can create this product? I don’t think there are many.”
“Maybe it was hubris, but I thought if anyone could start this company it would be me, and let’s try and see what happens,” he said.
So, in 2021, Kelly officially gave up his medical career and threw himself fully into building Heidi. Today, the tool helps doctors offload certain administrative tasks such as creating documentation, clinical notes, etc.
Heidi has grown into a strong business and attracted nearly $100 million in funding.
“At one point I just [did the] introspection…if you’re sitting in a nursing home and your family is around you, what are the things you’re going to miss? And for me it was, I definitely would have regretted not trying,” Kelly said.
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