Today we feature Anurag Gupta, MD, MBA, MMSc who graduated in 2014. He currently serves as Head of Clinical Operations and Strategic Partnerships at Imagen Technologies, a medtech startup in NYC.

What did you do before attending Harvard Medical School?

Before HMS, I earned my MD and MBA degrees from the University of Michigan and subsequently completed training in emergency medicine at Mount Sinai Beth Israel. During residency, I became particularly interested in system processes to help standardize care.

What are you doing now?

Immediately after graduating from HMS, I joined the executive team at Northwell Health, a 22-hospital system in New York City, as the Director of Clinical Transformation and Innovation. After Northwell, I joined the healthcare team at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) with a focus on healthcare strategy across pharma, medtech, providers, and payers, working on long-term strategic initiatives. Currently, I'm serving as Head of Clinical Operations and Strategic Partnerships at Imagen Technologies, a medtech startup in New York City, driving product development, managing a physician team of 30, collaborating with engineering and artificial intelligence scientists on research development, and supporting FDA regulatory pathways.

How is the degree in Biomedical Informatics helping you?

The biomedical informatics degree has been a cornerstone to my success in helping improve healthcare systems. Digital applications are increasingly important to leverage solutions at scale. While at Northwell Health, I utilized technology platforms and Six Sigma to improve workflows for frontline clinical staff across the health system. At BCG, my responsibilities included collaborating with C-level executives to identify and drive strategic initiatives from growth and transformation to M&A. At Imagen, I'm driving product development through daily interactions with our software engineers and artificial intelligence scientists. The biomedical informatics degree along with experiences in business school, medical school, and residency have provided me valuable experiences to drive impact across a variety of healthcare settings.

Why did you choose this program?

Beyond the reputation of Harvard, I was excited by the large size of the program. Having a dozen post-doc classmates across a variety of research labs provided an avenue for increased collaboration and discussion. Plus, each of the several informatics research labs were replete with professors from whom to learn and engage. In particular, I was drawn to the Center for Evidence-Based Imaging (CEBI) at Brigham & Women's Hospital (BWH), which had a significant focus on Clinical Decision Support (CDS) that allowed me to further pursue my interests in decreasing clinical practice variation in real-time.

What do you think makes this program unique?

The combined rigor of the Master's program along with a post-doctoral research position provides the opportunity to learn from some of the brightest folks across Harvard and MIT and then apply those methods and insights to research. I'm also not sure how many, if any, other programs allow the immediate implementation of classroom teachings into hospital settings. Ultimately, the collaborative focus of the program allowed us to implement several projects, leading to numerous peer-reviewed publications.

What was your most memorable experience while in the program?

The opportunities I sought outside the program were some of the most memorable; a few of my classmates and I collaborated on a startup project, supported by the Harvard Innovation Lab, to improve medication reconciliation across healthcare platforms. Our team of three post-docs quickly grew to a dozen across disciplines. It was a wonderful experience full of challenges, where we dedicated evenings and weekends, and received prizes from MIT Hacking Medicine, Health Informatics World Conference, and MIT Sloan Bioinnovations.

How did the environment at Harvard Medical School enrich your training?

The milieu in Boston is unmatched in terms of curiosity, innovation, and collaboration - the HMS campus embodies this culture for healthcare. The ability to enroll in classes across both Harvard and MIT encouraged friendships and collaborations across the city, and I seized the opportunity with several electives at Harvard Medical School, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Harvard Business School, and MIT. The happenstance collisions on campus were incredible, from running into Atul Gawande in the halls of Brigham and Women’s Hospital to Regina Herzlinger at the HBS cafe, allowing students to converse freely with leading experts.

How will your experience at Harvard Medical School help your future goals?

Driving innovation to support healthcare across populations continues to be my passion. The experiences from the biomedical informatics program instilled additional tools to help me be successful in that vein. Additionally, the camaraderie and mentorship from the program are incredible assets that I continue to leverage on a regular basis.

Edited by Sydney Narvaez