EP 03: Mara Alexeev on Messy Clinical Data, the Limit of EHRs, and the Future of Clinical Informatics

In this episode, we chat with Mara Alexeev, a pediatrician-turned-clinical informaticist with a knack for turning medical chaos into clean, usable data. We talk EHR chaos, learning R on maternity leave, and why smelling liver failure is a real diagnostic skill.

TIMESTAMPS

(00:00 ) Meet Mara

(04:00 ) Becoming chief after attending

(06:00 ) The broken ritual of rounding

(09:00 ) Fixing cancer workflows with templates

(12:00 ) Building rogue order sets at Kaiser

(16:00 ) Learning R during maternity leave

(20:00 ) "I am the data process"

(24:00 ) When a black box warning hits

(30:00 ) Why EHR ≠ the patient

(33:00 ) Diagnosing disease by smell

(40:00 ) Over-measuring what doesn’t matter

(46:00 ) The future: GLP-1s & off-the-shelf care

(52:00 ) The dirty secrets of health data

(56:00 ) Mara’s dream: Data Talk for real-world messes

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🎙️ About High Dimensional Health Data (HD²) HD² is the podcast for people building healthcare's data and AI future. Hosted by Aaron and Phil, HD² explores the intersection of healthcare, data, and AI, and focuses on conversations with builders and practitioners.

Hosts

Phil Ballentine - Sr Director, Data Engineering at Atropos Health

🔗⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/phil-ballentine/

Aaron Neiderhiser - Co-Founder and CEO at Tuva Health

🔗⁠ https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronneiderhiser/⁠

Guests

Mara Alexeev - ​​Clinical Informatician and Pediatrician

🔗https://www.linkedin.com/in/maraalexeev/

Interested in working together or coming on the podcast as a guest? Email us at ⁠hello@highdimensional.health