From Self-Driving Cars to Healthcare: AdviNOW Medical’s Cross-Industry AI Innovation Story

Sometimes the most powerful innovations come from applying existing technology to new problems. At least, that’s what James Bates discovered when a non-compete agreement forced him to look beyond his expertise in self-driving vehicles.

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, James revealed how his background running “a billion dollar business in self driving vehicle technologies at Freescale” led to an unexpected breakthrough in healthcare automation.

Finding Patterns Across Industries

The journey began when James started analyzing medical practices during his non-compete period. With his engineering background, he approached healthcare differently than most entrepreneurs – applying Six Sigma analysis to understand operational inefficiencies.

What he discovered was surprising: “Two thirds of a physician’s time was spent doing activities that there was no regulatory reason for them to do. They just happened to be the one with the knowledge, so they were doing it.”

The AI Connection

This revelation led to a crucial insight – the problems in healthcare weren’t that different from those in autonomous vehicles. As James explains, “Using similar type of artificial intelligence that I used in the self driving vehicle world… I could take that. Mimic a physician’s brain, build an AI that will mimic a physician’s brain, and then we build an AI that mimics an administrator’s brain.”

The parallel was clear: just as self-driving technology automates routine driving tasks, AI could automate routine medical tasks. The key was understanding that both industries involved complex decision-making processes that could be systematized and automated.

Translating Technology Across Domains

But transferring technology across industries isn’t simple. Healthcare has unique challenges, particularly around regulation. “Physicians have regulatory knowledge. Why? Because if they get it wrong, they go to jail,” James notes. This understanding shaped how AdviNOW adapted autonomous system principles for healthcare.

Instead of trying to fully automate decisions like in self-driving cars, they focused on augmenting physician capabilities. “I don’t think the world will ever be without physicians, because humans need physicians to explain what it all means. But physicians won’t be spending their time on the simple stuff that will all go away.”

Building Trust in a New Context

The company’s approach to market entry reflected this nuanced understanding. They started with urgent care and primary care clinics that “suffer the most with the overhead burden and the low profitability,” where the pain points were most acute and the resistance to automation lowest.

This strategic entry point allowed them to prove their technology while building trust in a traditionally conservative industry. It’s a stark contrast to the autonomous vehicle industry’s more disruptive approach.

The Future of Cross-Industry Innovation

Looking ahead, James sees even bigger opportunities for cross-industry innovation. “AdviNOW inevitably becomes a Google of healthcare,” he predicts. This vision extends beyond just automating existing processes to fundamentally transforming how healthcare operates.

For tech founders, AdviNOW’s story offers valuable lessons about innovation across industries. Sometimes the best opportunities lie not in creating new technology, but in finding new applications for proven solutions. The key is understanding both the technical parallels and the unique constraints of each industry.

As James puts it, “I’m looking forward to a world where healthcare is not a mystery. Healthcare is solved.” Sometimes it takes an outsider’s perspective – and technology from an entirely different industry – to solve seemingly intractable problems.