Hi.

I’m the Chief Medical Officer at iSOFT.

A German by birth, these days I spend much of my time travelling the world to learn more about events at the intersection between technology and healthcare.

Most clinicians accumulate long CVs. I’m no different. My professional CV is 15 pages long, so this is very much the abbreviated version. If you need the long version, just get in touch.

My professional career in healthcare has been varied, which I hope has helped give me a rounded perspective on the issues of healthcare delivery.

I started out as a qualified nurse and later as a fully trained doctor of medicine, qualifying from the Otto-v-Guericke University Magdeburg in Germany.  After qualification I studied successfully for my PhD, also in Magdeburg.

In the early years of my medical career I specialised in trauma care, and spent time at both the Woman’s & Johanniter Hospital Stendal and the Medical University Hanover.

Along the way, as a doctor I have authored papers, spoken at conferences, worked with industry standards groups, contributed to government initiatives and provided teaching (which explains the 15 pages of CV).

Like every doctor I find that helping improve people’s well being is hugely satisfying. But, perhaps unusually, I am also passionate about technology. That is why, during my journey, I stopped practising medicine and stepped into an information technology role.

I first became the CIO of the Woman’s and Johanniter Hospital Stendal, and then later was CIO for the Catholic Hospitals of the Region of Osnabrueck. Needless to say, changing from being a customer of technology services to being the provider was an eye opening experience.
Perhaps I should have learned from that experience but, undaunted, my next step was as the CEO of medical net AG, a healthcare solutions start up. So having experienced life as a nurse, as a clinician, as the CIO of a hospital group, I then completed my ‘education’ in healthcare technology by working for a healthcare solution provider.

Through acquisition of medical net’s mother company called GWI (where I was running the product management activities), I found myself working for Agfa Healthcare in a series of VP and board level roles based in Europe. Originally I was involved in managing product development activities, later my roles were in the commercial management of the business.

In 2008 I moved to iSOFT to become Chief Medical Officer and later was given responsibility for Global Product Development and a seat on the Global Executive Committee.

Today my attention is directed to two tasks.

In the first task I need to ensure that our current product portfolio meets the medical requirements of healthcare professionals around the world, and that it does so safely and with outstanding quality. This is achieved by working with our sizeable Product Development teams.

In the second task I ensure that iSOFT has relevant knowledge, expertise and relationships in key areas of evolving technology. This work is led by myself and the Clinical Innovation team. Ideaworks gives us a platform to talk about what interests us, and to connect both online and offline with other like minded technology innovators around the world.

In addition to getting started with my blog on Ideaworks, using Twitter to stay in touch and being active in some of the Ideaworks communities, both the team and I are always travelling and meeting with other healthcare innovators at conferences and the like. If you’d like to talk or meet up, just keep an eye on our schedules and get in touch.

Michael Dahlweid