MDCalc Co-Founder Graham Walker Returns in New Role

Physician Leader Will Focus on the Opportunities, Risks and Evolving Role of AI in Clinical Practice

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MDCalc, the medical information platform used by millions of physicians to access critical clinical decision tools, today announced the return of co-founder Dr. Graham Walker. Walker returns to full-time employment at the organization in a newly created role that will help guide the company's approach to the opportunities and challenges of using AI in clinical decision making.

Since co-founding MDCalc with fellow emergency physician Dr. Joseph Habboushe in 2005, Walker’s career has increasingly merged the medical and the technological. "The potential of AI excites us tremendously at MDCalc,” he says. “Across the country, physicians are already adopting tools that enhance their practice and create more time to concentrate on the patients in front of them. There is tremendous promise. But there are also flashing warning signs. While AI can be a powerful force to help physicians care for patients, it also brings new issues to light around bias, de-skilling, liability, and risk. Each of these issues carries new ethical questions for clinical care. As an organization, we want to help lead physicians through this technology change, as we've done for the past 20 years.”

"It’s hard for me to express how excited I am to work closely with Graham again,” says Habboushe. “The most important work of our lives has been to build MDCalc together. What Graham and I got right is we were solving a real problem we knew well - always staying focused on what’s best for patients and physicians. Today’s world needs this type of leadership - and trust - more than ever, so this new stream of work feels like a natural evolution to us.”

Lead author of the Physicians’ Charter for Responsible AI, written in 2023, Walker has been thinking, writing, and speaking on the ethical use of AI in clinical care for some time. In his most recent role as Co-Director of Advanced Development at The Permanente Medical Group, which delivers care to Kaiser Permanente's 4.6 million members in Northern California, Walker led emergency and urgent care strategy for KP's electronic medical record as a clinical informaticist, as well as working on practical AI development, commercialization, partnerships, and technology transformation.

That experience is the perfect foundation for MDCalc’s new endeavor, which Walker and Habboushe hope will expand to include a wide range of partners. They believe many other companies care deeply about the ethical implications of clinical AI and how to address risks, gaps, and known challenges in this technology, and look forward to working with other like-minded companies to drive adoption of AI tools in medicine.

“Our sights are trained on safeguarding clinical AI, emphasizing transparency, accuracy, and fairness,” says Walker. “And we are eager to work with anyone who is focused on the same North Star.”

ABOUT MDCALC
Founded by two physicians to help their colleagues better treat patients, MDCalc is one of the most widely used clinical decision-support platforms in medicine. Millions of clinicians worldwide use the platform to access and understand over 800 clinical tools and algorithms that support decision-making at the point of care.

ABOUT GRAHAM WALKER
Graham Walker, MD, is an emergency physician, clinical informaticist, and healthcare AI builder. He co-founded MDCalc and now serves as its Head of Artificial Intelligence, working on practical clinical AI tools for physicians and health systems. Based in San Francisco, Graham spent nearly two decades with The Permanente Medical Group, where he practiced emergency medicine and helped lead the deployment of technology and AI across clinical care. He also led emergency and urgent care strategy for KP’s Epic EHR.

Graham earned his medical degree from Stanford University School of Medicine and completed his emergency medicine residency at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan. He writes about the intersection of AI, technology, and medicine, and created The Physicians’ Charter for Responsible AI, a practical guide to implementing safe, accurate, and fair AI in healthcare settings. Graham also writes and speaks to national and international audiences about AI, medicine, and the future of healthcare.