Before becoming Chief Clinical Officer at Altera Digital Health, Dr. Hass Saad was a medical student watching hospitals trade paper charts for computer screens. That front-row seat shaped a career built on one idea: technology only works when it speaks the language of medicine. In this interview, Hass shares how he found his way into health IT and why he never left.

Natalia White: Great to sit down with you to chat. I know we’ve discussed this before, but as we get started, I’m curious to hear more. What inspired you to pursue a career in healthcare technology?

Dr. Hass Saad: I was a physician in the making back in the early 2010s, right after meaningful use was established, and a huge wave of EHR implementations was happening as healthcare systems moved from paper to digital. As a student, I heard they were hiring people to show physicians and clinicians how to use these new systems, so I raised my hand. Funny enough, my very first install was the platform that would eventually become Paragon®.

Three things stood out to me immediately. First, physicians were struggling to provide the care they had been providing for 10, 20 or 50 years, all because a computer screen was introduced, and it represented a wall between them and the patient. Second, I watched the confidence and autonomy of my colleagues and mentors slowly dwindle as technology was adopted. Third, I was one of very few clinicians working in that space at the time. Every doctor in the hospital would eventually get my phone number and want to work with me exclusively, and it had nothing to do with my knowledge of any particular system. It had everything to do with my ability to translate technology through the language of medicine.

After a year of residency, I realized I didn’t want to see 40 patients a day for the next 40 years. I wanted to improve healthcare as a whole, and what was missing was more physicians in the boardrooms and on the ground. So, I bootstrapped a consulting firm that exclusively recruited and trained physicians and clinicians to support healthcare systems through implementations and optimizations. It grew to around 200 physicians, and I led it for more than a decade before selling it and eventually joining Altera.

Natalia: Wow. That’s quite an accomplishment, in not much time. What has kept you passionate about the industry?

Hass: Healthcare is a very emotional industry. Early on, I watched physicians make mistakes on medications they had prescribed successfully for 20 years because of a keyboard and a computer screen. I wasn’t going to stand for that. These were brilliant individuals, and it wasn’t their fault. It was a lack of knowledge about how to use an EHR, and just as important, a failure to mold the EHR to fit the physician instead of molding the physician to fit the EHR.

What keeps me passionate now is a responsibility to carry the torch for physicians and clinicians and to stay in the room. When I meet with clients, my focus is always the same: How does this benefit them? The EHR is the most used tool in a clinician’s day, more than any surgical instrument or medication. My passion is to make it as seamless and as absent as possible so they can get back to practicing the art of medicine.

Natalia: Now, as we look at the impact Altera is making in healthcare today, describe your current role and the key initiatives you’re focused on today. What excites you about some of the good work Paragon is doing?

Hass: As Chief Clinical Officer, my role is consistent with what I’ve done my entire career, which is to be the bridge. More than half of my day is focused on clients, the current and future end users of Paragon. On the other side, I work with product, solutions and business development to identify who we can bring Paragon to and what functionality can make their lives easier.

Like everyone, a key initiative for me is AI. It’s already proven powerful at eliminating friction, redundancy and hopefully screen time. But my filter for every initiative, AI or not, is this: Does it fit and respect the current workflow of the physician adopting it? If a doctor does step three before step four, we shouldn’t tell them to change the way they practice. New technology should help them maintain their autonomy, make them more efficient and reduce the time in front of the screen. In my opinion, that’s one of the clearest ways to address burnout.

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