Dr. Amel Havkic | Founder, EvoMed Consulting | Enhancing Patient Care, Clinical Adoption in Medtech, & a Practicing Physician's Perspective

Dr. Amel Havkic, founder and Managing Director of EvoMed Consulting and a practicing physician, unpacks why so many amazing medtech solutions never reach the patient bedside, along with advice on how to change that. Driven by frustration from frontline care, Amel built EvoMed to guide companies from development through real-world clinical adoption, and shares how his MBA research became the StarMap framework: seven success factors spanning workflow alignment, implementation friction, ecosystem fit, quality of care, and economic viability. He explains why staying in clinical practice matters as medical knowledge rapidly evolves, offers a real example of digitalization increasing clinician burden, and discusses AI as “augmented intelligence” that supports—not replaces—human decision-making. 

Guest links: https://evomed-consulting.eu/ | https://www.linkedin.com/in/a-havkic/ | https://www.instagram.com/evomed_consulting?igsh=aTlyaGVmeXYybGt3

Charity supported: Save the Children

Interested in being a guest on the show or have feedback to share? Email us at theleadingdifference@velentium.com. 

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Host & Editor: Lindsey Dinneen
Producer: Velentium Medical

 

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Episode 082 - Amel Havkic

[00:00:00] Lindsey Dinneen: Hi, I'm Lindsey and I'm talking with MedTech industry leaders on how they change lives for a better world.

[00:00:09] Diane Bouis: The inventions and technologies are fascinating and so are the people who work with them.

[00:00:15] Frank Jaskulke: There was a period of time where I realized, fundamentally, my job was to go hang out with really smart people that are saving lives and then do work that would help them save more lives.

[00:00:28] Diane Bouis: I got into the business to save lives and it is incredibly motivating to work with people who are in that same business, saving or improving lives.

[00:00:38] Duane Mancini: What better industry than where I get to wake up every day and just save people's lives.

[00:00:42] Lindsey Dinneen: These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary work, and this is The Leading Difference.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Leading Difference podcast. I'm your host, Lindsey, and today I'm delighted to welcome my guest, Amel Havkic. Amel is founder and MD of EvoMed Consulting, Department Head for Weaning and Home Ventilation. Dr. Amel is also a consulting medical director for many companies, apart from being an educator, mentor, author, and currently working physician.

All right. Well thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show. I'm delighted to talk with you today.

[00:01:23] Amel Havkic: Thank you so much. It's a pleasure being here, and thank you for having me.

[00:01:27] Lindsey Dinneen: Of course. I'd love if you wouldn't mind starting off by sharing just a little bit about yourself, your background, and what led you to medtech.

[00:01:37] Amel Havkic: Okay, so my name is Amel Havkic. I am still a practicing physician. But on top of that, I'm a advisor in medtech. I am in medtech since something like six, seven years, and it actually came from the frustration that I had in everyday work on the patient bedside. I was already consulting some medtech companies on specific topics. And I've seen this huge gap between amazing medtech solutions which, however, for whatever reason, never made it to the bedside. So I ended up, I ended up fund founding EvoMed Consulting consultancy, which helps medtech companies with clinical adoption, pretty much helps them guide from the development all the way to the patient bedside. The solutions really getting adopted, really having an impact. We've had quite some success with this. We've been named best Market Access Consultancy in '25 in medtech. I personally also celebrated recently award for Best Rising Star of the industry. And yeah, all of this came from the idea that I wanted to see a world where no patient is left behind and independent of geography or economy or economic status. Every patient gets the best care imaginable. And yeah, what better way to deliver that than medtech, right?

[00:03:05] Lindsey Dinneen: Yes, that was the perfect plug for medtech right there. That was excellent. So first of all, congratulations on all of your success and these recent achievements. That is really exciting and incredible and I, I know that your motivation goes obviously so much deeper than that, but I love the fact that you're getting recognized and it's, it's nice to have those moments of affirmation, so.

[00:03:31] Amel Havkic: Yes, it is. I said it on the interview, which I got after the, after the award. It's not even about the award itself. It is actually about what I stand for and that is the human side of medtech. I mean, it is technology, but we're still doing it for humans. And as a doctor getting recognized and not as a founder, it is something it, it is a signal. So that's the, I think that's the positive, the good part about it, and that's what makes me proud.

[00:04:03] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So did you always have an interest in medicine? Did you always think you were gonna go this route?

[00:04:11] Amel Havkic: In medicine, yes. I think as far as I can remember, thinking I wanted to be, I wanted to be a doctor. I was trying to cater to wounded animals as a, as a kid with, I don't know, four or five, six years old. Then I went to med-- no, before I went to med school, I was doing basically nursing school. I grew up in Bosnia, in Sigovina There it's after eighth, eighth grade, you decide what you actually want to do. So I decided I wanted to go into medicine and at that time, Dr. House came out and or house MD in, in the English, English terminology. And I was a huge fan. So that was pretty much my, my route was set from that. I was al also always tech savvy, so if I wouldn't have done medicine, I would've probably done IT. And at one point it kind of merged.

[00:05:09] Lindsey Dinneen: Wow. Okay. All right. So Dr. House, I can totally understand why that became an, an inspiration. Do you have any examples that you could share that are like, is, is the medical world ever as wild as some of those stories on Dr. House?

[00:05:27] Amel Havkic: Oh yes. Oh yes. It is specifically. So besides working in the hospital, I work in a private practice, and funny enough that private practice is focused on difficult to diagnose and rare diseases of, obviously for, for that reason. I was also working in a hospital department, which was working with with or in discovering rare diseases specifically when it comes to, to respiratory diseases. So, yeah, it is like that.

I can share a story of one patient, which came to me because she had thoracic pain every now and then. And it was reoccurring, came again and again. I did an ultrasound, and so she was at a cardiologist, she couldn't find anything. The, the whole thing. And it, I did an ultrasound of the chest and I found a, a little a little mass, which is not supposed to be there. So I sent her to a CT. Funny enough, the CT came back negative because it was so small that you couldn't see it on a ct. However, when you know exactly where to look, you could still like see outlines of it. And then in the, in the discussion came out that she had an endometriosis at one point. So, we said, "Okay, this might be somehow connected." We took a tissue sample, so in the end it was indeed an endometriosis, which got discovered after 20 plus years of or, or 10 years of, chest pain every now and then. So, it's just one of the examples of the, of the, so yeah, it's Dr. House specifically is quite realistic.

[00:06:57] Lindsey Dinneen: Oh my goodness. That is wild. I, wow. Okay. That is, that is really cool. So, so do you also have these these moments, I could just imagine you just feel like you've solved a mystery and you can help this patient and you know exactly how, is that just like the best feeling?

[00:07:13] Amel Havkic: For, for me it is, for me, it is, I always have to describe or, or tell to my assistants in a or, or not assistants, my residents. Please don't misunderstand me. I get excited by this, not because I want the patient to be sick, but because first of all, we find a way to help after so many people could not. And yeah, just for the pure love of the game, so to say.

[00:07:37] Lindsey Dinneen: That's amazing. Okay, so, well, I feel like we can go off on many tangents, but I'll, I'll try to, I'll try to stay focused because I, but I love that. I love that. So you're a practicing physician and you're, you're seeing these instances of medical technology that I imagined isn't getting adopted in the way that you know it should, that would have clients or patient impact. So you're, you're seeing this for a while. So did that lead to direct opportunities to consult for some of these companies that needed a physician's perspective or how did, how did that go from, "Hey, I, I, gosh, I'm seeing this gap" to, "Okay, I know where to go from here."

[00:08:19] Amel Havkic: So, it exactly like that. So I was brought into a medtech company to consult them as a clinical medical expert on, at that point, risks associated to their solution. Of course it makes sense to have someone who is still in the trenches, so to say, because the logic behind certain workflows in hospitals or in healthcare environment is not the same logic that it guy would have when talking workflows similar.

So that's how it started. And then a pattern started emerging. When I did my MBA thesis, I basically took, took these two, these two, that, that gap that I saw and made it a topic of my MBA thesis. I was looking specifically on success factors in healthcare and what makes a solution gets adopted or delivery system healthcare path, what makes it get adopted in the real world and what does not.

And what emerged was basically knowledge graph constellation, so to say, of seven success factors. And that constellation also showed how they're connected with each other, so, and how they interact how they impact one another. So I put that to the, to the to the test, the findings, running multiple times the most profitable hospital unit in basically every hospital I went to, starting my private practice, which got profitable from day one. Consulting clients on the same on the same, framework who were able to triple their, their revenue from 30 to 90 million.

And so on, so forth. And ultimately then just about half a year ago, I made the framework public, and that's the StarMap framework which is the moment when everything kicked off. So everything I I said after all the awards and all the recognition came after I shared what I've been holding back up until that point.

[00:10:25] Lindsey Dinneen: Okay. Alright. Wow. All right. Can you share a little bit about this framework and what makes it so unique and impactful?

[00:10:34] Amel Havkic: So what the eye recognized is that it works because it's basically backwards engineered. I had the benefit of hindsight and had the benefit of seeing the solutions, which really made it to, to the patient bedside. So this is a challenge that many medtech companies, specifically the medtech startups face. You know, they come actually from the other side trying to pick one of the hundreds, if not thousands of ways to to, to navigate, to come to that one point where they want to be.

For me, it was exactly the other way around. I was already where they want to be and was able to backwards and engineer those factors.

And it is, when you think about it or when you read through it, it's almost common sense. Factors like specialization, cooperation and ecosystem fit, workflow alignment, predictability of services. But also implementation, friction digitalization, quality of care, and specifically economic viability. So pretty much a 360 view on the, the, on the solution because when you, when you come to think of it, for something to get adopted in the clinic, there is a lot of different stakeholders involved. So it's not just the doctors, it's not just the clinics, it's the insurance companies, it's the the procurement, IT. Does this at all integrate into my ecosystem and so on so forth as a whole bunch of stakeholders and questions that need to be answered. And the StarMap is the first framework, which basically has a, a structured way of looking through all of these.

[00:12:16] Lindsey Dinneen: Okay. Yeah. So this is, this is a framework that you have, I imagine, developed and refined over time as you've been consulting. So when you first started consulting, what are some of maybe the lessons that you learned in terms of being able to really help these companies succeed?

[00:12:35] Amel Havkic: This is a bit more of a personal one because, I founded a consulting company. So my thought I had, I have no clue about marketing. I have no clue about those things. I'm a doctor, right? So, I imagined that what I should be is a consultant, right? After all, I'm consulting. It turns out that the, the biggest impact I could make, in fact as a doctor, because in the end, that's what I am, it's what is most natural to me, and that is what is bringing most impact to the clients.

And then there's one specific thing which I have, which many other consultants in healthcare, also good consultants, don't have. And it is the fact that I'm still practicing. Fact is that today medical knowledge doubles every 73 days. In theory, that means if you are out of the healthcare delivery for 73 days, your knowledge is almost obsolete. It was way less, it was a few years when I studied. And now it's, it's became so exponentially big. What that means is that if you would take a doctor, and make him a consultant, drag him out of the hospital, he would be an expert for 73 days, and that's where it would stop. And this is the, this is pretty much the, the mindset that I adopted and everyone consulting in the EvoMed is still a practicing, practicing healthcare practitioner. So yeah, that's what makes EvoMed specifically different and that's how I saw the world before and how I see it now.

[00:14:09] Lindsey Dinneen: That's incredible. Okay. Yeah. And, and it makes so much sense that if you're practicing then you're, you're needing to keep up on all that. But just on a very practical level, how do you stay on top of so much new information coming out so regularly? I mean, it's not like, you know, you don't have three major career things going on right now.

[00:14:33] Amel Havkic: Yeah, I think by now it's a flywheel, and luckily I, I am the very, in the, in the very lucky position that my, that my hospital knows and accepts what I'm doing outside of the hospital and also supports this. So, I get updated regularly through through people talking to me, reaching out to me, showing their solutions, asking for my opinion. And on the other side, so, so that's, that's what keeps me updated on a regular. And on the other side, I still I still see the challenges that you would have in a hospital implementing those solutions.

So, recently the one specific thing happened, just as an example. We, I, I was involved or I'm involved in a digitalization pro project of an ICU and of operating room. For that they have now from, from paper, from from paper notes, they're switching to digital. Problem is the paper notes they could fill out within five minutes while the digital have all kinds of mandatory fields. And, and it's kind and, and the time it takes a physician to fill out those, those digital forms is six times...

[00:15:47] Lindsey Dinneen: Hmm.

[00:15:47] Amel Havkic: ...More, so it's 30 minutes roughly if you're fast. So although you would think that something which gets digitalized is automatically better, this specific thing proves that just because someone thought, okay, I need this information, it need, this needs to be mandatory. But because the system maybe doesn't communicate with other parts of the system, legacy systems, legacy data from somewhere, it makes the job of the doctor living hell. So you, you can imagine how it is when you have like one person doing, I don't know, 40, 50, 60 pre-medication a day, and then from like five to 10 minutes pre-medication, it goes to 30 minutes, 60 minutes. That's, that's a problem.

[00:16:31] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. So yeah, that is, that's, that is so interesting. It's, it's kind of, I suppose that goes into a lot of innovation. There are sometimes, you know, the things that we think, "Oh, well, this is, this is progress" and, and it might be, but just because you can doesn't mean it's always perhaps the most efficient or we should at least stress test it and decide, you know, how to make it the best it can be. So, all right, what are some, what are some trends and innovations that you're seeing that you're really excited about in terms of the future of medical care?

[00:17:08] Amel Havkic: Well, obviously AI is a, is a great trend. I am really hoping that it'll take the, the proper route. I am, I've, I've been saying this a lot and I will repeat it again. When I say AI in healthcare context, I don't like AI as artificial intelligence, but as augmented intelligence, because what it's supposed to do, it's supposed to support our natural decision making process. And a decision in a high stakes environment like healthcare still needs to be in the hands of humans because there's much more to it than just a simple yes or no, or a statistic, or it's most probable that and that is a trend. So, so that is a technology which has huge potential.

But so far, I must say oftentimes I see it implemented in the wrong way. It's trying to automate certain things either not good enough, or at certain points, or in such a way that it's not a livable in daily life or meets resistance. Specifically in healthcare, it's a very inert system because innovation in healthcare is perhaps dangerous is, it introduces new risks. That's why healthcare evolved to be a very inert system and to resist changes unless those changes are definitely proven to be better than what we have right now.

So as an example, we had IBM Watson Oncology, huge player, huge possibilities. But somehow the, the way that Watson Oncology did things was not the way that clinicians wanted to use it. So in the end, they ended up selling it off. And that is just one example of many, many. So what I would really like to see for the future is AI is augmented intelligence, which really is positioned at the right places in a workflow of healthcare practitioners and help support their decisions rather than trying to automize or making them obsolete.

[00:19:24] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And it's, it's something that of course we hear a lot about, you know, and, and a lot of times I think that what I've been hearing, exactly like you said is, you know, if it can help, if it can help minimize some workflows or make something more, a process more efficient or those kinds of things, that is great help. But I don't think anyone wants AI to replace the expertise and the hands on learning that you do. And, and you obviously every 73 days, like you said, you're constantly building up your, your knowledge bank. And literally having been in the, in the medical setting for so long, you've, you've gotten to see this play out in real life and AI can't do that. So yeah, that's really interesting.

[00:20:12] Amel Havkic: True. What, what it can do however, is just like every other job, healthcare also has a bell curve. So you have 5% or a percentage of the practitioners who are massive under performers, a percentage which are massive over performers, and then there's an average in the middle. And what, what AI can do is it can help even out the bell curve and move it as far to the expertise side as possible. There's also other repetitive tasks which, which can be taken over. So I do see potential in the, I do see a lot of potential in that technology specifically.

But just as another example in my private practice, I have a. I have a AI scribe. It is specific for medtech. It's not something that I misuse, foreseeable misuse, for all the regulatory people. But it is an AI scribe. Still, most of my colleagues are not using it because they say, "Okay, this does not fit our needs. And it is not that specific scribe that we use." You cannot tweak the way how it gives you the output. It's preset. You can optimize certain things, but you cannot, for instance, train on your on the way you like your letters to look, for example.

Then there's errors. So although you think, "Okay, you save a lot of time typing," right? You add at another point another a few work steps with the solution and ending up being shelved again because it's not really helping. Although from the, from the first glance, on the first glance, you would think, "Okay, this is revolutionary."

[00:21:55] Lindsey Dinneen: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Okay that. Yeah. So it's gonna be interesting to see how it evolves and how it becomes hopefully even more useful in the future. So are there any moments that along your journey, either as a physician or even as a consultant, are there any moments that really stand out to you as affirming, "Wow, I am in the right place at the right time."

[00:22:23] Amel Havkic: So it happened on, so speaking of the doctor part, yeah. It happened to me quite often. And I was first thinking of it as having bad luck. But ultimately maybe I was supposed to be there. So for some reason I run on a regular, into, into big car accidents happening. And car accidents or motorcycle accidents or so on, so forth, at least maybe 6, 7, 8 of them through, throughout my life with people really being injured and me being there as a first responder. So, so those were for instance, moments where I thought, "Okay, well, I understand this happens once or twice," but now and, and keeps keeps getting more. It's a bit maybe I wouldn't say well, it, it seems that I am supposed to be there at that time. That's how it feels to me.

On the, the consulting side as well, specifically now that medtech is gaining more traction and more impact, and also with the award recently and similar things happening, that also made me feel like, "Okay, maybe I can with this make impact on more lives than just the lives I treat directly." Because if you manage to help a medtech startup launch a revolutionary idea and then survive and really make it all the way to the market and then thrive there, you impact thousands hundred, thousands, maybe millions of lives. And the, it being accepted the way it is right now is for me as well a similar sign.

[00:24:05] Lindsey Dinneen: That's really cool. Yeah. I, I think, you know, I, I talk about it a lot. My role within medtech industry, you know, is, is small. I don't have that same level of impact at all. I'm, I'm helping, I'm, I'm in marketing, so I'm helping people tell their stories and get the, the word out. But I think getting to even just think about the fact that no matter kind of where you fit into the ecosystem you're helping hopefully impact patients' lives for the better and it's, it's so special getting to feel like even though it's a small role, I got to play a role. Yeah.

[00:24:42] Amel Havkic: It is a, i I wouldn't even downplay it that much to be honest, because if no one hears about the solution, if no one knows that it exists there's more and more and more we're getting overloaded with all kinds of information. So, marketers who help certain things break through and reach the right people are doing their share just as anyone else in the industry is. It's maybe just as important. So yeah, I, I would encourage you to continue what you're doing up until now.

[00:25:12] Lindsey Dinneen: Well, thank you. That's, that's, that is very encouraging. Okay, so, pivoting the conversation a little bit. Just for fun. Imagine that you were to be offered a million dollars to teach a masterclass on anything you want. It could be within your industry, but it doesn't have to be. What would you choose to teach?

[00:25:31] Amel Havkic: Oh, that's a relatively easy one for me. I would teach clinical adoption masterclass and clinical adoption simply for the reasons we already mentioned. I would really like to help good solutions survive the reality of everyday clinical life.

[00:25:50] Lindsey Dinneen: Amazing.

[00:25:51] Amel Havkic: I think survive is the right, right word for this.

[00:25:54] Lindsey Dinneen: Yes, I think so too, especially in having conversations with startups that are currently in the midst of this and, and trying to navigate the best approaches. So, yeah. That's incredible. Okay. And how do you wish to be remembered after you leave this world?

[00:26:11] Amel Havkic: Well, that's a more difficult one. How do I wish to be remembered? Well, I would like to be the, so I would like to be the guy who everyone thinks left the world a better place than I found it. Maybe, quite short, not that extensive, but the implications are huge. You know, you can make the world better in many different ways. I do have certain skills and talents which naturally got me to where I am today.

But it ultimately doesn't matter how much better the world is after I'm gone as long as it is better and this became clear to me also recently. So, while the, the awards night was going on, my wife couldn't come with me because our kid got sick, so she stayed in a hotel and, but they were watching the live stream and in the amidst of it all, when, when I came up and I went front to get the award, the little one got up, although she was sick and she was like laying in bed all day and couldn't get up. She went to the screen and pointed to the screen. So yeah, ultimately I want also my my daughter to think of me as someone who made this world a better place one way or the other.

[00:27:29] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. I love that. That's a beautiful legacy and yeah, you're, you're doing just that, so that's amazing. That is so amazing. Okay. Okay. And then final question, what is one thing that makes you smile every time you see or think about it?

[00:27:48] Amel Havkic: Oh, that's also an easy one for me. It's definitely my daughter, also my wife. It's, yeah, it's an amazing it's, it's amazing just seeing her growing up and develop all of these new skills and all of the new things that you didn't, that she didn't know how to do the day before. Also the way she goes through the world. She's fascinated by everything. Everything around is somehow magical and new and, yeah, so she can just like sit, sit in a, in a baby carriage and look around and everything is so, so awesome. She doesn't even need more. And that makes me remember that we actually should be more, way more, way more aware of the world around us and maybe not so, rushing all the time.

[00:28:39] Lindsey Dinneen: Mm-hmm. Yes. I, I love that. I think I think about this sometimes of the idea of everyday magic, and those are just those moments of, I don't know, a butterfly, you know, flying by and you just see how beautiful its wings are or, you know, nature is, is very much that way for me in general. I, I, you know, you go on a walk and you go, "Oh my gosh, you know, those, those daffodils weren't there yesterday, and how beautiful are these things?" And to me, that's everyday magic.

[00:29:09] Amel Havkic: Well, it, it is, and we, I, I do think that we don't take enough time to appreciate it. With always being busy with what's in the future, where we have to be and what we still have to do, that we maybe forget sometimes to appreciate what's right in front of us.

[00:29:25] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Well, this has been a wonderful conversation. I'm so thankful you joined me today. Thanks for sharing your time and your experience and your stories. We are so honored to be making a donation on your behalf as a thank you for your time today to Save the Children, which works to end the cycle of poverty by ensuring communities have the resources to provide children with a healthy, educational, and safe environment. So thank you so much for choosing that charity to support, and also thank you for continuing to work to change lives for a better world. We're grateful, and I wish you the most amazing continued success.

[00:30:06] Amel Havkic: Thank you so much. It was a pleasure being here and looking forward to part two.

[00:30:12] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. There you go. Alright, well thanks again and we'll talk again later.

[00:30:20] Dan Purvis: The Leading Difference is brought to you by Velentium Medical. Velentium Medical is a full service CDMO, serving medtech clients worldwide to securely design, manufacture, and test class two and class three medical devices. Velentium Medical's four units include research and development-- pairing electronic and mechanical design, embedded firmware, mobile app development, and cloud systems with the human factor studies and systems engineering necessary to streamline medical device regulatory approval; contract manufacturing-- building medical products at the prototype, clinical, and commercial levels in the US, as well as in low cost regions in 1345 certified and FDA registered Class VII clean rooms; cybersecurity-- generating the 12 cybersecurity design artifacts required for FDA submission; and automated test systems, assuring that every device produced is exactly the same as the device that was approved. Visit VelentiumMedical.com to explore how we can work together to change lives for a better world.