Bilal Naved

While going through Northwestern University’s dual MD/PhD program, Bilal Naved wondered why the questions they were being trained to ask patients couldn’t be encoded into more automated, digital systems. Even though medical knowledge is available widely on the internet, navigating it is still difficult, often requiring a medical degree. As a clinical engineer, Bilal is motivated to solve problems that optimize healthcare delivery. The virtual triage systems that he co-created at Clearstep have been deployed in 13+ states to navigate millions of patients. These systems are trusted by blue chip companies (CVS Health, HCA), local health systems (BayCare, Wellforce, Novant), a large multi-specialty provider group (Duly), and the largest population health management organization (Medecision).

Bilal’s work landed him and his co-founder, Adeel Malik, on Crain’s Chicago 20 Businessmen in Their 20’s list for 2020 and Forbes Next 1000. They have been featured in major press outlets including Forbes, Crain’s Chicago Business, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, MATTER, and Becker’s Hospital Review for their contributions to healthcare, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Bilal is supported by the NIH’s NIDDK to innovate machine learning technologies and tissue engineering approaches for treating kidney disease. He is an active member of the NIDDK’s (Re)Building-A-Kidney consortium, has co-authored a textbook in Wiley’s Advanced Materials for Stem Cell Research. and has made peer-reviewed contributions to the fields of renal stem cell biology, regenerative material engineering, and transplant surgery among others.