Gastroenterologist · builder · writer
Simon Mathews, MD
I'm a practicing gastroenterologist who has spent fifteen years solving real problems in health care from every seat: leading quality and safety for a health system, building products from the ground up as chief medical officer at venture-backed companies, advising startups and Fortune 100 teams, and as an inventor on two granted US patents. I chair the American Gastroenterological Association's Committee for GI Innovation and Technology. My work is the evidence behind health technology: how it is validated, where it helps, where it fails, and what to do about it.
- 1,933
- citations
- 19
- h-index
- 51
- peer-reviewed papers
- 10K
- LinkedIn followers
Topics
Seven threads across the papers, posts and essays. The current work is largest and warmest; the rest is the foundation under it. Pick a bubble to see what sits behind it.
AI at the bedside Ambient scribes, deskilling, the clinical workforce, and what regulators should ask of generative AI devices.
3 papers · 7 posts · 2 essays
- PostWhat FDA proposed, and what I recommend
- PostWhat the tool costs you depends on what you already had
- PostTwo different harms, at opposite ends of the skill range
- PostAutomating a task is not automating a job
- EssayThe productivity ratchet: what are we actually buying when we buy AI scribes?
- PostThe translation ledger, where a scribe helps and where its judgment fails
- PostThe fork, trust or mandate
- EssayBefore AI scribes become mandatory, medicine should look at the black box
- PostLLMs match or beat doctors across five knowledge domains. Most of clinical medicine is judgment.
- PaperArtificial Intelligence–Enabled Opportunities to Reduce Administrative Bloat in Gastroenterology Practices: Scoping Review
- PaperThe Benefit of Artificial Intelligence-Based Diagnosis in Gastroenterology and Hepatology Is Highly Variable: A Diagnostic Need and Burden Analysis
- PaperFellow Education Improved Through Mobile Clinical Decision Support Application: A Multi-Center Approach Involving Peri-Procedural Antithrombotic Use
Patients and AI What patients already ask chatbots, what they want to be told, and the two risks that matter.
2 papers · 2 posts · 1 essay
Validation The evidence standard for apps and devices: scorecards, outcome measures, and how robust the startups really are.
6 papers
- PaperAssessing the Clinical Robustness of Digital Health Startups: Cross-sectional Observational Analysis
- PaperMobile app validation: a digital health scorecard approach
- PaperEvaluation of a Digital Handheld Hydrogen Breath Monitor to Diagnose Lactose Malabsorption: Interventional Crossover Study
- PaperDigital health: a path to validation
- PaperReply: Some considerations on digital health validation
- PaperThe Digital Outcome Measure
Industry Who gets funded, which conditions they chase, and what direct-to-consumer care changes.
6 papers
- PaperSocial media impact on qualitative performance metrics: Analysis and trends of top revenue grossing U.S. Hospitals
- PaperDirect-to-consumer digital health
- PaperA digital health industry cohort across the health continuum
- PaperDigital Health Landscape in Gastroenterology and Hepatology
- PaperImplications of Consumerism in Health Care
- PaperTop-Funded Digital Health Companies And Their Impact On High-Burden, High-Cost Conditions
GI practice Colonoscopy quality and surveillance intervals, access and workforce, and a weekly scored read of the GI literature.
7 papers · 7 posts
- PostWhat mattered this week in GI, week 41
- PostWhat mattered this week in GI, week 40
- PostWhat mattered this week in GI, week 39
- PostWaiting 5 years instead of 3 for the next colonoscopy showed no difference in cancer at 5 years
- PostWhat mattered this week in GI, week 38
- PostGI Signals, the weekly digest that shows its scoring
- PostIt isn't hard to find. It's rarely looked for.
- PaperA 5-Year Statewide Analysis of Unplanned Hospital Visits for EGD, Colonoscopy, Combined EGD/Colonoscopy, and ERCP
- PaperGastroenterology Specialist Supply and Early-Onset Colorectal Cancer Incidence and Mortality in the U.S., 2014–2018
- PaperPrevalence and Financial Burden of Digestive Diseases in a Commercially Insured Population
- PaperAnalysis of variation in pre-procedural fasting duration for common inpatient gastrointestinal procedures
- PaperExperience of nurse practitioners performing colonoscopy after endoscopic training in more than 1,000 patients
- PaperImprovement in colonoscopy quality metrics in clinical practice from 2000 to 2014
- PaperUpper esophageal sphincter abnormalities are strongly predictive of treatment response in patients with achalasia
Policy and payment Billing as a quality measure, Medicaid expansion, physician autonomy, and who keeps the minutes a tool saves.
6 papers · 2 posts · 1 essay
- PostWhat FDA proposed, and what I recommend
- EssayThe productivity ratchet: what are we actually buying when we buy AI scribes?
- PostThe fork, trust or mandate
- PaperAssociation of Medicaid expansion with 2‐year survival and time to treatment initiation in gastrointestinal cancer patients: A National Cancer Database study
- PaperDevelopment of AGA’s Policy Agenda During the COVID-19 Pandemic
- PaperBilling Quality Is Medical Quality
- PaperThe Need for Systems Integration in Health Care
- PaperFocus on Quality: An Opportunity to Execute Health Care Reform
- PaperPhysician Autonomy and Informed Decision Making
Quality and safety How a health system builds the infrastructure for safety: accountability, risk, high reliability, and infection control at scale.
19 papers
- PaperPrioritizing Health Care Solutions for Pressure Ulcers Using the Quality Function Deployment Process
- PaperLatent risk assessment tool for health care leaders
- PaperA framework for operationalizing risk: A practical approach to patient safety
- PaperHow to Incorporate Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Projects in Your Training
- PaperAdvancing health care quality and safety through action learning
- PaperA Department of Medicine Infrastructure for Patient Safety and Clinical Quality Improvement
- PaperIntegrating traditional biomedical and high reliability organisation approaches: solving puzzles and problems
- PaperCreating a purpose‐driven learning and improving health system: The Johns Hopkins Medicine quality and safety experience
- PaperA Model for the Departmental Quality Management Infrastructure Within an Academic Health System
- PaperManagement's Discussion and Analysis: A tool for advancing quality and safety
- PaperRedefining Accountability in Quality and Safety at Academic Medical Centers
- PaperImproving the Quality of Care in Small Internal Medicine Practices: An Evaluation
- PaperMining high-dimensional administrative claims data to predict early hospital readmissions
- PaperDecreasing Central-Line–Associated Bloodstream Infections in Connecticut Intensive Care Units
- PaperUsing the Opportunity Estimator Tool to Improve Engagement in a Quality and Safety Intervention
- PaperThe Need for Systems Integration in Health Care
- PaperEradicating Central Line–Associated Bloodstream Infections Statewide
- PaperCommentary: Establishing Safety and Quality as Core Values
- PaperA National Study Examining Emergency Medicine Specialty Training and Quality Measures in the Emergency Department
Writing
Essays
-
Becker's Health IT
The productivity ratchet: what are we actually buying when we buy AI scribes?
Whether the minutes a scribe saves reach the clinician is set by the payment contract, not the tool.
2026-09-03 -
Becker's Health IT
Before AI scribes become mandatory, medicine should look at the black box
Ambient scribes are recording devices before they are documentation tools, and the record they make has no governance.
2026-09-01 -
KevinMD
Before you paste your labs into ChatGPT, read this
What to tell patients who are already asking chatbots about their health, and the two risks that matter.
2026-08-10
Posts
Two series on LinkedIn: The Implementation Read, one study, paper or policy at a time with the number that matters, and What mattered this week in GI, the literature scored paper by paper. All posts
What FDA proposed, and what I recommend
What the tool costs you depends on what you already had
Two different harms, at opposite ends of the skill range
Automating a task is not automating a job
The closer AI sits to the decision, the more patients want to be told
Waiting 5 years instead of 3 for the next colonoscopy showed no difference in cancer at 5 years
What patients post is not what trials count
LLMs match or beat doctors across five knowledge domains. Most of clinical medicine is judgment.
Papers
51 peer-reviewed papers, 2008 to 2026, in JAMA, The Lancet Digital Health, Health Affairs, npj Digital Medicine, Gastroenterology and Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. Selected, on health technology, quality and gastroenterology:
- npj Digit Med Digital health: a path to validation 2019 · 509 citations
- JAMA Physician Autonomy and Informed Decision Making 2008 · 80 citations
- Health Aff Top-Funded Digital Health Companies And Their Impact On High-Burden, High-Cost Conditions 2019 · 76 citations
- Lancet Digit Health Direct-to-consumer digital health 2020 · 71 citations
- npj Digit Med A digital health industry cohort across the health continuum 2020 · 62 citations
- J Med Internet Res Assessing the Clinical Robustness of Digital Health Startups: Cross-sectional Observational Analysis 2022 · 58 citations
Track record
Health systems
- Head of clinical innovation and assistant director, Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, Johns Hopkins Medicine (2017 to 2020)
- Redesigned the quality and safety infrastructure of a 400-bed hospital; co-led the Johns Hopkins Medicine mortality review across six hospitals
- Co-led the Department of Veterans Affairs engagement to implement quality governance as a high-reliability organization
Venture-backed companies
- Chief medical officer, Vivante Health (2020 to 2022): rebuilt a lifestyle app into a clinically rigorous outcomes platform, led the 510(k) submission for a consumer medical device, designed and published the clinical studies, led the data science collaboration with a large pharmaceutical partner
- Chief medical officer, Pager (2022): ran clinical operations for a 40-person, 50-state clinician team; reoriented the company toward risk-based contracts
- Mentor, Techstars Equitech Accelerator; Digital Health Advisor, UpSurge Baltimore; advisor to digital health startups
Corporate and research partners
- Principal investigator on work funded by Microsoft, GlaxoSmithKline, Genentech, the Maryland Innovation Fund and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory; co-investigator on NIH and VA projects
- Invited speaker for EY (London, New York), HIMSS, NODE Health, Digestive Disease Week, Lausanne University Hospital and the University of Porto
- Analyst, Goldman Sachs Investment Banking Division, before medicine
Inventor and builder
- Lead inventor on US 12,306,173 (camera-based hemoglobin detection in stool, granted 2025) and co-inventor on US 12,327,334 (multispectral imaging with a phone, granted 2025), both assigned to Johns Hopkins University; sole inventor on a 2020 application for optimizing GI treatment plans from continuously updated patient questionnaires
- Built and shipped clinical software: a mobile clinical decision support app for endoscopy (AGA Academy of Educators grant), a hyperspectral stool-imaging platform, and current evaluation and literature tools
Professional society and public bodies
- Chair, Committee for GI Innovation and Technology, American Gastroenterological Association; AGA Future Leaders Program (2018); Government Affairs Committee (2019)
- FDA and Digital Medicine Society Collaborative Community on Digital Health Measures (since 2020); PCORI Patient Engagement Advisory Panel (2019)
- Peer reviewer for JAMA, npj Digital Medicine, JMIR, BMJ Open, Digital Biomarkers and the American Journal of Gastroenterology
Training
- MD, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Osler Medicine residency and gastroenterology fellowship, Johns Hopkins
- Board certified in internal medicine and gastroenterology
- BA with Distinction in Economics, University of Virginia, Jefferson Scholar
Speaking
I speak to clinicians, technologists and executives about health technology in practice: what the evidence supports, what it does not, and how to tell the difference before a tool reaches patients. Recent and upcoming: panels at Becker's ASC Conference in Chicago. I have presented at Digestive Disease Week, the HIMSS Annual Conference, the NODE Health Digital Medicine Conference in New York, the American Gastroenterological Association Technology Summit and Innovation Fellows Conference, the American Board of Medical Specialties, and EY health conferences in New York and London, and internationally on hospital quality and high reliability at Lausanne University Hospital and the University of Porto. Grand rounds and teaching at Johns Hopkins ran throughout.
About
Simon Mathews, MD, is a practicing gastroenterologist and chair of the American Gastroenterological Association's Committee for GI Innovation and Technology. He led clinical innovation at the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, where he redesigned the quality and safety infrastructure of a 400-bed hospital and co-led a system-wide mortality review across six hospitals, and he was chief medical officer at two venture-backed digital health companies, where he built clinical products from the ground up, took a consumer medical device through FDA submission, and ran a 50-state clinician team. He is lead inventor on a granted US patent for camera-based detection of blood in stool and co-inventor on a second, has been principal investigator on work funded by Microsoft, GlaxoSmithKline, Genentech and the Maryland Innovation Fund, and has published more than fifty peer-reviewed papers in journals including JAMA, The Lancet Digital Health, Health Affairs, npj Digital Medicine and Gastroenterology. He trained at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and began his career in investment banking at Goldman Sachs.
The fastest way to reach me is LinkedIn. linkedin.com/in/simonmathews