Neil Batlivala has blended his expertise in computer science with his interest in medicine to help design a platform that allows doctors to concentrate on their patients.

Batlivala, who earned his bachelor's degree in computer science with a minor in computational biology in 2014, collaborated with nurse Cassie Choi to found Pair Team, a health-tech startup that frees doctors to focus on patient conversations.

Designed for independent doctor's offices — especially those with high numbers of Medicaid patients — Pair Team gives doctors easy access to care recommendations while they're meeting with patients. It also provides additional administrative support in the form of automated clinical operations and help from a team of care navigators, who are akin to customer service representatives, engineers and operations experts. By simplifying workflow and removing the stress of administrative tasks, clinicians can focus on patients in the clinic.

The interest in health care started early for Batlivala, who flirted with the idea of becoming a doctor before realizing he could make a larger impact with his technological talents.

"I knew I wanted to work in health care, but I didn't know that I wanted to be a computer scientist. I thought about medical school before I realized that I'm actually better at computer science than I am on the biology side. It's where work becomes play for me, so I stuck with technology," Batlivala said.

Batlivala said CMU gave him the technical skills and taught him how to think.

"They teach students to approach the world, look at problems and make an impact. Health care is a very complex system, and CMU taught me how to reduce problems to a handful of organizing principles," he said. "There are a lot of surface-level problems that I see people trying to solve, but to make real impact, you have to ask more broadly 'why does the system work the way it does.'"

Read more about Batlivala and Pair Team in this alumni profile.