MDCalc Co

MDCalc has brought co-founder Dr. Graham Walker back to the company full time as head of artificial intelligence, creating a new leadership role focused on the use of AI in clinical decision-making and the operational and ethical risks that come with broader adoption across healthcare.

Walker co-founded MDCalc with fellow emergency physician Dr. Joseph Habboushe in 2005. He returns after nearly two decades with The Permanente Medical Group, where his work combined emergency medicine, clinical informatics and technology deployment across Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California operations.

His appointment comes as healthcare organizations increasingly incorporate AI into clinical workflows while confronting questions around accuracy, bias, physician oversight, liability and the potential loss of clinical skills. At MDCalc, Walker will help shape how the company approaches those issues while developing practical AI tools for physicians and health systems.

“The potential of AI excites us tremendously at MDCalc,” Walker said. “Across the country, physicians are already adopting tools that enhance their practice and create more time to concentrate on the patients in front of them.”

Walker cautioned that adoption also creates risks involving bias, de-skilling and liability, along with new ethical considerations for clinical care. MDCalc intends to focus its AI work on transparency, accuracy and fairness while exploring partnerships with other organizations working on responsible clinical AI.

The initiative represents an extension of MDCalc’s existing role in physician decision support. Millions of clinicians worldwide use the platform to access and interpret more than 800 clinical tools and algorithms at the point of care.

Rather than treating AI as a separate technology initiative, MDCalc is positioning Walker’s role around the same problem that led to the platform’s creation: giving clinicians practical tools that can support decisions without replacing physician judgment.

“What Graham and I got right is we were solving a real problem we knew well — always staying focused on what’s best for patients and physicians,” Habboushe said. He described the company’s new AI work as a natural evolution of that approach.

Walker brings direct experience implementing technology within a large healthcare delivery organization. Most recently, he served as co-director of advanced development at The Permanente Medical Group, which provides care to Kaiser Permanente’s 4.6 million members in Northern California.

As a clinical informaticist, he led emergency and urgent care strategy for Kaiser Permanente’s electronic medical record while also working on AI development, commercialization, technology partnerships and broader transformation initiatives. He also helped lead technology and AI deployment across clinical care and worked on emergency and urgent care strategy for Kaiser Permanente’s Epic electronic health record.

His work on responsible AI predates the current MDCalc position. Walker was the lead author of the Physicians’ Charter for Responsible AI, developed in 2023 as a practical framework for implementing AI in healthcare with an emphasis on safety, accuracy and fairness.

At MDCalc, that background will inform efforts to address the practical safeguards required as AI tools become more integrated into physician workflows. The company expects the initiative to include collaboration with outside organizations addressing clinical AI risks and adoption challenges.

“Our sights are trained on safeguarding clinical AI, emphasizing transparency, accuracy, and fairness,” Walker said. “And we are eager to work with anyone who is focused on the same North Star.”

Walker is an emergency physician and clinical informaticist who earned his medical degree from Stanford University School of Medicine and completed his emergency medicine residency at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan.

His return gives MDCalc a dedicated AI leader with experience spanning frontline medicine, healthcare IT deployment and technology development. The company’s next phase will center on translating those capabilities into clinical AI tools that can operate within real healthcare workflows while maintaining the trust and decision-making role of physicians.