Ed Flinchem is a Principal Data Scientist with the Davita Medical Group, a major provider of primary and specialty care in six states. Ed's focus is on developing predictive machine learning models to optimize value based care delivery with an emphasis on forecasting high risk, high complexity outcomes. Ed leverages both the structured and unstructured data (free text) of electronic health records, in the service of providing better healthcare, for more people, at lower cost. Ed has served the Davita Medical Group and its subsidiary, The Everett Clinic, since 2017.
Over his 27 year career, Ed has served in industry, government, academic, and startup roles. As Chief Data Scientist at TurboPatent, Ed applied machine learning to the text of patent applications to predict rejections by the US Patent Office. Ed co-invented the predictive text input method, T9, a product based on machine learning and one of the most widely distributed pieces of software in history, used daily by billions of persons texting on their mobile phones. Prior to developing T9, Ed served in academic and government labs developing software to advance research and teaching in physical oceanography and geophysics, acquiring expertise in large scale data analysis, statistics, geographical information systems, satellite remote sensing, fluid dynamics, and digital signal processing.
Ed earned his B.A. in physics at Brown University in 1985, followed by graduate study in physical oceanography and geophysics at the University of Washington. He has authored over 20 publications, including 5 journal articles and 15 patent applications.