06/02/2026
Designing Healthcare Tools with Intent. Feedback from a Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgeon 🩺
At Akili AI, we have learned that it does not really matter who pays, who integrates, or who wants to steer the story. If you are not building with end users, you are guessing. That is why we spend less time pitching and more time sitting down with doctors and asking them to walk us through their reality, end to end.
Recently, we sat down with Dr. Vengal Medapati to talk through some of the practical realities of surgery and specialist consultations. Not AI in theory, but time, risk, repetition, and follow-up as they show up in day-to-day practice.
Here are the insights from a few of our questions:
Where does your admin time actually go, per patient? ⌛
A single patient journey can involve:
Consultation notes during the consult: 20 to 30 minutes
Consent and pre-op documentation: around 10 minutes
Operative notes written after surgery: 30 to 40 minutes
Post-op instructions and follow-ups: around 15 minutes
Referrals and letters: 30 to 60 minutes
Medical aid and billing admin: 15 to 20 minutes
This is not inefficiency. It is the cost of careful, defensible surgery.
Which documentation carries the highest medico-legal risk? 📃
Initial consultation notes, consent documentation, surgical notes, and follow-up records carry the most risk. In particular, whether potential complications, both short-term and long-term, were clearly explained, understood, and documented. If it is not written down properly, it effectively did not happen.
What do you repeat word-for-word every day? 🗣️
Almost everything. Pathology explanations, intra-operative risks, post-operative risks, and the distinction between short-term and long-term complications. These explanations are delivered clearly and consistently, but almost always from memory, despite being some of the most clinically and legally important parts of the consult.
Where does follow-up tend to break down? 💔
Appointment scheduling and follow-up coordination are pain points. These are small gaps that do not look serious individually, but compound across a full surgical schedule.
If there were one thing you could automate in a consult, what would actually make a difference? 🖥️
First, comprehensive initial consultation notes. These carry the highest clinical and medico-legal weight, are the most time-consuming to recreate after the fact, and form the foundation for everything that follows.
Second, clear, patient-ready aftercare instructions. These reduce confusion, prevent avoidable follow-ups, and ensure that what was explained verbally is consistently understood and documented.
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A big thank you to Dr. Vengal Medapati for sharing some insights, we will continue to work closely with medical professionals, ensuring Akili AI evolves to solve real world problems, and improve patient care!
