I've managed my own health for most of my life. No one ever had the whole picture, so I built something that does.
— Barry Katzman, founder of CHAI
BS, Computer and Electrical Engineering, State University of New York at New Paltz, 1992 · more than thirty years in information technology
For almost forty years I've treated my health as something to manage, not just check on. Ulcerative colitis since 1987, hypogonadism since 2011, and a family history of cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes meant I had to. I do it every day, with supplements, diet, training and the way I live, and it's working.
The healthcare system isn't built for that. A wellness visit once a year is a snapshot: one draw, compared against one range, and a verdict of normal or not. Between visits nobody is looking. Nobody lines up this year's labs against last year's, or against what I changed in between, or against how I've been sleeping. I was a chart that got opened once a year.
I spent more than thirty years building and running information systems. When I looked at my own record, I saw what I'd seen in every system I ever worked on: plenty of data, no single place that held it, and nothing reading it. So I built the thing that does. CHAI reads my whole record every morning, finds the trends and the correlations, and tells me what to do next, with the data behind it. Much of it I act on myself. Anything that needs my clinician goes to my clinician, and my clinician sees all of it.
I built it for myself first. Now I want every longevity practice to be able to give it to their patients.
"A wellness visit once a year is a snapshot. My health doesn't happen once a year."
"The checkpoint said completed. It never measured PSA, ALT or WBC. CHAI caught that. I didn't."
"It tells me what to do next. Most of it I handle myself. Whatever needs my doctor goes to my doctor, and my doctor sees all of it."