Bryan Ludwig is Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder of NuView Health – a company that specializes in intensivist telemedicine. An intensivist is a board certified physician who specializes in the care of critically ill patients, one most often in the intensive care unit. The company’s platform provides hospital integration, access to doctors, and physician support.
Ludwig currently lives between Palm Beach, New York City, and the Hamptons. We caught up with him to talk about his work as a healthcare innovator as well as his art collection, work as philanthropist, and love for the East End.
Tell us a little about your background.
I grew up in Wellington, Florida. My parents, who are originally from Canada, had moved to Florida from Minnesota where my father had been doing post-graduate training. The family in Canada, on both sides, date back to the late 1800s with each generation making an impact in various industries, professions, and parliament. My education coupled with my family’s encouragement towards leadership and pursuing innovation in the areas about which I am passionate led me to a career in healthcare. Prior to NuView Health, I was an Assistant Portfolio Manager and Healthcare Credit Analyst. During this time, I worked with a financial firm focused on investing in the high yield, senior secured, corporate bank loan market. This work experience afforded me with the opportunity to develop my financial and structural understanding of the healthcare landscape in anticipation of launching my own company.
What inspired you to start NuView Health?
From day one, my plan was to start and build a company. So the question really was when and how. My family has a history in healthcare services going back several generations resulting in a deep knowledge base. My brother, for example, is a partner at a healthcare investment bank in New York City. Believing that giving back to the community is paramount; I was able to build a company that helps the communities in which I am a part. Social entrepreneurship became a passion.
Along with my father, we noticed a need to bring the academic level of medical care that one finds in major metropolitan areas to community hospitals. Focused in ICUs, we bring an evidence-based approach to care that is protocol driven and proven to improve care, lower mortality, reduce cost, and drive revenue. We leverage our virtual medicine platform to bring a physician to multiple places at once. This creates a win-win-win for the patient, physician, and hospital.
NuView Health works with hospitals and physicians. Tell us more about the concept and the focus on intensivist telemedicine.
We felt it important to align the interests of all the stakeholders — patient, physician and hospital/healthcare system. When you standardize care with proven, best practice approaches you can lower mortality (20 percent to 8 percent in many of our programs), lower complication rates and essentially get people better, faster. It’s a rare instance where operational and managerial efficiencies align with better patient outcomes. Layer in technology (specifically telemedicine), you have the ability to do this in scale. The country has a significant shortage of physicians; hospitals simply are unable to hire enough Critical Care Physicians (Intensivists). NuView Health TeleICU programming allows the same level of care/outcomes to be provided as our on-site programs with published studies to support.
Talk a little about your love of art. What types of art do you like to collect? You’re a supporter of the Parrish Art Museum?
Collecting has been ever present in my family. Whether it’s via amazing finds during our travels or specific period pieces, it’s a fun passion that brings tremendous joy. I feel art and one’s collection illustrates that person’s/couple’s/family’s story. Ever since studying AP Art History during prep school at St. Andrews, I knew this would be an integral part of my life. Originally being exposed to the Old Masters in school and family trips, I always loved the Renaissance masters and appreciative of the way the Medici family led the charge of this era. Jan van Eyck and the abundance of iconography that goes with illustrating the story was always a highlight. Fast forward, I’ve learned much about post modern and contemporary artists and even more recently have been involved with emerging artists through some of the museums that I support. I love Alex Katz and Alexander Calder and some relatively younger artists like ThankYouX, Kevin Hees, and Didem Yagci.
Tell us about some of the charities you support. Why is it important for you to give back?
I had a mentor in my early twenties that would ask interviewees and/or young adults, what are the three most important attributes in a person. The trick answer is character, character, character. So I’ve always had a steadfast belief in getting involved; supporting organizations about which I am passionate in the communities of which I am a part. Specific to the art world, I serve on a number of committees including the Executive Committee of the Museum of Arts and Design, MAD Luminaries; Contemporaries Circle of Parrish Museum and the Young Friends Acquisition Committee (YFAC), and ArtBeat Host Committee of The Norton Museum of Art. I am also on the Host Committee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art Apollo Circle Benefit.
What do you love most about the East End?
The East End is one of my greatest happy places! Stress melts away the moment I begin to arrive and click in. For me, it’s the perfect mix of chill, shoes off, family/friend time filled with great food and weather plus as much social fun mixed in with art and music as you want. Hitting up the Parrish, or a number of the smaller museums and now countless galleries could take a month. A day at the beach or on a boat can’t be beat.
