Oura is proud to welcome Ricky Bloomfield, MD, as the company’s first-ever Chief Medical Officer (CMO). In this role, Dr. Bloomfield will set the vision for Oura’s global healthcare programs and partnerships and shape its roadmap as it relates to adherence to ever-changing healthcare regulations. He’ll also enable cross-functional collaboration across the organization to drive the direction of new hardware and software features to scale its healthcare ambitions and guide the company’s expansion in healthcare solutions.
Dr. Bloomfield brings expertise in medicine, digital health, clinical informatics, and navigating the U.S. healthcare system. He joins Oura from Apple, where he served as Clinical and Health Informatics Lead. During his tenure, Dr. Bloomfield led the launch of several features, including Apple’s Health Records on iPhone and iPad.
Before joining Apple, Dr. Bloomfield was the director of Mobile Technology Strategy at Duke University Health System, where he explored the world of clinical informatics, the intersection of technology and healthcare. There, he discovered a problem worth solving: health data interoperability. To address this, he led a team to implement the first API on an Epic-based electronic health record (EHR) that used the emerging FHIR standard, with the goal of helping patients, clinicians, and researchers easily access health-record data. At Duke, he also collaborated on the largest app-based autism research study of its kind and worked as a hospitalist in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics.
“We’re thrilled that Dr. Bloomfield is joining our team to help drive and scale our healthcare innovation,» said Dorothy Kilroy, Chief Commercial Officer at ŌURA. «We have ambitious goals this year, and his expertise will help us refine our vision and dismantle the challenges that exist when breaking into established industries like healthcare and continuing our commitment to prioritizing women’s health.”
Learn more about Dr. Bloomfield below.
What brought you to Oura?
I believe that wearable technology is reaching a point of maturity where it is finally being taken seriously by clinicians as an essential tool to improve the health and wellness of their patients. For that vision to be fully realized, a wearable must not only be based on sound science, but it must also be effortless to wear 24/7 and accessible to everyone.
When I considered Oura, learned more about the product, and met the team, it became clear to me that this is a company that has all the essential ingredients to realize this vision, including deep scientific knowledge and rigor, an unwavering commitment to privacy, and a devoted and loyal member base who believes in this mission.
And maybe most importantly, the Oura team has the passion and skills to combine these ingredients into a product that has the potential to transform health.
How does your background apply to your new role at Oura?
I’ve always had a broad set of interests and consider myself a lifelong learner. My passion for improving human health has taken me on unexpected detours. This started with medical school and residency in Internal Medicine & Pediatrics but extended to learning how to write iOS apps at the dawn of the smartphone age (way back in 2009!) so I could understand how to personally design and build useful tools in the clinical space.
This then led me to explore the world of clinical informatics – the intersection of technology and healthcare – and I discovered a problem that caught my interest: health data interoperability. I wanted to help the patients, clinicians, and researchers at Duke more easily access data in the EHR, so I led a team to build the first API on an Epic-based EHR that used the then-nascent standard called FHIR. While at Duke, I also brought together cross-functional teams to collaborate on the largest app-based autism research study of its kind.
This work ultimately led me to take another detour to Apple in 2016, where they were just starting to put together the foundation for a wearable platform that incorporated clinical data. I led several teams involved in launching multiple features, including Health Records on iPhone. This required understanding the technical, policy, regulatory, privacy, health, and design challenges and working across all of these teams at the company to solve them.
I’m so excited about this latest stop at Oura and fully expect it will challenge me in new ways as we work together as a team to do something that hasn’t been done before at scale!
What is your favorite Oura feature?
I love how my Sleep Score and Resilience levels correlate so well with how I’m feeling. Seeing the objective assessment adds a bit more motivation to get to sleep just a little earlier so I can feel more refreshed the next day!
What do you like to do outside of work?
I’m an avid swimmer who has been competing since middle school. I still swim 5 mornings per week with a local Masters club—that Cardiovascular Age isn’t going to reduce itself!
I love music in all forms, especially jazz. I’ve played the saxophone from middle school through college, and I still play with a local big band. In addition to multiple saxophones, I also play the oboe, English horn, clarinet, and piano and sing with our church choir.
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