Patak’s own awareness came in the late 1990s, when he was conducting a two-year research study at UCLA Medical Center. He watched intubated patients grow fearful and panicked over their inability to communicate. This resulted in increased sedation requirements, which inhibited their ability to move off their ventilators.
Desperate to assist, he created the EZ-Board, a pencil and paper chart featuring his patients’ eight most frequent requests, and made copies at Kinko’s (now Fedex Office). Although the rudimentary copies helped, Patak realized he’d have to tailor the request options for each patient and expand to multiple languages. With funding support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), he developed a digital solution that accounted for a wide range of questions, needs, and languages — VidaTalk.
“On one device now, you have the capacity for translation, video interpreter, audio interpreter services, outspoken communication from touching a tablet, all of this dynamic interaction all in one device,” Patak said. “It brings together an entire ecosystem of interaction in one place.”
A first-time founder, Patak knew that to succeed, he’d need extra support. He took a leave of absence from medical school and enrolled at USC Marshall’s Full-Time MBA (FTMBA) program, drawn by its reputation for entrepreneurial studies. He entered every class with laser focus: growing his business.
“I kept two notebooks in every class. One was for my company and one was for the class,” Patak recalled.
Patak was eager to develop his business acumen, but he was surprised how much of the education emphasized people-first management. He recalls how his professors and classmates taught him to empower his team, build partnerships, and lean on the expertise of those around him.
“It’s the collective experiences of other people that magnify my ability to excel or do a good job because I’m only limited to the experiences that my life can give me,” Patak said. “But if I can gather and collect and use and leverage the collective experiences of everyone around me all the time, I’m this walking force of 15 lives all at once, versus self-reliance.”
After his Marshall graduation, Patak returned to medical school and earned his MD. Throughout his career, the human leadership components of his MBA education have stuck with him, whether it is at a patient’s bedside or VidaTalk’s boardroom.
“My MBA was the best thing that ever happened in my education,” Patak said. “It changed how I see the world. It changed every relationship I have. It changed how I do medicine.”
Looking to the future, the anesthesiologist hopes communication devices like VidaTalk will become normalized treatments in the hospital system, as mandatory as surgeons washing their hands before an operation. According to Patak, that type of innovation will require bold decision-making from medical leadership.
He plans to do his part with his new position at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
“[What’s most important for me] is keeping the patient at the center of my priority, making sure that the patient is getting their best chance of having the best outcome,” Patak explained. “Over the past three decades, I’ve come to understand two things about myself. First, I’m willing to stand alone when advocating for what’s best for patients. Second, I thrive in environments where I can meaningfully influence outcomes.”
