Madison researcher goes from astrophysics to health care with new startup

As a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Bob Lindner used to develop artificial intelligence to better understand the stars, programming ways to analyze the data collected by massive telescopes.

Now, his startup VEDA Data applies those same mechanics to something smaller in scale: the directories of doctors found on health insurance websites.

VEDA Data uses machine learning — in which computers are programmed to learn behaviors on their own — to improve the accuracy of health care provider directories. According to Lindner, computers are great at parsing not just complex astronomical data, but complex health care data.

“The same way of thinking is being applied,” Lindner said. “These data amounts are so huge.”

Read more at the Capital Times