Founder, Clinically Intelligent. NHS occupational therapist.
Juwon Akinyande
Before healthcare, there was football.
Football was a significant part of my life. It shaped my ambition, discipline and understanding of what people can achieve together.
What stayed with me wasn’t simply the ambition to succeed. It was the importance of preparation, feedback and small improvements made consistently over time.
Although my path eventually led elsewhere, those lessons have stayed with me.
The clinician.
I went on to become an occupational therapist, drawn to a profession that looks beyond a diagnosis or a single problem.
You have to understand the person, their environment, what matters to them and what might help them do the things they need or want to do.
Working in the NHS has also given me an appreciation of the wider systems that shape care.
There is the clinical work people see, and then there is everything happening around it: documentation, referrals, handovers, coordination, information and the countless small decisions that make a working day possible.
Over the last six years in the NHS, I have built services, led teams, and been part of work recognised within Barts Health, including the Newham Frailty Virtual Ward, which won a 2024 WeImprove Award for Working Across Systems.
I became increasingly interested in how we might improve the way we work, not simply by asking people to do more, but by questioning whether some things could be done differently.
The question that started CI.
My interest in AI began with practical experimentation. I wanted to understand what these tools could actually do, where they might be useful and where they could introduce new risks.
I started sharing what I was learning.
That became the Clinically Intelligent publication: a way to make emerging technology more understandable and useful for healthcare professionals, while keeping professional judgement firmly in their hands.
But something became increasingly clear to me.
Giving someone access to a tool doesn’t mean they know how to use it.
Teaching someone a new skill doesn’t mean they’ll have the opportunity to apply it.
And introducing new technology doesn’t automatically improve the work.
The challenge was bigger than AI.
Building something bigger.
Today, Clinically Intelligent is a clinician-led initiative exploring better ways to learn and work in healthcare through practical education, clinical insight and thoughtful design.
Our approach is straightforward: start with the work, develop capability and measure what changes.
I don’t believe every problem needs a technological solution. Sometimes the most useful contribution is a clearer explanation, a better learning experience, a simpler process or a question nobody has thought to ask.
We’re still at an early stage, and there is a lot to learn. I’m building CI independently, alongside my NHS clinical practice, with the ambition of developing something that extends beyond my own perspective and capabilities.
That means bringing together people who see things differently: clinicians, educators, designers, researchers, technologists, filmmakers and others who want to contribute to meaningful work.
What matters to me.
Across football, healthcare and building CI, I’ve come to value a few things: curiosity, commitment, high standards and the willingness to keep learning.
I believe good ideas should be tested against reality. That professional judgement deserves protecting. That people should receive credit for their contributions. And that success means more when it creates opportunities for others.
I also believe that we should be prepared to question our own assumptions, especially when something new and exciting promises to change everything.
Technology should serve a purpose, not become the purpose.
Clinically Intelligent is my attempt to put those beliefs into practice, alongside people who share the desire to learn, create and make things better.
The human part is the point.
Clinically Intelligent is built independently of Juwon’s NHS employment and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Barts Health NHS Trust or any other NHS organisation.