Martha Adams MA MD FACP

Martha Adams is founder of CCDS, Inc. She has decades of experience in the healthcare field as a physician, educator, administrator, and informaticist. Often her skills have been tapped to place her in positions of leadership within the academic medical center and nationally in her professional society, the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA). She has served on several Boards – the Duke-based Private Diagnostics Clinic, the North Carolina Health Information and Communications Alliance (NCHICA), and AMIA.

Martha’s early career included community practice in Sharon, Connecticut, and in Durham, North Carolina, where she was recruited to the Duke University Medical Center as the clinical lead for general internal medicine and subsequently to her role as a vice chair in the Duke department of medicine, a nationally recognized top tier department. While in the medical center her innovations inspired her colleagues and residents to work with her to implement and evaluate applied technologies, particularly telemedicine, smartphones, and tablet computers. Her publications are found here: https://bit.ly/2Jl2x6N.

Martha’s current activity is focused on a clinical decision support tool she co-developed at Duke, CustomID. This tool is a content management system for antimicrobial stewardship. She is founder and CEO of the new company, CCDS, Inc. CCDS has the exclusive license outside Duke for “CustomID”. Learn more from the company website: http://customdecision.com.

Martha received an undergraduate degree in liberal arts with a major in chemistry from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia, and a master’s degree in chemistry from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. She declined an offer as the first woman faculty member at the prestigious Groton School in Massachusetts for their planned shift to co-ed enrollment, instead chose to pursue medicine at the University of Virginia. Then, for internal medicine residency at UNC Chapel Hill, NC, she added an additional year as the first woman chief resident. During her career she also achieved board certification for added qualifications in geriatric medicine. Martha was a sought-after doctor’s doctor during her tenure at Duke. She retired as Professor Emeritus in 2012 to pursue an informatics career.

Martha plays hammered dulcimer. She and her husband, Richard, enjoy hiking the trails with their beagle off the Blue Ridge Parkway in Alleghany County, North Carolina.