Faces Of Digital Health

Technically, we've never been more connected or had relationships with as many people as we do today, thanks to social networks on the internet. Yet, while these platforms bring convenience, they are also increasing loneliness and reducing face-to-face interactions. However, technology isn't solely a problem; it can facilitate the easier pairing of individuals who wish to assist those lacking a real-world social network. Take Papa, for example, a company that provides social support by pairing older adults and families with trained and vetted companions known as Papa Pals. In this brief episode, you will listen to a discussion with Ellen Rudy, the former Head of Research and Social Impact, whom I met at HLTH 2023. Ellen shares her insights on the causes of solitude and the potential of technology to mitigate loneliness. Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/ www.facesofdigitalhealth.com

HLTH is recognized as the United States' number one health innovation event. Its unique and vibrant approach sets it apart from typical industry conferences. Each stage at HLTH is distinctively themed and designed, featuring motifs like the moon, sky, and earth, creating an awe-inspiring experience reminding of of a child's first visit to an amusement park. Beyond the captivating atmosphere, the core attraction of HLTH lies in its substantive content and guests. These include key stakeholders from top tech companies, including pop stars who entered healthcare, or public figures such as Arianna Huffington or Chelsea Clinton. In 2024, HLTH will also be organized in Europe. The event concept will be the same, but the content will be prepared by a European team to touch upon key topics in the European space. While they were enjoying their team building in Ljubljana, Tjasa Zajc sat down with Jody Tropeano, Head of Content at HLTH US and Henry Stoneley, Head of UK and Netherlands. They discussed Jody’s and Henry’s

In patient included or patient centred healthcare approach, patient feedback is key for improved care, and healthcare experience. Pep Health uses a digital platform to collect and analyze patient feedback from various online sources, moving away from traditional, less effective survey methods. The platform provides detailed scores and insights, allowing healthcare providers to make targeted improvements in specific areas like access and quality within their facilities. The data and insights generated are influencing healthcare policies and practices, leading to changes in areas such as maternity services and mental health care delivery. At HLTH 2023, founder of Pep Health Meghan Leaver shared more insights behind: Innovation in the patient feedback gathering, What actionable insight healthcare providers can get from PEP insights, Impact patient feedback analysis can have on policymaking Episode summary: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/why-patient-feedback-is-a-goldmine-for-improvements Newslett

Generative AI is making waves in healthcare, with an already visible impact in documentation and potential in drug development, medicine, care, and more. With 2023 nearing its end, it's time to reflect on the impact of AI in 2023. This episode offers:

Women's health refers to a broad range of medical and wellness services specifically tailored to address the unique health concerns of women. Particular focus is on reproductive health, fertility, and menopause. Technology supporting women’s health can go from EHR records, telemedicine services, medical imaging, diagnostic and IVF technology, wearable devices for monitoring health, menstrual cycles, menopause symptoms, robotic surgery in gynecology, and more.  This episode focuses on the fertility market with investor Leslie Shrock, author, entrepreneur, and angel investor working at the convergence of health and technology. Leslie Schrock wrote two books: Bumpin’: The Modern Guide to Pregnancy, which mixes the latest clinical research with practical advice for working families and Fertility Rules, published in June 2023, which addresses male and female fertility. In this discussion, Leslie shared her insights into:  - key misconceptions and lack of knowledge we have around fertility, - how is the market dev

If you’re still trying to wrap your head around the use of AI in healthcare, this episode will give you an idea about the use of generative AI to create clinical notes during an interaction between a doctor and a patient. Augmedix, a healthcare technology company that delivers ambient medical documentation and data solutions. Their clinician-controlled mobile app uses generative AI to instantaneously create a fully automated draft medical note after each patient visit. I spoke with Manny Krakaris - CEO of Augmedix, about the HOW. How is their data model built, what and what kind of technology do they use in their product? Manny also explains why they’re not covering revenue cycle management or RCM-related codes in their data structuring processes, and what are the biggest challenges in the industry at the moment.  The second part of this episode is unrelated to generative AI, and illustrates how existing medical data can be used to create risk prediction tools for medical care. You will hear from Nassib Chamo

In the United States, individuals' healthcare information is dispersed among various healthcare providers. But many companies have been working on creating consolidated patient views, Reveleer being one of them.  Data fragmentation often occurs because people tend to switch healthcare providers when they change jobs and, as a result, their health insurance plans. Since insurance companies have specific networks of affiliated healthcare providers, a change in insurance necessitates a change in providers. Because providers use different information technology systems, individual healthcare data becomes compartmentalized and difficult to consolidate. In this episode, Jay Ackerman, CEO and president of Reveleer, a healthcare technology workflow, data, and analytics company, supporting payers and risk-bearing providers in their value-based care programs, explained: how Reveleer consolidates patient data to give clinicians a single overview of the patient,  what are the biggest pain points in healthcare data mana

VR is becoming a well-established tool in healthcare and medicine to help treat pain management, anxiety, mental wellness, and more. Thousands of studies have shown the efficacy of VR approaches for health because of the impact of the immersive experience offered by this technology. We covered VR in medicine in several episodes in the past, and I’m adding the link to those in the show notes. In this episode, Aaron Gani, CEO of BehaVR, a company providing virtual reality solutions to address pain management, anxiety, mental wellness, and social engagement, shares: the latest on reimbursement, shifts in digital therapeutics companies' business models, which might make VR solutions more widely accessible with direct-to-consumer approaches, the impact of VR on decreasing opioid use in pain management, thoughts about VR and psychedelics since both approaches leverage altered states of consciousness. Enjoy the discussion. You can also read the summary of this chat on our website; the link is in the show notes

Generative AI - a subset of AI technologies that employ advanced machine learning algorithms to generate content, solutions, or outcomes that weren't explicitly programmed into the algorithms has many potential applications in healthcare. But at the moment, the digital health space is filled with noise. This discussion was recorded at HLTH 2023 in Las Vegas. Justin Norden - Partner at GSR Ventures talks about: his observes from the investor’s perspective, what he thinks about the discussions on open-sourced vs. closed AI development, why everyone should incorporate generative AI in healthcare and more. Newsletter summary of generative AI in healthcare: https://fodh.substack.com/p/generative-ai-in-healthcare Interview with Justin Norded - July 2023: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/investors-bet-on-in-generative-ai-in-healthcare https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/

Alex Merwin is Head of Growth, Healthcare & Life Sciences Startups at Amazon Web Services (AWS). In this episode, he presents the AWS Health Innovation Podcast, which showcases startups that are advancing healthcare & life science by leveraging cloud computing technology. In this episode, Alex Merwin and Tjasa Zajc, Host of Faces of Digital Health, discuss: podcasting, how AWS supports startups, what trends is Alex observing in the health innovation space, key findings from the recent Faces of Digital Health series about entrepreneurship and healthcare in Africa. ... and more.  More about AWS Health Innovation Podcast: https://healthpodcastnetwork.com/show/aws-health-innovation-podcast/  Get in touch with AWS: https://aws.amazon.com/contact-us/?trk=d7b08691-7f65-4c28-8b4e-13f1db4e310c&sc_channel=el Connect with Alex: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexmerwin/ Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/

Scarsity of resources can be difficult to image: it encompasses the adaptation of clinical guidelines, palliative care instead of treatment, and clinicians accepting that they can’t help everyone, but need to choose who to save and who to palliate. Khalida Soki is a consultant physician and kidney specialist working in Nairobi. She moved back to Kenya in 2018. She participated in over 20 kidney transplants in Nairobi, successfully run a large hemodialysis unit, grown a clinic for kidney disease and helped write the COVID19 guidelines for the Ministry of Health in Kenya. She is also the organizing secretary for the young nephrologists committee at the African association of Nephrology and an honorary lecturer for the East African Kidney Institute. In this discussion, she explains: how did her transition from NHS to Kenya look like, how do clinicians operate on a daily basis with lack of resources, how they innovate because they have to, how is technology helping educate patients and improve access thro

Kenya has a lot of talent and opportunities for innovation. Access to care is not a problem because plenty of community nurses are present nationwide. However, they have a limited problem and mostly focus on main infectious diseases, leaving serious conditions undiagnosed, says Emilian Popa, Founder and CEO of Ilara Health. Ilara health equips a network of small healthcare providers with lifesaving and essential diagnostic tools to improve the quality of medical care in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this episode, Emilian Popa talks about:  why health insurance is hard to scale in Africa, where people are concerned with daily costs and survival,  investments and how local VCs mostly invest in sectors like real estate and investments for health tech are supported by foreign investors,  why Ilara Health is expanding on the Kenyan market but not in Tanzania, South Africa, Nigeria or Egypt.  Transcript: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/kenya-ilara-health-diagnostics-africa Website: facesofdigitalhealth.com

One of the biggest challenges for healthcare startups in Nigeria is access to market. “In Nigeria, healthcare is fragmented, making it difficult to find distribution channels. We have to be creative and may need to look outside healthcare for distribution channels.” , says Jennie Nwokoye is the founder and CEO of Clafiya - a digital primary healthcare service that connects individuals and businesses to health practitioners to provide convenient, quality, and affordable, on-demand primary care from their mobile phones. In this discussion, Jennie explains:  What are the healthcare challenges in Nigeria, How do startups do business in Nigeria and why is it difficult to scale, How do startups work with local and international investors and more Transcript: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/primary-care-nigeria-clafiya Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/

One of the speakers at the Nextmed Health Conference 2023 said: “In the past, people didn’t age; they just died.” This is still a daily reality in many low-income countries, which face a lack of workforce, poor healthcare system structure, and lack of resources. In this episode, we will learn about Nigeria. Nigeria has 220 million people which is roughly ⅔ of the population of the US. While many healthcare-related resources are scarce, the Internet is available and so is the fierce ambition of local entrepreneurs. These use digital tools to bring healthcare information and care closer to patients or to upskill the workforce. So what does care in Nigeria look like? What challenges do startups face? Where do they get investments?  Hear from: Charles Umeh, Chief Medical Officer of CribMD, Ossai Ifeanyi CEO of CribMD, Jennie Nwokoye, CEO of Clafiya and Christian Chidoziem, Pharmacy Student and Entrepreneur. Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/ https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/

Africa is a huge continent with 1.2 billion people and a diverse set of countries. Healthcare systems are generally poor, with workforce and supply chain struggles, and infrastructure challenges such as power outages. In this episode you will hear about how drones are used in Malawi for healthcare delivery. Herbert Weirather is the CEO of Jedsy - a technology company based in Switzerland with the ultimate aim of designing and developing high-end multipurpose drones. Jedsy is present in Switzerland, Malawi, India and Brazil. In this discussion, Herbert explained: What challenges are present in the medical supply chain in Africa, Which stakeholders does the company work with, what’s their business model, and why there is no such thing as competition in the medical supply drone delivery space, because healthcare needs all the help it can get.  Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/ https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/ Jedsy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGaXHdjoQ-Q https://jedsy.com/

In June 2021, France announced a €7.5 billion Health Innovation Plan, as part of a broader financial investment to boost the French industry.  This funding goes beyond digital health, it’s aimed at supporting biotech development, startups, medtech, and more. In 2021, The eHealth Acceleration Strategy was launched, a large part of which includes upskilling and training new and existing healthcare experts, and medical and social workers in digital health. In today’s discussion you will hear from Louisa Stüwe is the project director of the Ministerial eHealth delegation at the French Ministry of Health. We discussed how the French strategy was designed, who was involved, and what has been realized to date. She also explains the process for reimbursement of digital therapeutics software medical devices and telemonitoring, how France supports the secondary use of medical data, and more.  Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/ https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/ Additional resources: French core information plat

The first efforts to establish ePrescribing in the US started in 2001. However, by 2014 only 4% of clinicians had adopted it. Electronic prescribing became legal in all 50 states by 2007. Eight years later, electronic prescribing of controlled substances and prior authorization were well established on the singular ePrescribing network. In 2022, a new player entered the market, founded by FDB - a global provider of clinical decision support tools and resources for medication. FDB Vela sets itself apart with newer technology and additional features. They are also working on building a veterinarian ePrescribing network. In today’s discussion with Lathe Bigler - Vice President of Clinical Network Services at FDB (First Databank) and General Manager of FDB Vela™, you will hear more about what ePrescribing entails under the new network. Additionally, you will learn about FDB's plans to enhance medication information for patients, improve accessibility to pharmacogenomics insights, and more. Newsletter: https://fod

A systemic approach to care for non-communicable diseases like hypertension and diabetes is Africa is in its early stages, with the biggest challenge for patients being the price of medications, says Anne Stake, Chief Strategy and Product Officer at Medtronic Labs.  Medtronic Labs is a nonprofit organization that works with governments and local communities in across Africa to create local ecosystems for the management of hypertension and diabetes. In this episode, Anne Stake explains: how does Medtronic Labs work, why are they present in Africa, how to run successful non-communicable diseases programs in Africa, why regulation isn't as loose in less developed markets than the West might think, ...and more! This is a rerun of an episode first published in July 2022. www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Excerpt and full episode with Anne Stake: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/medtronic-labs-africa?rq=medtronic Herve Mwamba - South Africa & Africa More Broady: What’s The State of Medical Device Re

Drug development is undeniably expensive. For years, the pharmaceutical industry cited an estimate of 3 billion US dollars. However, a recent study published in 2020 discovered that the median cost actually falls between 985 million and 1.3 billion US dollars. Even within this range, it remains a substantial amount. The high cost primarily stems from the significant failure rate of new potential medications that never progress beyond clinical trials. Computational biology and AI have already assumed significant roles in drug development. The aspiration is for them to expedite the creation of new, more precise, and tailored medications. Today, we will delve into biotech and explore how technology aids in predicting a specific patient's response to a particular drug. In a conversation with Rafael Rosengarten, the CEO of Genialis - a company using machine learning and high-throughput omics data to capture underlying disease biology and predict how patients will likely respond to targeted therapies, we explored t

Chronic diseases are the result of a combination of genetic, physiological, environmental and behavioral factors. They require long-term management and often behavioral changes. Achieving long-lasting effects can be extremely difficult, and digital health solutions have since the beginning been seen as an important factor in assuring success, by providing patients with continuous monitoring and feedback. Omada Health is a US digital behavioral medicine company that uses digital tools and personalized support to help individuals living with prediabetes, diabetes, hypertension, and musculoskeletal issues. It’s been present on the market for over a decade, so in this discussion, you will hear the CEO Sean Duffy talk about what exactly does Omada do differently compared to traditional chronic care management providers, we discussed approaches to providing sustainable long-term chronic care management, and touched the topic of the sharp rise in popularity of GLP-1 drugs, we’ve seen in the last year. GLP-1 agonists