Empowered Patient Podcast

Mark Duman, the Director of MD Healthcare Consultants in the UK, focuses on patient engagement and digital health strategy, working with established life science companies to actually put patients at the center of their activities.  They are also working with start-ups to scale up their digital health services, navigate healthcare systems, and develop patient engagement strategies. The key to a patient-centric approach is working from the bottom up to find patients through local community and faith-based groups and patient advocacy groups. Mark explains, "I'm a former pharmacist. I qualified in Aberdeen, in northern Scotland, back in 1990. I had a particular interest at that time in what we call over here pharmacy practice, the idea of supporting patients to take medicines, which, as we know, 50% of them sadly don't take as prescribed. That has been my focus throughout my career. I've worked in the National Health Service, which, as many of you will know, is the British healthcare system that is funded publi

Derek Streat, Founder and CEO of DexCare, has created an orchestration platform that helps manage healthcare's demand and supply sides. As a data-driven intelligence company, the focus is on allocating limited resources to drive maximum productive utilization for all stakeholders.  While there are often conflicting goals, using large data sets, risk models can be developed to meet the needs of patients, providers, and payers and better manage access to and cost of healthcare. Derek explains, "For the benefit of providers, patients, and health systems, those resources must be allocated. Those precious resources, with limited time and quantity, need to be allocated in a way that makes them the most productive utilization of those resources. We all know that, again, the reason that we often have to wait a long time to get access to care. Whether it's sitting in a waiting room in an ED or waiting weeks or months to get access to a specialist, the reason that happens is often there's a misallocation or misalignmen

Dr. Carol DerSarkissian, Medical Director at Ezra, is bringing AI-enhanced MRI technology to a broader market to help detect cancer earlier in vulnerable and asymptomatic populations.  Using Ezra Flash and a high-speed MRI protocol, MRIs are performed quickly and enhanced to provide high-quality images at the limits of the current standard of care for review by expert radiologists. The  Ezra Flash scan is a full body scan now priced at $1,350, with a goal of $500. Carol elaborates, "The goal is early detection, which is one of our best tools in fighting cancer. Early cancer detection has about an 80% survival rate, compared to less than 20% for late-stage cancer. These statistics are from the American Cancer Society. Yet 50% of cancers are still detected at a late stage. There is a need. At Ezra, we're the first company to leverage artificial intelligence globally, AI across all three key components of the cancer screening process: one, imaging, two, analysis, and three, reporting and making it available dire

Dr. Nora Zetsche, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Veta Health, a health tech company, has designed a continuous support solution for patients that includes virtual care and virtual support of in-person care.  Remote monitoring includes patient-reported data, text messages, tracking from wearables and other passive sensors. Integrating existing electronic health records allows providers to incorporate the virtual data to enable clinicians to make appropriate treatment decisions. Nora explains, "It's always tricky with these buzzwords in health tech because everyone ends up having a different interpretation of them. And so, for us, remote monitoring isn't just what came about in the pandemic, which is these reimbursement codes around remote patient monitoring. Still, it's a whole gamut of virtual care extension into patients' homes. And a part of that is how we seamlessly get information from the patient to the caring clinicians." "And that is, for us, that remote monitoring, that on the one hand, enta

Dror Zur, Founder and CEO of MAGENTIQ EYE, discusses the opportunities for reducing the risk of colorectal cancer through AI-assisted colonoscopies.  He points out the relatively high polyp miss rate that can be due to the size of the polyp, interpretations by physicians, and limitations of the procedure room.  The MAGENTIQ-Colo AI system analyzes colonoscopy videos in real time and alerts the physician to polyps with a bounding box. Dror explains, "The procedure room is not a perfect place. There is some noise, and there are other people sometimes. There can be interference. Also, sometimes, the polyp passes through the video very fast, and even if it is not a very small polyp, it's hard to detect it. Sometimes, the point-of-view is such that it is hard to see. Sometimes, it is hidden behind a fold or something like that, and then only a very small part of it can be seen. It is hard to detect the polyp this way. There are several reasons for that." "The system takes the video, breaks it into frames, and ana

Dr. Eliseo Salinas, head of Research and Development at Delix Therapeutics, is focused on developing drugs to treat central nervous system disorders by addressing synaptic density.  Applying knowledge about psychoplastogens and neuroplastogens, Delix strives to increase connections between neurons in treating depression more quickly and effectively than using antidepressants.  Eliseo explains, "The term psychoplastogen was coined only a few years ago when it was realized that certain substances, like ketamine or psychedelics like psilocybin, produce those increases in synaptic density in hours, not weeks. So, those were termed psychoplastogens. More recently, it is believed that the psychedelics or psychotomimetic effects of those psychoplastogens might not be necessary for the therapeutic benefit." "Neuroplastogens are those compounds that produce an acute increase in synaptic density in hours without producing those psychotomimetics or hallucinatory effects that the typical psychedelics produce." "When y

Cindy Gaines is Chief Clinical Transformation Officer at Lumeon, a clinical workflow automation company. While standard practices are often in place in a healthcare setting, leadership is often surprised at the variations in execution and the opportunities for automation. The goal is to use technology to extend the providers' practice and serve the patients in a familiar, convenient fashion. Cindy elaborates, "As much as we think we have standardized workflows today, I will talk to leaders who are like, "Oh, this is how we do it." And when you talk to the front lines, "How do you do this work? " you find a lot more variation out there than expected by the leadership team. So, that's sometimes where the consulting part of this company comes in. Some people think we're much more standardized than we are, and that's the opportunity to take those standardized workflows and make them easier for the teams to follow. It's this gap between clinical intent and clinical execution." "So when you think foundationally a

Dr. Darrin Starkey, Director of Education at Trace Minerals Research, emphasizes the need for a wholesome, balanced diet and the challenges people face to get necessary nutrients from the food we eat. Of particular concern are the trace elements not present in processed foods. Darrin explains, "We are typically familiar with macrominerals, calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, and sodium. But trace minerals are often overlooked and neglected because they're needed in small amounts. So, in answer to that question, they're the trace amounts of these elements that our bodies need that make up 0.01% of our makeup and yet an essential part of our health that we often don't focus on until we're in a crisis." "But often, because of our society, we're such a reactive society today instead of being proactive. We should wait until we're in crisis before asking the questions. But often, being proactive, of being able to put and supplement these trace minerals back into our diets, is a huge point. If we look at the

Eric Mayer, CEO of New Day Diagnostics, is tapping into the trend for more user-friendly diagnostics that patients can use to test themselves for making medical decisions. While blood draw facilities and complex testing will always be a component of healthcare, as technology progresses, more at-home testing will become available. To better support patients and providers, New Day is finding less invasive ways to collect biomarker information and using AI and machine learning to refine the interpretation of test results.  Eric explains, "The business model is very straightforward. We design and develop our suite of diagnostic products that cover cancer testing, infectious disease testing, digestive disease, and women's health. We also operate a contract research laboratory and CRO services for other diagnostics developers, whether point-of-care or over-the-counter, who want to bring those products through the FDA. We help with those studies, and we help with the clinical trials. And then, we also deploy diagno

Dr. Ed Chekan is certified in general surgery and is Vice President of Medical Affairs and Professional Education at Asensus Surgical, which is taking the platform of laparoscopic surgery and adding augmented intelligence technology. Laparoscopic surgery currently starts with a digital interface in a video image. Asensus is adding augmented intelligence to the video image in real-time to support the surgeon and surgical team with additional information to improve outcomes and the experience of the clinicians. Ed explains, "We're starting with things already being done. We have a feature that is a digital measurement. This allows the surgeon, if measurement is critical to this portion of the procedure, for instance, in general surgery, we'd say five to six centimeters from the pylorus, to start a staple line in a sleeve gastrectomy. We either estimate that through different ways, or we'd have to put a tape measure inside the patient to measure that distance accurately to get that measurement. So we're doing t

Lynn Carroll, Chief Operating Officer at HSBlox, provides a platform to encourage collaboration between payers and providers in a value-based care system.  The success of VBC is based on the perspective of the patient and the ability to personalize the interaction with their entire care team. Assessing the needs of patients and using digital tools to engage patients is bringing the benefits of value-based care to a broader audience. Lynn explains, "On the data exchange side, this certainly gets us into the interoperability space. What we have seen is an emphasis on aligning the participants in the care team. Part of an assessment is to understand who a patient is seeing today, who they may have seen recently, or who are they not seeing anyone. But once you know the care team and that care team is in place, facilitating that data sharing component is a key part of the approach." "We have seen an attempt after stratifying a population to know where there are high-touch patients or folks with chronic disease tha

Cassie Choi, Co-Founder of Pair Team, partners with members in the community, such as nonprofits, homeless shelters, food pantries, and primary care providers, to provide healthcare and related services to underserved communities. Drawing on available resources, Pair Team is using digital technology to connect funding sources to these stakeholders so that they can provide the help that is needed by underrepresented and often overlooked patients. Cassie explains, "I think the issue when you look at Medicaid recipients and underserved communities is that they don't have anything at all. A lot of startups and companies aim for big high-achieving impact. That will happen, but we look at it as we have to earn the right to get there by improving the ecosystem little by little. What we do is provide this care coordination and care delivery to augment the existing systems. I think a differentiator for us, too, is that there are entities in the community that are trying to do this work, but they're really not empower

Dr. Matthew Powell, professor of obstetrics and gynecology and Chief of the Gynecological Oncology Division at Washington University. He was also a clinical investigator in the pivotal trial leading to the approval of Jemperli, a treatment for endometrial cancer. This is an immunotherapy drug that works well for certain types of endometrial cancer and is now used in more than ten different cancers, decreasing the chance of the cancer progressing. Matthew explains, "Some syndromes certainly can cause an increased risk of endometrial cancer. One was named after Dr. Henry Lynch, who first described it called Lynch syndrome, also known as hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer syndrome because the patients are not only at risk for endometrial cancer, but they're also at risk for colon cancer. So, we see a lot of families where there's both uterine and colon cancer in the family, and that's one where that genetic risk is there." "When it came to therapies for patients who had disease that had spread, we, over

Sandesh Seth, the CEO and Chairman of Actinium Pharmaceuticals uses targeted radiotherapy to effectively destroy diseased bone marrow and allow new bone marrow to take over the immune functions. This approach offers a way for those currently unable to receive a transplant to have a chance for a transplant and potentially be cured of acute myeloid leukemia. Sandesh explains, "What we've shown in our Phase 3 program is we could take patients with acute myeloid leukemia, one of the deadliest cancers known to man, where drugs don't work on these patients, and they live about two to three months unless they can get a bone marrow transplant. With our lead drug, Iomab-B, we've shown that we can take non-transplantable patients because they're too weak or frail, and drugs don't work on them. And they have active disease, so they live only about three months. They can't get a transplant because they're too weak. And if you give them drugs, they may die. Or if you give them the conditioning needed to wipe out their di

Brian Whorley, Founder and CEO of Paytient, has created health payment accounts to help patients and their families manage medical costs.  Working with employers, Paytient offers fee-free, interest-free funds to cover deductibles, out-of-pocket charges, and veterinary services.  Using an employer-supplied Visa card, healthcare charges can be paid back over time based on individual circumstances.   Brian explains, "The Paytient card lives alongside your HSA. It lives alongside your FSA. It helps to preserve or protect those balances and gives people time, peace of mind, and security that no matter what happens throughout the year, they have dollars to pay for care. Folks can just swipe the Paytient card, pay the provider, and then pick up and split that transaction into a payment plan that works best for them and their family's budget. They can select the source of funds, like essentially a healthcare wallet that's always full. They can choose to repay Paytient via a linked bank account. They can do just payr

Dr. Bill Kerr, Co-Founder and CEO of Avalon Healthcare Solutions, sheds light on the value of genetic data and is focused on getting the science of gene sequencing better understood. Genetic testing can identify opportunities for treatment and specific mutations that can lead to a more precise therapy. With the abundance of genetic tests available, interpreting the results correctly is the challenge. Bill elaborates, "Our job is to get the science of lab testing adopted in the industry. We have done that by working with health plans that have to adopt coverage for the testing, to be paid for the labs that perform the testing, and then the physician experts who either define the testing when it's useful or who are ordering the testing. We live in an ecosystem where we work with all those parties to ensure that good genetic testing is adopted, that the results are understood, and that they are acted upon appropriately." "The real issue is understanding when a test can be useful to a patient and a doctor. Just

KimberLee Heidmann is the Executive VP of Patient Experience and Customer Success at Scout Clinical, a third-party provider of patient services for clinical trial participants and their families. As a global partner of sponsors of trials, Scout oversees travel, visas, housing and accommodations, and patient payments. Working with underserved communities and patients with rare diseases, Scout removes barriers to participation in clinical trials and supports researchers in their care of patients and trial protocols. KimberLee elaborates, "Right now, the focus in clinical research is very much on diversity and inclusion and health equity. We're excited about that because we're passionate about that here at Scout. We're uniquely positioned to help the sponsors and the sites with those hard-to-reach patient populations. You're seeing a lot more in clinical research, especially in the rare disease space, where we're even looking at cross-border enrollment and bringing patients from underserved populations to areas

Zach Markin, Co-Founder and CEO of HTD Health, is focused on working with clients to develop technology solutions to improve workflow, reduce the time spent on data entry, and provide patient information at the appropriate level of detail on demand. While digital infrastructure supports the integration of health records and related patient information, human interaction is critical to improving patient care and the ability of clinicians to care for a broader audience. Zach explains, "Generally, I wouldn't try to persuade someone who thinks technology is not useful. I would not try to persuade someone to use technology. That's not a compelling way to engage with someone of that mindset. Instead, I would work to establish a more compelling value-based connection based on what that person cares about. If that's a doctor or a nurse, a health system administrator, or someone else who is likely skeptical or rightfully skeptical of yet another technology initiative, I would work to understand what the priorities th

Kathy Ford is the Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Ronin, applying AI and deep data mining to determine relevant cohorts to develop better cancer treatment plans.  Looking at patient-specific data, including genetics, comorbidities, and risk factors, allows medical oncologists and patients to predict results and more accurately anticipate and prevent adverse events. The Ronin AI-based solution also educates patients in real-time as they go through their treatment. Kathy explains, "At Ronin, we are determined to leverage the power of all of the underutilized data in healthcare to better inform clinicians to make a more patient-specific decision faster, essentially, at the point of care. And we're starting in oncology to do so, the most complex disease. We are leveraging all the unclean and uncorrelated data, delivering it to the clinician, adding insights and intelligence, and speeding up decisions. We collaborated with MD Anderson to build the solution. So built with clinicians for clinicians. And we're

Maria Pereira Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer at TISSIUM, discusses her journey to develop a biocompatible, biodegradable polymer to enable atraumatic surgical procedures for tissue repair. This new polymer technology can be used as a sealant and adhesive to replace the use of tacks and sutures to repair blood vessels, nerve damage, and meshes without the use of any penetrating or traumatic fixation.  Maria explains, "At TISSIUM, we are developing a new core technology, a new material that can be used for a traumatic tissue repair. We are leveraging a material that has been originally developed at MIT. One of the features of this material is that it can be used as a sealant or an adhesive, or even as a resin for 3D printing and drug delivery. And we can apply this material in surgery to enable surgical procedures in an atraumatic way."  "Currently, we're developing products across three main domains, including cardiovascular, where we use the material as a sealant to stop blood leaks during cardiovas