Empowered Patient Podcast

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, entails the data from wearables that may be collected passively. It can contain survey data from the patient directly, patient-reported outcome data, and the interactions that clinical teams and clinical staff have with the patient as the patient is at home. This can be done asynchronously through text messages, secure messaging, and synchronously through telehealth. So it's the rest of how we get better insights into how the patients are doing in their homes or outside of clinical settings and how we better use those insights to support these patients." "There's a huge fear of just a sea of data you have to wade through to get insight into the patients. And that's never been our intention. We don't just collect data for the sake of collecting data and then give it in raw format to the clinicians. Our software platform has analytics and workflow tools to parse through the data, figure out which data is relevant for a clinician and a given patient at a given time, and prioritize that data for the clinicians. It gives the clinicians additional context to that data." #VetaHealth #HealthTech #RemoteMonitoring #MachineLearning #DigitalCare #VirtualCare myvetahealth.com Download the transcript here

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 analyzes each frame by the AI engine of the system, detects polyps if they are there, and shows the bounding box on the video where the physician is looking. It actually doesn't change anything in the clinical workflow. The procedure stays exactly the same. You just have additional information, which is decision support information for the physician that helps them to decide if there is a polyp. It is just plug-and-play. The installation is very simple." "This is, by the way, done by doing two colonoscopy tests, one immediately after the other with the same patient, and what is being detected in the second one is the miss rate of the first one, polyps that were not detected in the first one. It's called adenoma miss rate, the percentage of missed adenomas. The study showed a relative increase of 37% in the adenoma per colonoscopy, the average number of adenomas that are detected, and the miss rate is cut almost by half."  #MAGENTIQEYE #AIHealthcare #ColorectalHealth #ColorectalCancer #HealthScreening #MedicalInnovation #HealthTechAdvancements #PatientAdvocacy #CancerPrevention #PatientExperience #FutureofHealthcare #MedicalResearch magentiq.com Download the transcript here 

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 you look at the psychoplastogens, the drugs that induce those rapid increases in synaptic density, they are not all the same. So, for example, you have one that is psilocybin, which is in the magic mushrooms. That substance produces hallucination, typical hallucinations, a trip where the person or patient has a vivid hallucinatory experience. But there are others, like ketamine, that don't produce that type of hallucination. They rarely produce hallucination. Ketamine is a dissociative agent where you feel strange or sedated and sleep for a few hours, but not typically hallucinations. And finally, the most striking difference is the effect of electroconvulsive therapy, ECT, or electroshock. In animals, electroshock does exactly the same thing as ketamine and psilocybin or LSD, producing an increase in synaptic density in hours, but it doesn't produce hallucinations or dissociations." #DelixTherapeutics #Neuroplastogen #Psychoplastogen #Neuroplasticity #MentalHealth #Biotech #HealtheMind DelixTherapeutics.com Download the transcript here

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 about a medical record, it meets the organization's needs but can't take care of everything by itself. That's why I believe other solutions and organizations are looking for solutions that can work in collaboration with their EMRs. That's, again, when I think about clinical workflow automation. It's about how it works as an agility layer with your EMR. Not to compete with it but to extend an EMR's capabilities. That's the opportunity people are looking for with those solutions that can extend the capability instead of competing with the capability." "If one benefit came out of COVID, it helped people embrace this in the environment. Before COVID, I used to hear providers, when you talked about virtual care and patients actually doing things themselves, it'd be, "Oh, my patients, they're too elderly to do that. They couldn't manage this technology." COVID forced us, in many ways, to advance technology for our customers and consumers. And suddenly, you had 70 and 80-year-olds doing virtual visits, and they didn't want them to go away after COVID." #Lumeon #AutomatedCare #CareAutomation #CareOrchestration #ClinicalWorkflowAutomation #ClinicalWorkflow #PatientExperience #DigitalTransformation lumeon.com Download the transcript here

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 variety of available foods and how we can support local growers and the waters we choose to drink, we have a lot of opportunities to minimize these deficiencies. In the society in which we live, it's critical that we put these trace minerals back in on a daily basis."  "At Trace Minerals, our niche is putting these trace minerals back into all of our products. But our foundational product is our ConcenTrace Trace Mineral drops, and that's the foundational product that most people are familiar with. We want our listeners and consumers to understand that we're trying to do our part in the delivery system of these products. Because, as you well know, trace minerals don't taste good in a pure, concentrated state. They're very strong. So, we have to learn how to dilute those. And for those with sensitive taste buds, we offer them in tablet form, capsule form, and effervescent form. We're doing our part in helping the consumer find a way to deliver these daily that makes it enjoyable." #TraceMinerals #TraceMineralsResearch #Remineralize #Supplements #PerformanceNutrition #Hydration #Immunity #HealthandWellness #Electrolytes traceminerals.com Download the transcript here

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 diagnostics. We operate a clinical laboratory where we can drive patient results through the tests that we deploy and have a network of distributors and sales channels to get kitted products and kitted diagnostic tests out into the field once they're approved." "Depending on the type of test or the type of disease we're trying to detect, there are some that are just a yes-no. It's sort of a qualitative result. Either the virus or that bacteria is or is not there. Then, there's another for measuring numerous biomarkers in a blood sample. A liquid biopsy is a great example. At New Day Diagnostics, we incorporate AI and machine learning to combine advanced mathematics and science and distill it down to what we believe is a very easy-to-understand result for that physician and for that patient to understand. That is absolutely right. It doesn't help anybody if its result is just a mishmash of numbers without any clinical usefulness for what that result represents." #NewDayDiagnostics #Diagnostics #Cancer #InfectiousDiseases #WomensHealth #GastrointestinalDiseases #Biomarkers  newdaydiagnostics.com Download the transcript here

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 that now digitally." "We have a telemanipulator. Our Asensus system is currently the second telemanipulator to be approved in the US. And so, we have it in a few centers already. And that integrates into the operating room as separate arms on separate pods or platforms that can be moved around, connected to a cockpit or a console, where the surgeon sits to do the manipulating." "Then, the video feeds feed into our Intelligent Surgical Unit or ISU, and those video images are processed and sent to the cloud. We'll store them, we could annotate them, and we can also use them to influence, in real-time, certain types of feedback based on what would be interpreted from the video image. So, someone else is watching the video. The computer is watching the video, too, to tell you things that are happening." @AsensusSurgical #Asensus #Robotics #DigitalStrategy #Surgery #IntraoperativeClinicalIntelligence #AugmentIntelligence  asensus.com Download the transcript here

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 that can have monitoring applied. The challenge with those tools is to make sure that you engage the patient and give them the ability to understand their role in utilizing those tools. So, if you think about part of the assessment upfront, it is also to understand a given patient's motivation and/or capability to take responsibility for participating in these programs." #CommunityHealth #Healthcare #HealthEquity #ManagedCare #PatientEngagement #ValueBasedCare #VBC #ValueBasedAdministration #DigitalHealth hsblox.com Download the transcript here

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 empowered or enabled to do this." "I think when you look at the Medicaid population or low-income populations, there are a lot of assumptions that these folks are not engaged in care, which on some level is true. It's about figuring out how to engage them, reach them and meet them where they're at, and then bring them into the care delivery system." "For Pair Team, we've intentionally made our care accessible through text messages and phone calls. So, we don't create an app or a provider portal to log into. I even have a hard time with those. There are no telemed visits to figure out how to set up on your phone. Most people have phones. It's just they can text and make basic phone calls. And our team is trained to ask them, when do your minutes renew? How many minutes do you have? So that way you can meet them, meet their needs." #PairTeam #SDOH #SocialDeterminantsofHealth #HealthEquity #DigitalHealth #CommunityHealthWorkers #Medicaid #AtRiskPatients pairteam.com Download the transcript here

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 the last 70 years, have been using radiation, which doesn't work very well. It treats the areas that we treat well, but we can't treat the whole body with radiation. So that's where chemotherapy came in. Chemotherapy has been a fairly standard therapy now for over 20 years. Still, we have not made many improvements over our standard treatment of what’s called carboplatin and paclitaxel, which, again, has been around since 1995. Over the last several decades, it’s become our standard treatment for this." #EndometrialCancer #GSK #Jemperli #Immunotherapy #GynOnc Jemperli.com Download the transcript here