Faces of Digital Health

After a series about digital health in the APAC region, this is the first episode about healthcare and digital health in South America. Speaker: Peruvian clinician and innovator Jhonatan Bringas Dimitriades, MD. Jhonatan is based in the Netherlands, and worked across continents as an MD and executive at various tech companies.Discussed topics:  The state of healthcare digitalization in Peru and other countries in Latin America. Opportunities and challenges for startups working with public hospitals in Peru. The need for more education and training in artificial intelligence for healthcare professionals in Latin America. The potential for technology to address issues of access, high mortality rates, and other epidemiological issues in Peru and other countries in the region. The importance of validated data in understanding ethnicities and epidemiological components in Latin America. Past episodes on South America:https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/digitalheath-south-america  https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/sleep-and-digital-health-in-brazil Website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.comNewsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/

Women's Health has increasingly garnered attention, with growing research, investments, and discussions surrounding the topic. Although overall digital health investments experienced a decline last year compared to previous years, the proportion of funds allocated to femtech within the digital health budget has seen an upward trend. However, there is still significant progress to be made. Women's health encompasses more than just pregnancy care, breast and ovarian cancer, or fertility. It also includes addressing gender-based violence and promoting pleasure. In today's episode, we will be hearing from Shamala Hinrichsen - Founder and CEO - Hanai, an application providing reliable health information to the underserved communities in Malaysia and Africa and Mariatheresa Samson Kadushi - Founder and CEO of Mobile Afya - the first USSD application in Africa using internet-free mobile technology to provide basic health information in local and native languages starting with Swahili in Tanzania, East Africa. Mariatheresa and Shamala were already on Faces of digital health in 2021: Tune in: F126 How is Tradition Hindering Health Literacy in Kenya, Tanzania and Malaysia? (Shamala Hinrichsen, Mariatheresa Samson Kadushi): https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/women-health-africa-malaysia-mobile-afya-hanai The reason this is important is, that, based on the meeting on this show, Shamala and Mariatheresa are now building a new app together. Sheher app aims to address the gap in knowledge about female health, which goes beyond pregnancy-related issues. They bring medical education and access while also bringing women into the conversation through personal stories validated by medical info. Their team brings cultural diversity as well as generational differences to tackle this broad aspect of women's health globally. More about She Her App: www.sheher.app Website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.comNewsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/Show notes:Introducing the speakers (00:08-02:49)Topics covered under Mobile Afia and Hanai (03:33-06:35)The importance of sharing personal stories backed up by medical information (09:01-14:57)Differences between the new app and previous projects (15:11-17:48)Adapting technology to cultural contexts (27:03-31:19)The impact of the app, investments in research and solutions for femtech (33:05-42:48)

In South Korea, life expectancy at birth was 82.7 years in 2017, higher than the OECD average of 80.8. At the moment, Korea has one of the youngest populations among OECD countries, with only 13.8% aged 65 or over. This is expected to increase considerably in the next decades. At HIMSS 2023 in Chicago Mira Kang Vice Chief Medical Information Officer at the Samsung Medical Center in South Korea explained why a country that is an IT powerhouse and has fast-speed internet is widely available, isn't embracing telemedicine. Koreans access a lot of services through their mobile phones, and hospitals are introducing AI, robots and data-driven precision medicine. The health security system in Korea has two components: mandatory social health insurance, which provides healthcare coverage to all citizens, and is funded through contributions from those who are insured and government subsidies. The second part is the medical aid program, which is a form of public assistance that uses government subsidies to provide low-income groups with healthcare services. While the rest of the world is increasingly looking at virtual care and telemedicine for healthcare sustainability and ease of access to healthcare services, telemedicine will likely be forbidden again soon since the pandemic has ended. 

This is the third episode in a series of discussions about digital health and healthcare in the APAC region.In this episode, Beth Ann Lopez, a Co-founder and CEO at Docosan, a healthcare marketplace that aims to make it effortless to access healthcare and help find a doctor who is available in Vietnam, talks about the state of healthcare in Vietnam, how did she identify the need for easier search and access to healthcare providers, how is Docosan vetting clinicians on the platform, how to start a business in Vietnam, and more.Episode 1: What is Roche Keeping an Eye on in Thailand? (Farid Bidgoli)Episode 2: China From A to Z: Healthcare Policy and AI Development (Ruby Wang)Website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.comNewsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/

This is the second episode in the Digital health in APAC Series. The first episode featured Farid Bidgoli, GM for Roche in Thailand, who discussed what is Roche looking into in Thailand when it comes to digital health. In this episode, the focus is on China. Ruby Wang, former Head of Health for the UK Government in China at the British Embassy Beijing; Adviser on Health Policy for the United Nations Resident Coordinator’s Office in China, who today works as a doctor in the NHS and a consultant to companies interested in entering the Chinese market, talks about: How is Chinese healthcare system changing, How to succeed in the Chinese market, How do the Chinese data privacy laws impact AI development in China.  

This is the first episode in the series of discussions about healthcare and digital health in the APAC Region.In this episode Farid Bidgoli, General Manager for Roche in Thailand and neighboring countries. Farid talked about the healthcare system situation in Thailand, the state of digital health technologies, what kind of solutions Roche is keeping an eye on and more. The upcoming episodes feature: Ruby Wang, health and life science consultant, former Head of Health for the UK Government in China at the British Embassy in Beijing about the Chinese market.  We will be diving into Vietnam with Beth Ann Lopez, a Co-founder and CEO at Docosan, a healthcare marketplace that aims to make it effortless to access healthcare and help find a doctor who is available in Vietnam. Website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.comNewsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/

After an intense race in AI development lighted by the release of ChatGPT at the end of 2022, two important things happened in the last week of March 2023: Over 1000 tech workers, such as Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, Twitter and SpaceX, Steve Wozniak, Co-founder of Apple, Yoshua Bengio, Founder and Scientific Director at Mila, Turing Prize winner and professor at University of Montreal, Stuart Russell, Berkeley, Professor of Computer Science, director of the Center for Intelligent Systems, and co-author of the standard textbook “Artificial Intelligence: a Modern Approach",   signed a public letter that urges a pause on AI development before humanity as a society decides how humans can control the development. The first subscribers include: As the letter states, “Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.” A day after this letter was published, UNESCO published a press release that calls on all governments to immediately implement the global ethical framework, which 193 Member States of Unesco has unanimously adopted. As warned by Unesco, we need to address many concerning ethical issues raised by AI innovations, in particular discrimination and stereotyping, including the issue of gender inequality, but also the fight against disinformation, the right to privacy, the protection of personal data, and human and environmental rights. And the industry cannot self-regulate, states the press release. Healthcare is moving from the era of gathering data through digitalized systems, EHRs, sensors, and wearables to the era of mining that data for better patient outcomes and operational efficiency. However, in order for AI and algorithms to help improve the health of many, we should strive for algorithms to be open and transparent, says Bart De Witte, founder of HIPPO AI Foundation, a renowned expert on digital transformation in healthcare in Europe, who regularly speakers and posts about technology and innovation strategy, with a particular focus on the socioeconomic impact on healthcare. In this short discussion, recorded at the Vision Health Pioneers Demo Day on 28 March in Berlin, Bart explains: why is open and transparent AI important for the greater good in healthcare, where global medical development is going with different values and regulations about AI and data, and comments on the upcoming European Health Data Space. Enjoy the show, and if you like what you will hear, subscribe to the podcast to be notified about new episodes automatically. Also, go to fodh.substack.com to read our newsletter, which is published roughly on a monthly basis. Newsletter: fodh.substack.comTranscript: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/open-ai-bart-de-witte-gpt4 Open Letter to pause all AI development: https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/pause-giant-ai-experiments/ Unesco Press release: https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/artificial-intelligence-unesco-calls-all-governments-implement-global-ethical-framework-without

Healthcare is facing challenges on all fronts. WHO estimates a projected shortfall of 10 million health workers by 2030, mostly in low- and lower-middle-income countries. Countries at all levels of socioeconomic development face, to varying degrees, difficulties in the education, employment, deployment, retention, and performance of their workforce. Several other factors, such as the aging population and the rising demand for healthcare services, put healthcare systems under pressure to change and adapt. To a degree, with the help of technology. A big topic in many systems, especially in the US, is the move of retail providers such as Amazon and pharmacies, Walgreens, and CVS into primary care. Hospitals are looking at opportunities for virtual care and turning homes into hospital-like environments supported by virtual monitoring. At this year’s NextMed Health Conference is San Diego, Rasu Shrestha - Chief Innovation & Commercialization Officer, Executive Vice President at Advocate Health - hospital system of 67 hospitals across six states – Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, South Carolina and Wisconsin, mentioned that the health system made a deal with Best Buy, the provider of consumer electronics. In this episode, we will take this news as a starting point for a broader discussion: how is healthcare transforming globally, and what does the shift towards virtual care look like in 2023? You will hear from experts from the US, Canada, Germany, The Netherlands, Kenya, China, and UAE who spoke or attended the NextMed Health conference. Speakers: Rasu Shrestha - Chief Innovation & Commercialization Officer, Executive Vice President at Advocate Health (USA), Ali Hashemi, investor, CEO of meta[bolic] (UAE), Bianca Rowenhorst, CIO at the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports in the Netherlands, Lucien Engelen, thought leader, who operates globally at the convergence of Innovation & Strategy for executive boards, governments, corporates (Netherlands), Michael Friebe, HealthTEC Inventor/Investor/Entrepreneur and professor (Germany), Alex Zhavorkonkov, CEO of InSilico Medicine (USA, China, Canada, UAE, Belgium, UK, and Taiwan),  Emilian Popa, CEO of Ilara Health (Kenya) Zayna Khayat, VP Client Success Teladoc Health in Canada, In house health futurist at Deloitte Canada's Life Sciences & Healthcare team and Adjunct faculty with the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management in the Health Sector Strategy stream (Canada).

One of the biggest global challenges in healthcare at the moment is the workforce crisis.Workforce shortages are not related to the number of people that get trained for healthcare professionals but the working conditions that they need to operate under. In today’s episode, we will look at a good practice related to nursing organizations in the community of the Netherlands. I spoke with Thijs de Blok, CEO of Buurtzorg International - an organization of 15.000 nurses that work in self-managing teams and provide holistic care to patients. I asked Thijs, more about the early beginnings of the organization, how it fits in the dutch healthcare system context, and what he observed in terms of care providers globally.Tune in to the episode about nurses in the US: Has The Risk of Becoming a Nurse Become Too Great in the US? https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/nurse-rebecca-love-nurse-alicewww.facesofdigitalhealth.comNewsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/

After a series of discussions about healthcare data in the US, we’re now moving to insights and good practices in the Netherlands. The Netherlands has roughly 17 million people. As you will hear, its healthcare is highly digitalized with high digital literacy. You will hear a short panel discussion that was recorded at mHealth Israel in Tel Aviv. Corne Mulders – CIO University Medical Center Utrecht Simon Vermeer – CIO Erasmus University Medical Center (Erasmus MC Rotterdam) Paul Hillman – CIO Maastricht University Medical CenterShared their views about digital health development in the Netherlands, how their institutions approach innovation, and where they see room for improvements regarding healthcare digitalization on the national level. www.facesofdigitalhealth.comNewsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/