Faces of Digital Health

After several discussions about digital health in the APAC region, we are finishing the exploration in the region with a debate about healthcare digitalization in Pakistan. Pakistan has 242 million people. It’s the 5th largest population in the world. If you look at the website of the US state department, you will see advice to reconsider traveling to Pakistan. Life expectancy is low; the country attributes only 1.1 % of its GDP to healthcare. Yet, as mentioned by Zahid Ali, HIMSS Future50 Health IT Leader 2021, A digital health and innovation thought-leader and Consultant, the strategy Pakistan took in the fight against COVID was recognized by WHO as exemplary. So what is the state of healthcare digitalization in the country, and what can other countries learn from Pakistan? That’s the topic of today’s discussion.Do check out other episodes about the APAC region: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/digital-health-in-apac-an-overview-keren-priyadashini-microsoft-asia facesofdigitalhealth.com 

Dr. Keren Priyadashini is Regional Business Lead of Worldwide Health for Microsoft Asia. She leads the company’s healthcare business segment across 17 markets in Asia Pacific. Looking at digital health investments in the APAC region, according to Galen Growth Asia, last year China took the highest amount of funding (58.6%) for digital health, followed by India (22.3%), Australia (5.6%), Soth Korea (4.3%), and Singapore (3.8%). Healthcare expenditure differs a lot among countries: According to the World Bank, China attributed 5,3% of its GDP to healthcare, India 3%, Australia 9.91 %, Singapore 4%. How do these healthcare systems differ and does healthcare expenditure relate to investment in digitalization?More content at: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or a review: www.lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth.com

Many cancer survivors in long-term remission are faced with restricted access to financial services because of their medical history. Some EU countries have already implemented the right to be forgotten - a right for patients to not disclose their medical history. In most countries, the requirement is for the patient to be cancer-free for 10 years, France has changed this time limit to 5 years. Changes across Europe are happening very slowly. The understanding of the problem is poor and needs a lot more awareness. The incidence of cancer is increasing, however, at the same time, treatments are becoming more successful, returning long-lasting health to patients. Due to this scientific advancement, social care and policies should be changed as well. Dr. Françoise Meunier is Member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine, she was Director General of European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer for 24 years from 1991 to 2015. She is also a Scientific Member of the European Cancer Patient Coalition. She has been advocating for the right to be forgotten for almost 10 years. This is just an excerpt of a broader episode published in autumn 2022.

In the previous episode we explored healthcare and the position of doctors in Malaysia. Today and in the next few episodes, we will stay in the Asia Pacific region, by peeking into Australia, Pakistan Singapore, and more. My guest today is Peter Birch, creator, and host of Talking HealthTech; an Australian podcast and membership community about technology in healthcare. In the past, Pete has been running clinics, and software companies, he is still company Director at MetaOptima, creating intelligent technology to help doctors detect and treat skin cancer. He is also the company Director of the Medical Software Industry Association (MSIA), representing the software vendors of the healthcare industry in Australia. Clearly, Pete has a good understanding of tech challenges in healthcare which he shared in this discussion. We talked about the current state of My Health Record, why is Australia not a leader in exemplary telehealth solutions, what it means that the government plans to dedicate 107 million Australian dollars to invest in digital healthcare infrastructure, and more.Other episodes about Australia:Australia, AI and co-design of digital health solutions (Marie Johnson): https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/australia-ai-and-co-creation-of-digital-health-solutions-marie-johnson?rq=australiaF105 The state of healthcare digitalization in Australia (Louise Schaper, AIDH): https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f105-the-state-of-healthcare-digitalization-in-australia-louise-schaper-aidh?rq=australiaF115 Primary healthcare digitalisation in New Zealand, Australia, UK and US (Dimitri Varsamis): https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/us-new-zealand-australia-uk-primary-care-digitisation?rq=australiaREFLECTIONS: A transocean podcast session (Joy Rios, Bianca Rose Phillips, Tjasa Zajc): https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/reflections-a-transocean-podcast-session-joy-rios-bianca-rose-phillips-tjasa-zajc?rq=australia

In the previous episode, you could listen to Dr. Abeyna Bubbers-Jones - Founder & CEO - of Medic Footprints. Medic Footprints is a UK-based company, with a mission to bring various career opportunities to doctors. The projections of clinical workforce shortages are grim. WHO estimates a projected shortfall of 18 million health workers by 2030, mostly in low- and lower-middle-income countries. The previous and this episode explore the doctor’s perspective on career development and opportunities in and outside of healthcare. In the UK in the previous episode and in Malaysia in this one.You will hear from Selina Chew - the founder of Medic Footprints Malaysia, which is a franchise of the UK organization. Its mission is the same: to empower doctors to look value their skills and look for new career opportunities if they feel stranded in their current situation. Selina talked about her own experience as a doctor, and the rigidity of hierarchy in healthcare which makes it very difficult for doctors to have autonomy in their work, and have a say in how healthcare should be run. We also briefly discussed the state of healthcare in Malaysia. With this episode, we are diving into conversations about healthcare and digital health in the APAC region. We will start with Malaysia, and continue with Australia and a few other countries as well.Recap of the two episodes: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/what-do-doctors-want-abeyna-bubbers-jones-medic-footprints https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/Leave a rating or a review: lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

WHO estimates a projected shortfall of 18 million health workers by 2030, mostly in low- and lower-middle-income countries.However, countries at all levels of socioeconomic development face, to varying degrees, difficulties in the education, employment, deployment, retention, and performance of their workforce. In a recent survey of 20.000 doctors from 124 institutions in the US 1 in 5 said they plan to exit healthcare in the next 5 years. The pandemic hasn’t only brought different strains to healthcare workers, It has also radically redefined ways in which work can be done. Generations today have different expectations of their working conditions and career development. In this episode, you’re going to hear a bit more about what do doctors want? Speaker: Dr. Abeyna Bubbers-Jones - Founder & CEO - of Medic Footprints. Medic Footprints is a UK-based company, with a mission to bring various career opportunities to doctors. May it be inside or outside healthcare. In the episode, she talks about what options doctors have and also how to find the right medical professional for your company if you’re hiring someone with a medical background.Visit the website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or review: www.lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

Is it time to stop talking about digital health and just focus on health? Where, in which department, do digital health innovations fit within Pharma? Do we expect too much in terms of the speed of digital health innovation in Pharma?These were just some of the questions discussed at SPELLED OUT: Digital Health and Pharma event.SPELLED OUT is a group name of a series of events organised by Curated Health and Faces of digital health, with which we wish to bring clarity to specific digital health-related topics.The debate was moderated by Tjaša Zajc, host of Faces of digital health and Hicham Naim, the founder of Curated Health, also working at Takeda as Head of Strategy, Transformation & Innovation, Data Digitam & Technology.Speakers: Paul Simms, CEO of Impatient Health, Jennifer Butler, Chief Marketing Officer at Medisafe  Jessica Shull, Director of Digital Therapeutics at Vicore Pharma AB Christophe Jauquet, International keynote Speaker on making customers healthy & happy. www.facesofdigitalhealth.comLeave a rating or a review: lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth.com

When the war in Ukraine began, Marta Kaczmarek welcomed one of the refugee families to her home. She then thought about how more could be done to help Ukrainians and started an incentive called EIT Health Ukraine. EIT Health, which is a European organsation connecting stakeholders in healthcare, partnered with the Polish Medical Mission. PMM is a 22 years old Polish humanitarian organization that provides medical aid to the countries most in need in the world. Since 1999, the Polish Medical Mission Association has been helping victims of wars, catastrophes and natural disasters. Their volunteers include doctors, paramedics, nurses, rehabilitators, as well as psychologists and medical analysts. In this episode, speakers: Ewa Piekarska, President of the Board, Head of the Development Aid Program, Polish Medical Mission andMarta Kaczmarek, Coordinator of the EIT Health Ukraine Appeal explain the current needs for medical support, what supplies are in demand and more. EIT Health Ukraine appeal is ongoing, so if you’re a medical device manufacturer or have the ability to donate medical equipment, please go to the link in the show notes and coordinate with EIT Health to provide help to Ukraine.Please complete the form on EIT Health’s website: https://eithealth.eu/ukraine-appeal/   This episode is supported by EiT Health Germany, which is one of eight Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) currently funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). If you're a startup working in the field of digital health or biotech and don't know EiT Health Germany yet, I would encourage you to visit eit-health.de, where you will find more about innovation, acceleration, and education programs. And as you will hear from Marta, it doesn’t matter if you’re a startup, a small or a large business. If you would like to contribute to support Ukraine, anything you can do to help, will help.

Jennifer Schneider used to be the Chief Medical Officer and President of Livongo. In 2022 she started a company focused on improving access to healthcare in rural America. More than 46 million Americans, or 15 percent of the U.S. population, live in rural areas. Now the company called Homeward is on the mission to deliver care to those who don’t have it, starting in rural America. In this discussion, you’ll hear more about the challenges related to rural health, how could care be brought to the community instead of patients needing to travel two to five hours for a 15 minutes visit, and more.www.facesofdigitalhealth.com

Voice could be called one of the exciting new avenues for medicine and healthcare: first, it is seen as a potential optimization tool, if we used voice tech instead of typing data into software. A few months ago, Julia Hoxha, the CEO of Zana explained how her European startup that provides healthcare organizations with the technology to design and to deploy their own chatbot and voice assistants. In the future, we might discover biomarkers in voice. After all, all the characteristics of voice - how loud or how quiet we speak, what tone do we use, how fast or slow we talk - all these characteristics probably have a correlation with something. But what about starting with something much simpler? Analysing voice recordings that already exist? US company Authenticx listens, analyzes, and activates customer voices. The AI-based software analyzes millions of conversations patients have with customer support agents through phone calls or emails. By analysing these conversations, it unveils recurring trends that healthcare organizations use to make informed, proactive decisions for improved workflows and care. In this discussion you will hear from Amy Brown, executive with 20 years of public and private sector experience in health care public relations, startup management, policy development, quality improvement and insurance operations. Enjoy the show and browse through other episodes on: facesofdigitalhealth.com