Faces of Digital Health

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 

Investments in digital health have been steadily rising for the last seven years. 6.2 billion dollars were invested in digital health startups in 2015, 44 billion in 2022, according to Startup Health. Startup Health is a US-based organisation supporting digital health innovators across the world and globally spreading optimism about the potential of technology in healthcare. The vision that drives that optimism is the hope that we can bring access to healthcare to everyone in the world, that we can beat cancer and cure diseases such as diabetes or Alzheimer’s. That vision is important because healthcare innovation is not for the faint-hearted and as health indicators show, currently, life expectancy and health are worsening across the world, says co-founder and president of Startup Health Unity Stoakes. The market is maturing, he says, which is also seen in the number of companies that attract investments. The total amount of investments has been increasing for several years, but th number of companies that are invested in, is staying roughly the same - it’s just that some companies are maturing and raising higher amounts of funding. In this discussion you will hear Unity Stoakes talk about his reflection of Startup Health which is already 11 years old, he talked about the global expansion of Startup Health, why we need to think about healthcare innovation less locally, more globally, and also why we still need much more investments in the future.If you want to go down the memory lane of digital health, you can also tune in to the interview with Unity in 2017: https://podcasts.apple.com/si/podcast/faces-of-digital-health/id1194284040?i=1000380325225

Hassan Chaudhury is a global healthcare expert, he worked in several countries across the world. He currently works at Healthcare UK; a joint initiative of the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and the Department for International Trade (DIT). His global role includes advising commercial teams in over 100 UK embassies. In this discussion, we chatted about the digital transformation of healthcare and social care in the UK and Hassan’s experience with countries across the world. Which innovations are reasonable to implement in healthcare today? And which technologies are currently not ready for prime time just yet. You might be surprised by Hassan’s opinion. Read an excerpt:

Therapies for cancer are being developed at light speed and upward of 60 gene and cell therapies are projected to reach regulatory approval in the U.S. by 2030, according to the MIT NEWDIGS collaborative. Due to the nature of cancer, readiness for risks in drug development is much higher here than it might be in other medical fields. In this episode you’re going to hear a bit more about what can digital health innovation learn from the mindset present in oncology development. Sean Khozin is the CEO of CancerLinQ, a non-profit health technology company focused on improving quality of care and health outcomes for all patients with cancer. He was the Global Head of Data Strategy and Data Science Innovation at Johnson & Johnson, before that he co-founded Hello Health, a technology company focused on developing integrated telemedicine, point-of-care data visualization, and advanced analytical systems for optimizing patient care and clinical research. He was also the Founding director of a digital health incubator inside the FDA. You will hear a little bit about processes in oncology, innovation in oncology, the promise of decentralized clinical trials and more.Leave a rating or review: lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

In this episode, founders of four very different companies talk about their fundraising experiences. As critically mentioned by Fouad Al-Noor - Co-Founder & CEO - ThinkSono - we should stop talking about the myth that startups search for investors that can offer strategic benefits. It’s true, but fundraising is still primarily about getting money to be able to start a business. The key thing, in the end, is also to find an investor you like as a person. This will be crucial for the investor-startup relationship to survive once things get tough,” he says. And it does get tough. As mentioned by Kei W. Mueller, he talked to over 90 investors with very limited success because the solution Ebenbuild is creating is so forward-thinking.In this episode you will hear:  About a mental health app that world with hospitals to give patients timely support after discharge and prevent to early readmissions,  A startup improving mechanical ventilation with the help of digital twins,  How can immunotherapy production be optimized according to a swiss based startup Limula,  Revolution in ultrasound: handheld ThinkSono is shortening the diagnostics time of deep venous thrombosis.  We briefly discussed each of these solutions and also the fundraising side of startups. EIT Health Catapult Program has plenty to offer, but as a startup you should consider which stage you’re in when applying, to get the most value. Speakers:  Luc Henry – CEO and co-founder – Limula https://limula.ch/ Kei Wieland Müller - Co-Founder & CEO at Ebenbuild https://www.ebenbuild.com/ Fouad Al-Noor - Co-Founder & CEO of ThinkSono https://thinksono.com/ Hans Juergen Stein - Managing Director of mentalis https://mentalis-health.com/ HELP UKRAINE:If you’re a medical device manufacturer or have the ability to donate medical equipment, EIT Health is facilitating the supply of medical equipment to Ukraine. EIT Health has partnered with the Polish Medical Mission, a leading humanitarian organisation working with healthcare professionals on the border of Ukraine. If you are an organisation with the ability to donate and ship any of the medical equipment please complete the form on Eit Health’s website for Ukraine: 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). EiT Health Germany connects 150 renowned partners from industry, research and education from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The unique network helps initiate outstanding innovations in the health sector. 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. 

SPECIAL APPEAL:Dear listeners, as the war in Ukraine continues, the need for medical help is increasing. If you’re a clinician or a telehealth provider, please get in touch with Health Tech Without Borders. Health Tech Without Borders is organising a "Ukraine Telehealth Relief" initiative to provide free of charge telehealth and remote consultations to the people of Ukraine. So if you’re a clinician or telemedicine provider, please contact Health Tech Without Borders: https://www.healthtechwithoutborders.org/ukraine-telehealth-relief If you’re a medical device manufacturer or have the ability to donate medical equipment, EIT Health is facilitating the supply of medical equipment to Ukraine. EIT Health has partnered with the Polish Medical Mission, a leading humanitarian organisation working with healthcare professionals on the border of Ukraine. If you are an organisation with the ability to donate and ship any of the medical equipment please complete the form on EIT Health’s website: https://eithealth.eu/ukraine-appeal/In this episode, you’re going to hear about metaverse and healthcare, which conditions need to be fulfilled for health tech to succeed, you will also get a glimpse into how Canada’s Primary Care Chronic Disease Surveillance System was built. And much more. I spoke with Karim Karshavjee, Family Physician with over 25 years of experience designing, developing, and implementing Electronic Health Records/Electronic Medical Records and helping clinicians use them effectively. He is also the Program Director of the Masters of Health Informatics program at the University of Toronto. Enjoy the show and if you haven’t yet, subscribe to the show to be notified about new episodes automatically. 

When one starts to wonder about why data-sharing is still more or less cumbersome in healthcare, you quickly get to the challenges with interoperability siloed data and of course, data standards. Sharing of data has improved with the introduction of the messaging standard called FHIR. But throughout the years, debates about open standards and open ecosystems have started to become louder. In this episode, you’re going to hear a little bit more about that and the openEHR standard specification. I was joined by Hanna Pohjonen, eHealth management consultant and founder at Rosaldo Oy. Hanna has worked across the world, as a consultant in various regional and national eHealth projects in 31 different countries across Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia. She consults on healthcare information systems and IT architectures, vendor-neutral archiving, data sharing, and more. In her past, she also represented Finland in eHealth matters in the European Commission. In this discussion, you will hear a little bit more about healthcare digitalization in the Nordics, the complexity, and challenges with national and regional eHealth projects and openEHR, what exactly it is, and where it is used.Visit the website: www.facesofidigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or a review: lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealthTo read a bit more about the history of the show: A reflection after 100 episodes: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-did-i-get-100-digital-health-podcast-episodes-tjasa-zajc-1f/?trackingId=J%2BV0zLmqRSSEgTaklgTkUg%3D%3D ****Sponsor mentioned in the episode*****Master E-networking live course on Maven. In ten days, you’ll digitalize and build your network. You will learn how to maximize the value of any event you’re attending: Go to Masterenetworking.com Use the code: FACESOFDIGITALHEALTH10

Many software solutions for healthcare could be described as lacking empathy. Too often, solutions are addressing products viability and feasibility, but put desirability in the second place of priorities, says Tim Peck is Executive Portfolio Director of Health at IDEO. He is an entrepreneur and a Harvard-trained Emergency Medicine physician, who has been practicing human-centered design for over a decade. He spent 3 months in a nursing home to grasp the reality and problems of this kind of environment before he built Call9 - a health technology company that provided telemedicine for nursing home residents. In this discussion, we talked about design in healthcare. What is human.centered design? How to ask questions in your user research? What are the main mistakes innovators make?   More episodes and recaps: www.facesofdigitalhealth.comLeave a rating or a review: www.lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth ****Sponsor mentioned in the episode***Master E-networking live course on Maven. In ten days, you’ll digitalize and build your network. You will learn how to maximize the value of any event you’re attending: Go to Masterenetworking.com Use the code: FACESOFDIGITALHEALTH10