Faces of Digital Health

From the 26th and 29th of October, I will be co-hosting the EPF Congress 2021, brought to you by the European Patients’ Forum. This year’s topic is the digital transformation of healthcare. Speakers from across Europe and organisations such as WHO, German Federal Ministry of Health, European Medicine’s Agency, EIT Health, BMJ and more are going to discuss the state of digitalization in Europe, with a heavy focus on the patient perspective.The event will be moderated by me and Ivett Jakab, who is the president of the European Patients’ Forum’s Youth group. In this short special episode, you will get to know Ivett, who was diagnosed with a rare disease called Wilson’s disease at the age of 16 and underwent a liver transplant as a consequence.In this episode, Ivett shared her story, the meaning and power of the EPF Youth group and why patients between 15 and 29 are such an underserved group, what are the specifics of this age group and more. If you’re working in pharma or digital health and would like to work with the EPF Youth Group, learn more about EPF by visiting www.eu-patient.eu.To learn more about the EPF YG: https://www.eu-patient.eu/about-epf/about-us/Youth-Strategy/Young patient employment project (WAYS) results: https://www.eu-patient.eu/about-epf/about-us/Youth-Strategy/ways/Contact the EPF YG via youthgroup@eu-patient.eu Registration and Programme details for the EPF Congress 2021 at www.epfcongress.euFollow the Congress on Twitter by following #EPFCongress2021

Slovenia is currently presiding the council of EU until 2022. In the first week of September, the members of the Slovenian health tech ecosystem organized a conference about examples of good practices in healthcare digitalization across Europe. In one of the previous episodes, you were able to listen to the panel discussion on the healthcare strategy in Catalonia. Today’s episode is an adapted recording of the panel about Germany, and the upcoming two episodes will be the adapted discussions about healthcare digitalization in Israel and Finland. In the past two years, a lot of efforts have been put in place to accelerate the progress on the digitalization of the healthcare digital infrastructure in Germany. Many laws were passed, the country received a lot of international attention about the DIGA process, which enables startups to make their apps reimbursable. The bigger national projects which saw the day of life this year, however, were the introduction of electronic patient records, telemedicine, and e-prescriptions. On the funding side, the federal ministry of health and the federal states are investing EUR 4,3 billion for concrete projects that work towards the digitalization of hospitals. In this discussion, we’re going to scratch the surface of the design of the national strategy and digital health infrastructure in Germany. and look at the practical example of the Medical informatics Initiative. Medical Informatics Initiative is a separate project to improve medical research and patient care. You will hear more from five speakers. The panel discussion was moderated by Maja Dragović, a former journalist for digitalhealth.net, now a Business Developer at Better. She will also present the speakers.  Speakers:  Dr. Michael Marschollek  - professor for Medical Informatics at Hannover Medical School (Germany) and executive director of the Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics of TU-Braunschweig and Hannover Medical School.  Johannes Starlinger, an MD, working as an Interdisciplinary Digital Health Consultant, Howto Health GmbH, Germany Mark Langguth, eHealth Consultant, Former Senior Product Manager at Gematik Fabien Prasser, Professor of Medical Informatics at the Berlin Institute of Health at the Charite University Hospital Berlin We were also supposed to be joined by Anka Bolka, Head of Director of Field for Development and Analysis, Health Insurance Institute of Slovenia, but since she couldn’t make it, Tomaž Mračun, who manages the application development department at Health Insurance Institute of Slovenia (HIIS).  Recap of the Days of eHealth: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/days-of-ehealth-healthcare-digitalization-in-catalonia-germany-finland-and-israel Join the EPF Congress: https://epfcongress.eu/ Podcast Website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com 

Nina Capital, is a specialized venture capital firm investing in early stage startups at the intersection of healthcare and technology. Level 20 is a not for profit organisation founded in 2015 by 12 women working in senior roles in private equity, aligned around a common vision of improving gender diversity in the industry. Nina Capital and Level 20 recently published a report that showed y. In aggregate, women represent 30% of the workforce. Only 17% of senior roles positions are held by women. I spoke with Yahel Halamish, Nina’s Head of Investor Relations and Diversity & Inclusion Officer and she shared her views of the results, why diversity matters and how can we encourage and improve it. Gender Diversity in the Priate Equity and Venture Capital in Spain Report: https://www.level20.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/ninacapital_Whitepaper-LEVEL20-NINACAPITAL_final_20210830.pdf Read an opinion piece about the report: https://medium.com/ninacapital/gender-diversity-in-private-equity-and-venture-capital-in-spain-c5d7c80a03d1 Join the European Patient Forum Congress: https://epfcongress.eu/ 

If we look at nationwide successful digitalization projects, we often hear about Estonia, Israel, Denmark, Finland, Slovenia, or Israel. All these countries have less than 10 million people. It is therefore not surprising, that in bigger countries that are divided into regions, successful digitalization happens gradually. Spain is divided in regions and each one of them manages healthcare on its own. Catalonia, which has 7,6 million people, is driving a 43 million EUR worth regional digital health strategy, in preparation since 2018. The strength of the new model of information systems is to build the electronic health history with the openEHR standard. This will enable semantic interoperability and enable a person center model for information.  This episode is a recording of a conference panel during the eHealth Week, a week of events about good healthcare digitalization practices across Europe, organized during the Slovenian presidency to the Council of EU. Speakers: Pol Perez Sust, director of Information System Area of Catalunya, Spain Bojana Beović, President, Medical Chamber of Slovenia Blaž Suhač, Assistant to GD for informatics,  University Medical Centre Ljubljana, Slovenia Moderator: Maja Dragović, Former journalist for digitalhealth.net, Business Development Specialist at Better EPF congress: https://epfcongress.eu/Send me a message for a complimentary pass on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tjasazajc/ Visit the website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.comLeave a rating or a review: www.lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

Taiwan spends only 6.4% of it’s GDP for healthcare, but has high satisfaction rates with healthcare, and is also very digitalized. In this episode, a closer look into healthcare in Taiwan is provided by Prof. Yu-Chuan Jack Li - a pioneer of artificial intelligence in medicine and translational biomedical informatics. Professor Li is Editor-in-Chief for BMJ Health & Care Informatics journal, the elected president of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) and has devoted himself to evolving the next generation of Al in patient safety and prevention ("Earlier Medicine"). He has been deeply involved in biomedical informatics development in Taiwan and international cooperation on various continents, including Asia, America, Europe, and Africa. We spoke about the state of healthcare digitalization and AI in Taiwan.CLINICIANS FROM THE US: Based on the conversations happening here & how it applies to your day-to-day, please capture your reflections here to unlock AMA PRA Category 1 CMEs: https://earnc.me/cG1EdOLeave a rating or a review: http://www.lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealthFaces of digital health website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com

After a summer of discussions about medication safety, medication errors, the role of AI in prescribing decision support, precision medicine, and drug development, we’re moving to explore healthcare systems again. Today, we’ll dive into Canada, more specifically Quebec. You will hear from two speakers: Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg - President and CEO Integrated Health and Social Services University Network for West-Central Montreal (CIUSSS West-Central Montreal) and Danina Kapetanovic the Head of OROT - a Connected Health Innovation Hub inside the network.The network serves approximately 345,000 people, who are served by more than 30 member facilities. You will first hear dr. Rosenberg talks a little bit about the structure of the healthcare system in Canada and then Danina will explain a little bit more about how the innovation hub works, how CIUSS is encouraging innovation inside the network, and more. 

Dr. Marinka Žitnik is a computer scientist from Harvard, studying applied machine learning with a focus on challenges brought forward by data in science, medicine, and health. A large aspect of her work concerns the use of AI for better use of medications - either by analyzing and predicting side effects in polypharmacy or by potentially discovering new indications of combinations of drugs that are already on the market. Dr. Zitnik joined Harvard as an Assistant Professor in December 2019. Before that, she was a postdoctoral scholar in Computer Science at Stanford University. She was also a member of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub at Stanford. Some of her methods are used by major biomedical institutions, including Baylor College of Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stanford Medical School, and Massachusetts General Hospital.In this discussion, she talks about the role of AI in the development of COVID vaccines, the role of AI in drug development, realistic expectations of AI tools we can expect in the next 5 to 10 years, and more. ***This discussion was part of the discussions recorded for the movie OVERDOSE - How can we prevent medication errors, featuring 10 speakers from 6 countries across the world. Find all the details about the movie along with full interviews with speakers in the movie here: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/overdose-documentary !!! If you are a clinician in the US, you can actually earn CME credits by listening to this show. Find the link to more details in the show notes. The CMEfy process is powered by Adaptrack - a simple platform to unlock precious time & money, while avoiding malpractice, burnout & administrative risks.  CMEfy this topic:  https://earnc.me/SneirHLeave a rating or review for the show: https://lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth 

According to WHO the occurrence of adverse events due to unsafe care is likely one of the 10 leading causes of death and disability in the world. Patient harm is caused by several healthcare issues. Healthcare-associated infections occur in 7 and 10 out of every 100 hospitalized patients in high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries respectively (11). Unsafe surgical care procedures cause complications in up to 25% of patients. Patient harm is caused by unsafe injections practices in health care settings, unsafe transfusion practices, diagnostic errors, radiation errors, sepsis is frequently not diagnosed early enough, Venous thromboembolism (blood clots) is one of the most common and preventable causes of patient harm. On top of the list are medication errors. Medication errors are a leading cause of injury and avoidable harm in health care systems: globally, the cost associated with medication errors has been estimated at US$ 42 billion annually.Abdulelah Alhawsawi is the Ex - founding Director-General of the Saudi Patient Safety Center (SPSC), and MOH Advisor on Patient Safety. He is a consultant to several national and international quality and safety organizations. has helped introduce Patient Safety as a G20 priority in the 2020 G20 of Saudi Arabia. Currently, Dr. Alhawsawi is part of the WHO’s Global Patient Safety Action Plan Taskforce. He has been trying to help improve patient safety throughout his career. As he says if patient safety becomes a priority as is safety in other industries, we can improve healthcare. At the moment, however, we still lack leadership and advocacy in this field. In this discussion you will hear an overview of factors obstructing patient safety improvement efforts and why, the secret to improve patient safety according to dr. Alhawsawi is better involved and empowered of patients in care planning and treatment execution.  This discussion was part of the discussion of the movie (OVER)DOSE - How can we prevent medication errors. See the movie and interviews with all the speakers: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/overdose-documentary Browse through other episodes as well: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com. US clinicians - earn CME credits: https://earnc.me/xfet5F All the future episodes of Faces of digital health will have links for earning CME credits.Leave a rating or a review: https://lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

Lea Dias is a former Medication Safety Pharmacist at Perth Children’s Hospital, now the Founder and CEO of Quaefacta. In 2013, the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust enabled her to go on a six-week tour around the world, to visit several hospitals in the US, UK, and Israel, and assess how various institutions used technologies for patient safety improvement. Three years later, she went on another tour to get additional insights from hospitals in Bulgaria, France, Spain, UK, Singapore and Thailand. She brought the knowledge back to Australia, where she led the implementation of a pharmacy robotics system. In this discussion, we talked about medication errors she saw in her clinical practice, the causes of those errors, and what were her takeaways from the two world tours related to patient safety. Today, Lea is using all that knowledge to build her company Quafecta, which aims to empower patients to make informed healthcare decisions via ownership of their own health data. !!For Medical Doctors in the USA: Based on the conversations happening here & how it applies to your day-to-day, please capture your reflections here to unlock AMA PRA Category 1 CMEs: https://earnc.me/Fb5PMcSee the documentary (OVER)DOSE - How can we prevent medication errors? https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/overdose-documentary

Some say fax machines still exist because of healthcare. Across the world, paper is still heavily used in healthcare. The NHS is on course to eliminate paper prescribing in hospitals and introduce digital prescribing across the entire NHS by 2024. From 2018 until the end of 2020, 216 NHS trusts have received funding to implement systems electronic prescriptions and medicines administration (ePMA). IT implementations in healthcare take several months. Clinicians need to use several systems, learn about updates of the system. Sometimes digitalization requires more time for documenting patient care. Therefore clinicians can be disappointed that most digital solutions at the moment aren’t high-tech decision support systems that would take away the cognitive load from clinicians. Digital systems still require clinicians to basically not expect the systems to think instead of them. In this discussion you will hear from Duncan Cripps - Electronic Prescribing and Medication Management Lead at University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust. Duncan is a pharmacist by background and a lecturer. In this discussion, he outlined the current state of electronic prescribing in the UK, and talked about the challenges he sees in electronic prescribing in hospitals. One of the key things he looks forward to is the increase of interoperability between primary, secondary, and tertiary systems. This has the potential to bring a single source of truth about the patient to the physician. Consequently, transcription errors can be avoided. Medical Doctors in the USA - EARN CME credits: Based on the conversations happening here & how it applies to your day-to-day, please capture your reflections here to unlock AMA PRA Category 1 CMEs: https://earnc.me/Fb5PMcSee the documentary (OVER)DOSE - How can we prevent medication errors? https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/overdose-documentary