Faces of Digital Health

It is absolutely scary to get an infection and run out of options to treat it. Broadly speaking, existing antibiotics are and are going to keep losing their effectiveness, if antibiotics and antimicrobials are not used effectively. In this episode, you will hear a discussion with Mr. Oliver Schacht, a corporate finance professional and expert in the molecular diagnostics industry. He is the CEO of OpGen which developed cloud-based software to identify, track and predict antibiotic-resistant infections. In this episode, he talks about the factors impacting the global issue of antimicrobial resistance, the role of rapid diagnostics in the process of effective prescribing of antibiotics, and also the political and economic factors impacting the development of antibiotics.Enjoy the show, and if you’ll like what you hear, subscribe to be notified about new episodes automatically. And if you prefer podcasts, find Faces of digital health where ever you listen to podcasts.  OpGen: https://www.opgen.com/Episode recap:Go to www.facesofdigitalhealth.com to browse through other episodes as well.Leave a rating or a review www.lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

Bianca Rose Phillips is a Global Digital Health Law theorist from Australia, and the founder of a Digital Health Think Tank. In her legal work, she is focused mostly on Australia and the USA. Many people know her by her framework of the so-called 8 pillars of digital health law-making. Bianca also contributed to the recently published book, Voice Technology in Healthcare, she is a lecturer and she also runs two podcasts - Too nice for law and Digital Health Law series.In this discussion, she talks about the current state of digital health law in general, why she opted out of My Health Record, why patients need to be responsible about their data, the legal standpoints in data privacy and ownership, and more.Episode SummaryMore about Bianca: Website: www.biancarosephillips.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/biancaphillips/Join the Voice for equality event on 28 April Browse through other episodes as well at www.facesofdigitalhealth.com

Casey Ross is an investigative reporter for STAT News, where he covers AI development in healthcare and medicine. Last year he analyzed over 160 AI product market approval submissions cleared by the FDA between 2012 and 2020. As it turns out criteria for assessment and the dataset submitted differed a lot. Only 7 of 161 AI products cleared by the FDA in recent years, included any information about the racial composition of their datasets. Those devices were cleared to use AI for the diagnosis of a wide array of serious conditions, including heart disease, strokes, and respiratory illnesses.In this discussion, Casey talks about the state of trust in AI solutions in healthcare, what have we learned from the development of IBM Watson, and more.Enjoy the discussion, which you can also listen to wherever you get your podcasts. And if you’d like to see other topics and episodes as well, do go to www.facesofdigitalhealth.com.Episode Summary

Two-thirds of people who file for bankruptcy in the US cite medical issues as a key contributor to their financial downfall. It’s understandable since if you get sick, you might lose a job and your health insurance. Even if you have health insurance, you might have high deductibles and face the threat of high costs. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, The number of uninsured nonelderly Americans is increasing. It went from 26.7 million in 2016 to 28.9 million in 2019. Billing claims can get denied by health insurance companies and patients are faces with surprise billing costs. This leads to stressful disputes. Sometimes patients get creative. When Stacey Richter's husband landed in a New Jersey emergency room, she took an unusual step. Instead of simply signing the hospital’s financial and treatment consent form, she first crossed out sections calling for her to pay whatever amount the hospital charged. Instead, she wrote that she would only pay a rate of a “maximum of two times” what the federal government would pay under Medicare. Stacey is the author of the Relentless health value podcast and she explained this situation thoroughly in one of the shows. New York Times also reported the story. The guest of this show is Ric Sinclair, the Chief Strategy and Product Officer of Waystar. Waystar is a health tech platform helping streamline payments for over half a million healthcare providers across the US. Ric discussed how does billing looks like and what problems are present and addressed in US healthcare. Episode Summary

This episode explores health literacy improvement and women empowerment in Malaysia, Kenya and Tanzania.  You are going to hear from two speakers: Shamala S. Hinrichsen, the CEO of Hanai, a company providing health information to the underserved populations in Malaysia and Kenya. The other speaker is Mariatheresa Samson Kaduschi, the CEO and CO-Founder of Mobile Afya, which provides healthcare information to people in Tanzania and slowly scaling to other countries in Africa as well. We talked about the specifics of these three markets, the technology used to serve as wide of a population as possible, and some of the challenges the female founders face when designing and implementing solutions that are critical for society, but less profitable from the investment point of view.Episode SummaryTo explore other episodes as well go to www.facesofdigitalhealth.com.

This episode explores Amazon’s efforts in healthcare, the challenges of increasing transparency in AI development in healthcare, and a little bit about the state of turning microbiome research into business. There were many doubts that Amazon could succeed because healthcare and drug management are complex etc. It’s 2021 and Amazon is offering a competitive online Pharmacy and expanding its Amazon Care and telehealth offer. Microbiome space is a hot investment area but a shadow was cast upon it because of the downfall of the startup call uBiome. uBiome first offered a direct-to-consumer gut analysis for wellness. Later they turned it into a clinical test reimbursable by health insurance, which ended in problematic billing practices. In March this year, the Co-Founders were charged with multiple federal crimes including conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit health care fraud, money laundering, and related offenses.Erin Brodwin is a health tech reporter at STAT News. In her career so far, Erin covered the promise and peril of AI in health care, broken news about health tech companies, and written comprehensively about wearables and their impact on digital health. Before joining STAT Erin was a senior health and tech reporter at Business Insider.  Episode SummaryEnjoy the discussion and to browse through more content, go to www.facesofdigitalhealth.com. Leave a rating or a review at www.lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

In January 2021 a jury in Montana delivered what is believed to be the first verdict in a wrongful life case, awarding over $400,000 compensation for medical and emotional costs due to the unwanted treatment of Rodney Knoepfle. In theory, patients have the right and option to draft an advanced care plan, a written document with their preferences about advanced medical treatment, life support and resuscitation in case of a serious health event. In this episode, Ryan Van Wert, MD, an intensive care physician, Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford University and CEO and co-founder of Vynca talks about the current challenges surrounding advanced care planning in the US. Vynca provides comprehensive advance care planning technology solutions that enable health care organizations to deliver high-quality end-of-life care consistent with an individual’s preferences. This episode is a part of the AgeTech series. This is a series of discussions about end-of-life care, geriatric care, caregiving, and the aging society.Episode SummaryMore on the website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or a review: http://www.lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

While discussions about the end of life are not easy, the pandemic opened up space for us to talk more openly about dying and the best possible care in the last days of our lives.This is the third discussion about AgeTech:In the first episode of this series, you can listen to what can we learn about the aging society from Japan.In the second episode, you can hear how an Austrian startup is matching caregivers and the elderly based on their personality profiles.The 4th episode, focuses on advanced care planning.This episode puts the light on innovation in the field of geriatric care. Martina Viduka, a registered nurse by background is Co-Founder of Advosense. Advosense is a Berlin-based startup with the mission to empower clinicians to know when, where, and how best to respond to their patients’ needs. So far, the company developed disposable briefs with smart inlay technology that monitors the patient’s dryness. This makes caring for patients with incontinence a lot more effective and respectful. In this discussion Martina talks about:  Innovation in geriatric care, The future of public perception of aging, Her experience of working as a nurse during the COVID pandemic.  Episode SummaryEnjoy the discussion and to learn more, go to www.facesofdigitalhealth.com.

As a part of the currently running series about AgeTech, today’s episode is focused on elderly care and how to best match caregivers and the elderly. You are going to hear from an Austrian entrepreneur, Anja Silbauer. According to OECD, health care coverage is near-universal, and accessibility of services is generally good. Austria is among the countries with the lowest self-reported unmet medical needs in the EU. While life expectancy has increased in recent years, behavioral risk factors remain a major driver of morbidity and mortality in Austria. Smoking among adults has not declined over the past two decades and is now more prevalent than in most other EU countries. Progress with restricting smoking in public places has been slow, and a smoking ban in establishments that provide hospitality was delayed again to late 2019. Although alcohol consumption has decreased since 2000, it remains above the EU average.• In this episode you will hear from Anja Silbaur - co-founder and CEO of Harmony & Care - an Austrian startup that designed a matching platform for caregivers of the elderly. It resembles dating providers: caregivers and the elderly need to fill out a thorough questionnaire. This serves as a basis for finding the most suitable matches. In the past Harmony and Care (https://www.harmonyandcare.com/) worked with Caregivers agencies in Austria. In 2019 they also launched their own https://careplus24.com/ Care+ platform that enables the elderly or their loved ones to find a full-time caregiver that lives with the elderly person at their home. In this way, the elderly can delay or avoid a stressful move to a nursing home facility and stay at home longer. In this discussion with Anja, you will hear some thoughts about the demands of the aging population, the needs of the elderly, and how society can best approach care in our final years of life. This episode is a part of a longer series about AgeTech and peaceful aging. Tune in to other shows as well, and subscribe to be notified about new ones automatically.  Go to: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or a review: www.lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

This is the first episode about AgeTech and rethinking the last years of our lives. Over 2.3 million people died due to COVID by February 2021. These were mostly older people. Many of them died alone in the hospital, without the option to say goodbye to their families. Without even someone from the medical staff at their bedside. COVID opened up space for us to start reconsidering on a broader level how we wish to die, lead quality last years of life, and fear death less. This episode looks at a few innovations in Japan. Japan is the nation with the largest elderly population in the world. Over 28% of people in Japan are older than 65. The episode explores: Why do the Japanese live so long? What effect does a longer lifespan have on individuals and caregiving? How can healthy life be encouraged already at younger ages? We will take a closer look into a solution addressing visual impairment and a solution for Aspiration Pneumonia, which is a common issue with the elderly. It refers to food going into the lungs causing an infection that can lead to death from pneumonia. Speakers: Adrian Sossna, VP of global sales at HacarusKenji Suzuki, CEO of Plimes Mr. Yasuro Koizumi, CEO of Finc Technologies  Kazuo Kaneko, CEO of Digital AttendantEpisode SummaryMore at: www.facesofdigitalhealth.comLeave a rating or a review