Faces of Digital Health

What are the basics of sleep hygiene, the importance of sleep and harm lack of sleep causes to our health? Richard Jacobs is the host of Future Tech Podcast and Future Tech Health Podcast. By now, he has interviewed 1800+ companies in artificial intelligence, stem cells, 3D printing, gene editing, bitcoin, blockchain, the microbiome, quantum computing, virtual reality and space exploration and more. He conducted over a hundred interviews about sleep with various sleep experts, which he did due to his personal problems with sleep. He later turned his knowledge in The Good Night’s Sleep Project, making custom-tailored-pillows based on an individual’s 14 personal characteristics.  The Good Night Sleep Project: https://www.goodnightssleepproject.com/ The Future Tech Health Podcast: https://www.futuretechhealth.com/

The sixth and final episode of a short series about AI in healthcare features Bart de Witte and a discussion about data privacy, the future of AI models in healthcare and the issue of a potentially dystopian future if we decide to let monetization of healthcare data get out of control. Bart is a digital health tech expert who worked as an executive director for the world largest technology vendors such as IBM and SAP. He has been intimately involved as a mentor in the formation and growth of a dozen digital health startups, and lectures at different universities in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Austria. Lately, he has been on a mission to harness the power of artificial intelligence to help to solve current and future inequalities in healthcare. Other episodes in the series: 1- The potential benefits for the patients in the first episode:https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f047-ai-in-healthcare-giving-patients-their-lives-back 2- AI development in radiology with Chief Medical Information Officer at Nuance Woojin Kim: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f048-ai-in-healthcare-part-25-radiology-disrupted 3- prof. Dr. Tadej Battelino, world renowned diabetologies and endocrinologist and Chief Clinical at DreaMed Diabetes about AI in diabetes: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f049-ai-in-healthcare-35-impacts-in-diabetes-tadej-battelino 4- CEO of Orbita - BIll Rogers about the development of voice technologies thanks to AI: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f050-ai-in-healthcare-46-the-power-of-voice-bill-rogers 5- stroke research in AI with Vince Madai PhD in Neuroscience, and Michelle Livne, PhD in Machine LEarning from Charite University Hospital in Berlin:https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/ai-in-healthcare-56-decision-support-for-stroke-therapy-michelle-livne-vince-madai

AI models in the field of stroke with Vince Madai and Michelle Livne from Charite hospital in Berlin, who work on predictive models for decision support systems for the treatment of strokes. Vince is a senior medical AI researcher at Charité with an M.D., a Ph.D. in Medical Neuroscience and an M.A. in Medical Ethics, and Michelle is a PhD machine learning engineer with extensive experience in applying predictive algorithms in healthcare. After obtaining a B.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering in 2012 at the Technion Technological Institute of Israel, Haifa she concluded her Master degree in Neuroscience at Charité University Medicine in 2014. Apart from the current state of stroke treatment research and development, we talked about the state of digital health in Germany compared to Israel and ethical issues surrounding AI, such as data bias and data privacy. In healthcare challenges in data acquisition are reducing the opportunity to save lives and are opening many ethical dilemmas.    Some questions addressed: Signs of strokes are well known: numbness in the arms, problems with speaking fluently. The brain is not getting enough blood. Someone calls an ambulance. What happens when a patient reaches the hospital?  How many types of strokes are there?  Time is crucial in stroke treatment - what are the current support systems available to doctors when a patient hit by stroke is brought to them? What kind of systems are in development?  Even if you are having a stroke, it might not be seen on a CT scan. A lot of AI at the moment is based on pattern recognition. If there is nothing visible on a CT  - what does this mean for the development of AI supported decision support systems? One of the discussion topics in AI is interpretability. Complex models are harder to understand and the more accurate an AI model is, the less interpretable it is. For example, a decision tree is easily interpretable, but has lower accuracy, compared to deep neural networks, that have higher accuracy and lower interpretability. Why is that important?  Opinions are divided between Yes, interpretability is needed and No, interpretability is not needed if the network proved to be effective. Where do you stand on that? A lot of companies are working on AI, but most of the development and testing ATM happens with retrospective studies. How big of an issue is in your view lack of clinical studies done on patients? What does this mean in terms of time needed for AI support systems to come to regular clinical practice if everything needs to be validated through clinical studies which take years to finalize?  If you wanted to apply your knowledge on another field in healthcare - what could be the next frontier you could focus on that is closest to stroke research?

Voice applications in healthcare are used in telemedicine, for remote patient monitoring, clinical trials, and more. Bill Rogers, CEO of Orbita - a leading provider of conversational AI for healthcare - explains the current state of voice assistants in healthcare. Orbita helps healthcare organizations tap the power of voice assistants, chatbots, and other conversational AI technologies to engage patients, improve care, and reduce costs.

In 2016 FDA approved the so-called artificial pancreas - Medtronic’s MiniMed 670G system (Medtronic) a hybrid closed-looped system for glucose measurement and insulin delivery. A lot of companies are developing AI supported decision support systems for doctors and patients. This episode dives in the complexity of diabetes, how it is treated, what role does glucose have on health and how is technology improving the lives of patients with diabetes. Speaker: prof. Dr. Tadej Battelino, the head of Department of Pediatric endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism at the UMC - University Children’s Hospital Ljubljana, Slovenia. Prof. Battelino is among other things co-organizer of Advanced Technologies and Treatment of Diabetes Conference - that provides a world-class platform for clinicians and scientists to present, discuss and exchange insights on the most rapidly evolving area of diabetes technology and treatments. He is also Chiel Clinical at Dreamed Diabetes - Israeli based developer of personalized diabetes management solutions. DreamedDiabetes Advisor Pro decision support system received an FDA approval in 2018.

The idea that AI will replace radiologists comes from the fact that today’s AI models models are very good at pattern recognition. But in reality, the “rich data” coming from radiologists is in the radiology reports, which are to a large extent unstructured. As elsewhere, the 80:20 rule applies here, says Woojin Kim. So the interesting thing are the NLP models mining radiology reports, he said in this interview. So what do radiologists actually do, are they going to start talking to the patients more, why they will not be obsolete anytime soon and more. Woojin Kim is the Chief Medical Information Officer at Nuance, former Chief of Radiography Modality, Director of Center for Translational Imaging Informatics, Associate Director of Imaging Informatics, and Assistant Professor of Radiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Short series about AI in healthcare: 1 - the potential impact of AI on patients When reading about how digital health and AI are improving disease management, waiting times in decision making healthcare, we don't only read about cost savings. These novelties show how patients are becoming more and more equal to healthy people and how diseases are affecting the quality of lives less and less due to less time spent in the healthcare systems, faster diagnosis, faster treatment and recovery. Of course, this is not going to happen tomorrow, but when has any progress ever happened fast, especially in healthcare? Yes, AI applications are still in the early stages of this, algorithms and studies currently based on retrospective studies. But the trend is what it's crucial - the hype is annoying, but it attracts talent. And more people means more knowledge and faster advancements. Other upcoming episodes in the series: 2- the current state of AI in radiology as explained by Woojin Kim3- the complexity of diabetes and development of algorithms as explained by prof. dr. Tadej Battelino,4- AI in stroke management.

No matter which country you go, the predictions about the healthcare workforce estimate that we will encounter significant shortages of doctors in the future. It’s less often heard that the prediction for shortages of nurses is much higher compared to doctors. So today, the spotlight is on them. Shawna is an entrepreNURSE with a wide range of experiences in emergency medicine, cardiac, critical care, international medical flight transport, and workplace wellness. Shawna is an important member of the Exponential Medicine Team. With her curiosity and drive towards a better health she has shaped and launched various initiatives: the EntrepreNURSE-in-Residence role in the Netherlands, an enterprise-wide digital radiology solution, an international emergency medicine training rotation between a US medical school and a New Zealand hospital system, and the Cancer XPRIZE focused on early detection. She explains what are challenges nurses are faced with in terms of working conditions and paving the way to acknowledge their important role in healthcare. F016 with Rebecca Love: iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/si/podcast/f016-why-arent-nurses-included-in-innovation-processes/id1194284040?i=1000416488011  Podbean: https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-h2mjf-95cfb0  https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/2018/08/07/f016-f017-why-arent-nurses-included-in-innovation-process-more-rebecca-love-shawna-butler

South Korea is famous for many things - worldwide, the Republic of Korea has by far the highest robot density in the manufacturing industry, the third-largest market for virtual currency, behind the United States and Japan. South Korea is called the plastic surgery capital, because of the cultural beauty obsession. According to a recent Gallup poll, one in three South Korean women has undergone cosmetic surgery between the ages of 19 and 29. South Korea’s government is even trying to limit the stars’ presence. South Korea also managed to pull off what many other countries crave for: a substantial healthcare reform in early 2000s. Health care is financed through National Health Insurance covering the entire population. To establish big data in the medical field, the nation is currently gathering the medical records of about 50 million people from 39 hospitals nationwide by 2020. Alongside all the technological progress, telemedicine is illegal in South Korea. You will hear why from today’s speaker Ogan Gurel, a doctor, professor, entrepreneur, who has been living in South Korea for the last nine years. His teaching experience includes cellular & molecular biology, neuroanatomy, bioinformatics, mathematical modeling, and technology marketing at Columbia, Roosevelt, Harvard, SAIHST and DGIST. He has also served as an independent consultant to several medical device firms in which he was specifically involved with both European and FDA clinical trial development and oversight. Enjoy the discussion, and research more at www.facesofdigitalhealth.com  Blog post with key points from all episodes about Asia: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f041045-digital-health-in-asia-china-india-south-korea-and-singapore

Singapore, also known as Asia for beginners, is a 5.6 million people country, offering an encouraging environment to tech companies and expats. The government in Singapore is promoting IT adoption and innovation in healthcare. National Electronic Health Record system was rolled out in 2011. Combine that with countrywide connectivity, mobile-first population, and a lot of openness for collaboration with the private sector, and you get a healthtech epicenter in Asia. Excluding China and India, Singapore took the lead by deal volume share in Asia in 2018 with 30%, followed by Japan with 27% and South Korea with 13%, according to Galen Growth. Tony Estrella is a startup founder, investor, corporate innovation leader, and strategic advisor, with work experiences in the US, Europe and Asia. He is partnering with Asia-focused companies who are developing solutions to change the face of cancer and human longevity with core IP stemming from AI, Genomics, Blockchain, and smart devices. He recently published a fiction novel Comatose, which opens many ethical dilemmas regarding the future of healthcare technology development. Some questions addressed: Given that you lived all around the world, what are your observations of Asia? Singapore offers universal healthcare coverage through a mixed financing system. How does the government support digital health development? What drives innovation in Singapore? The Accenture digital health in Singapore 2016 survey found that two-thirds (66%) of consumers who believe they should have EHR access want to see exactly what the doctor sees — not a summary. Opinion? Your novel Comatose book opens up several ethical questions concerning patient data privacy, clinical trials and involuntary inclusion in medical research, hacking, medical ethics etc. How do you see the future of these issues and the actual fear from unintended consequences? What has the process of writing a book taught you about business? (perseverance, dedicated time, did you ever get stuck. How did you design the outline of the story etc.)   **Annual End of Childhood report published by non-governmental organisation Save The Children, ranking Singapore and Slovenia as top countries for children: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/singapore-ranked-best-country-for-children-to-grow-up-in