Faces of Digital Health

Generative AI is definitely the word we will remember 2023 by. Knowing that administrative burden is among the key reason for physician burnout, the idea that AI could tackle this challenge, became a little bit more tangible with the raised awareness and public understanding of generative AI. But where are we exactly, and how is generative AI utilized for clinical use cases, administration, patient care and in biotech? GSR Ventures and Maven Ventures are two health technology-focused VC firms that analyzed 145 startups across healthcare delivery and life sciences with generative AI solutions. They highlighted their innovations, challenges, and market potential. Collectively, the startups have earned more than $20 billion in funding and have 47,000 employees.I had the pleasure to chat with Partner at GSR Ventures Justin Norden about the report and details such as: why has biotech raised the most so far, why not are startups working on the administrative issues, how do investors look at liability issues with generative AI, and what exactly are they looking for in startups, apart from a great team? Full generative AI companies in healthcare report: https://aicheckup.substack.com/p/where-generative-ai-meets-healthcarewww.facesofdigitalhealth.comNewsletter: fodh.substack.comSPONSOR:Magic MindGo to magicmind.com/digitalhealthuse the code DIGITALHEALTH20 to get a discount on your purchase

Nurses play a key role in patient care, but their contribution to patient outcomes is often undervalued and underappreciated. It took a pandemic to create a major shift in their job opportunities and power to negotiate. Many nurses left the profession entirely, others switched to better-paid travel or agency jobs. The pandemic is settling down so the question debated in today’s episode, is what is the position the nurses are in today? You will hear from:Rebecca Love, Thought Leader on Nurse Innovation & Entrepreneurship, experienced nurse executive and entrepreneur, and Chief Clinical Officer of IntelyCare,Alice Benjamin, nurse, author, and health advocate is affectionately known as America's favorite nurse.Rebecca and Alice talked about the position of nurses, healthcare technologies that are not designed to make the work of nurses easier, recent criminal cases against nurses in the US, and what needs to change so that being a nurse will be an attractive job opportunity. Let’s dive in, and if you will enjoy the discussion, do leave a rating or a review wherever you get your podcast and subscribe to receive the next episode straight to your podcast inbox. Also, do check our newsletter! It’s published on a monthly basis. Now to Rebecca and Alice.Monthly newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/Leave a rating or a review: lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealthOfficial website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com

Healthcare is one of the rare industries, in which often times, by requesting a service, the work hardly begins for the patient. Especially in complex cases, care is rarely seamless: test are done, drugs are presribed and if all goes well the problem is resolved. But oftentimes months can pass before the right drug and dose is found. Antidepressants are a good example. They are still often prescribed on a trial and error basis, with changes made if the initial regimen proves ineffective. But what if there was a better way for prescribing? This is where pharmacogenomic testing comes into play. By analyzing genetic variations that influence drug metabolism, efficacy, and potential adverse reactions, pharmacogenomics tests provide valuable insights for personalized treatment decisions. However, despite its potential, implementing pharmacogenomics testing is more complex than it may seem.In this discussion, you will hear from Adrijana Kekic, Pharmacogenomics Clinical Specialist at the Mayo Clinic. We discussed  the current state of pharmacogenomics,  the optimal timing for individuals to undergo a pharmacogenomics test, to get the right drug and the right dose based on your metabolism, Why is pharmacogenomics not used more frequently,  Further development of the field.  www.facesofdigitalhealth.comNewsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/

Telemedicine is becoming an archaic term in 2023. It is also too broad. We now have at-home hospitals, virtual wards, remote monitoring, and more. Video consultations and online patient portals saw a spike during the pandemic. While many encounters have returned to the in-person setting, a lot of development is happening in workforce optimization. This aims to reduce the burden on hospital infrastructure and improve patient outcomes by bringing clinical staff back into patients' homes, provided they have the necessary conditions, equipment, and support for at-home care.In this episode, you will hear from Svein Willassen, Co-Founder and CEO of Confrere, the leading telehealth company in Scandinavia (acquired by Daily.co in 2022). Svein and I discussed the changing landscape of telemedicine provision, expectations from generative AI, how software providers can sell to hospitals in Nordic countries, and more.www.facesofdigitalhealth.comNewsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/

Mexico has 126 million people which is a bit more than half as much as Brazil in South America, or three times as much as Argentina, which we discussed in one of our previous episodes as well. Mexico has a predominantly public healthcare system, with workforce shortages - only 2.4 doctors per 1000 people, which is heavily below the OECD average. For comparison, the number of doctors per 1000 people in the US is 2.6, but Denmark or Sweden on the other hand, have 4.3 doctors per 1000 people. Diagnostikare is a healthcare provider which works with employers to provide primary care, preventative care, and mental health services through a digital platform. It is currently used by over 200.000 people in Mexico. In this episode, Rafael Lopez, CEO of Diagnostikare shared his insights in the digital patient experience in Mexico, what is the infrastructure like on the national level, how much room for digital innovation the country has, and more. Other episodes about LATAM:Healthcare Digitalization in South America Ep. 1: How digital is Peru? (Jhonatan Bringas) https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/jhonatan-bringas-digital-health-peru-lapsiArgentina: Great Medical Education System and Turbulent Political Instability (Santiago Troncar)https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/latam-ep-2-argentina-santiago-troncar-digital-healthLATAM Ep. 3: Improving Cancer Care in South America (Pegasi)https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/latam-ep-3-improving-cancer-care-in-south-america-pegasi/id1194284040?i=1000617174703Website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.comNewsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/

In the last few episodes, you’ve been able to hear two episodes about digital health in South America. We talked about Peru with Jhonathan Bringas, MD and innovator, CEO of Lapsi Health, we dove into Argentina with Santiago Troncar, CEO and Founder or FutureDocs Latin America, and in this episode, we are looking into Chile and cancer Care in Latin America, with Luis Santiago, CEO of Pegasi. Luis was a guest on the podcast already 2 years ago, and I added the link to that episode in the show notes. PEGASI is a healthcare IT company that pivoted from EMR provision to cancer care with their oncology information system that aims to improve the time it takes to diagnose and treat cancer patients in developing countries. Luis talked about oncology management in South America, changes in healthcare digitalization in South America after the pandemic. Other episodes: Healthcare Digitalization in South America Ep. 1: How digital is Peru? (Jhonatan Bringas) https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/jhonatan-bringas-digital-health-peru-lapsiArgentina: Great Medical Education System and Turbulent Political Instability (Santiago Troncar)https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/latam-ep-2-argentina-santiago-troncar-digital-health Website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.comNewsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/

In this episode, we’re diving in the Finish ecosysyem. What makes Finland repeatedly achieve the rank of the happiest country globally? In this episode, you will hear from Päivi Sillanaukee, Special Envoy for Health and Wellbeing at the Ministry for Social Affairs and Health. Until recently, Paivi was Ambassador for Health at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Paivi has a strong presence in the international community, She is the co-chair of the Alliance for Health Security Cooperation (AHSC), a member of the Steering Group of the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), and a member of Health Advisory Board of the UN Technology Innovation Lab (UNTIL) Finland.  We discussed the ecosystem in Finland, why should Ministries for foreign affairs care about healthcare, and where does Finland have room for improvement in healthcare digitalization. Website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.comNewsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/

If it seems that the world is moving faster and faster with the rapid evolution of AI and other technologies, the digitalization of healthcare infrastructure is not changing with that speed. However, countries across Europe are ambitiously pursuing digitalization efforts. On top of that, under the European Health Data Space legal framework, countries in the European Union are building the MyHealth @EU infrastructure which aims to enable cross-border health information accessibility and services.In this episode, you will get an insight in the state of healthcare and digitalization in Germany, the Netherlands, and Slovenia. All three countries have published their new digitalization strategies in the last 6 months. Slovenia plans to gradually expand the annual budget for eHealth from 6 million EUR to 80 million. Hospitals in Germany received 4,3 billion EUR for digitalization projects and need to demonstrate by 2024, that funded projects have been implemented and are making an impact. The Netherlands passed a new electronic Data exchange in healthcare law in April and plans on spending 1,4 billion for healthcare digitalization by 2026. The challenge with healthcare digitalization and reforms are complex, due to various data privacy concerns, the digital divide, integration issues among different healthcare information systems, different complexities of healthcare systems’ design, and legal constraints from the past, that now need to be changed. You will hear more in this discussion with the representatives of healthcare ministries in Slovenia, Germany, and the Netherlands. Speakers:  Alenka Kolar, Acting Director-General Directorate for Digitalisation in Healthcare at the Ministry of Health Slovenia  Sebastian Zilch, Head of e-Health, Gematik & Telematics Infrastructure at the German Federal Ministry of Health Bianca Rowenhorst, CIO Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Sports in the Netherlands Read the summary: https://fodh.substack.com/p/how-are-germany-slovenia-and-the Website: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/

South America is a large market, with great potential from the language perspective, since Spanish is the official language in most countries, except for Brazil. But what are the specifics of the region? In this episode Santiago Troncar, the founder of Future Docs Latin America, shares his insights on healthcare digitalization in Argentina. He discusses the strengths and challenges of the healthcare system, including the high level of human and software resources, but also the economic crisis and disparities across the country. Santiago highlights the importance of electronic health records and patient empowerment and shares an example of innovative AI-powered breast cancer screening technology.Past episode in LATAM Series: Healthcare digitalization in South America Ep. 1: How digital is Peru? (Jhonatan Bringas) https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/jhonatan-bringas-digital-health-peru-lapsi Website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.comNewsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/

Access to mental health services wasn’t great before the pandemic. Then two things happened: the need for mental health services increased. But so has access to telemedicine providers of mental health support.The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) enabled flexibilities regarding the prescription of controlled medications. In 2020, the Food and Drug Administration announced a pandemic enforcement policy allowing mental health app developers to release certain treatment products without seeking authorization from the agency.Cerebral is a US online therapy provider, founded in 2019. In 2021, the company raised close to half a billion dollars and was valued at 4.8 billions USD. Even Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, who withdraw from the Olympic games in Tokyo in 2020 due to personal mental health struggles, and became a public advocate for a new attitude and public perception of how we approach mental health, struck a partnership with Cerebral, joining as an investor and its chief impact officer.But then in 2022, things started to shift in the opposite direction, due to allegations of unsafe prescribing practices. The Wall Street Journal, Insider, and other media publications investigated and reported about these through the accounts of patients and former employees, and the Department of Justice launched an investigation about "possible violations" of the Controlled Substances Act. Eventually, in 2022, the company dropped prescribing of Controlled Substance Prescriptions entirely.Today Cerebral is moving forward and is betting on quality mental health provision, with high hopes around enhancements that could be achieved with the help of AI. In today’s discussion, you will hear from Cerebral’s CEO David Mou, talk about: The current state of telemedicine, and the changing legislation about required in-person visits for prescriptions, Speed and quality of mental health diagnosis and treatment through telemedicine, The role of AI in mental health Website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.comNewsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/Read more on mental health:https://fodh.substack.com/p/mentalhealth