Faces of Digital Health

Women's health refers to a broad range of medical and wellness services specifically tailored to address the unique health concerns of women. Particular focus is on reproductive health, fertility, and menopause. Technology supporting women’s health can go from EHR records, telemedicine services, medical imaging, diagnostic and IVF technology, wearable devices for monitoring health, menstrual cycles, menopause symptoms, robotic surgery in gynecology, and more.  This episode focuses on the fertility market with investor Leslie Shrock, author, entrepreneur, and angel investor working at the convergence of health and technology. Leslie Shrock wrote two books: Bumpin’: The Modern Guide to Pregnancy, which mixes the latest clinical research with practical advice for working families and Fertility Rules, published in June 2023, which addresses male and female fertility. In this discussion, Leslie shared her insights into:  - key misconceptions and lack of knowledge we have around fertility, - how is the market developing,  - what technologies she is hoping to see, - what investment models seem to be working so far. Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/ Website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com

If you’re still trying to wrap your head around the use of AI in healthcare, this episode will give you an idea about the use of generative AI to create clinical notes during an interaction between a doctor and a patient. Augmedix, a healthcare technology company that delivers ambient medical documentation and data solutions. Their clinician-controlled mobile app uses generative AI to instantaneously create a fully automated draft medical note after each patient visit. I spoke with Manny Krakaris - CEO of Augmedix, about the HOW. How is their data model built, what and what kind of technology do they use in their product? Manny also explains why they’re not covering revenue cycle management or RCM-related codes in their data structuring processes, and what are the biggest challenges in the industry at the moment.  The second part of this episode is unrelated to generative AI, and illustrates how existing medical data can be used to create risk prediction tools for medical care. You will hear from Nassib Chamoun, Founder and CEO of the Health Data Analytics Institute, an analytics company that is developing risk modeling methodology to ease clinical decision-making by assigning patients different risk scores based on their medical history. This enables clinicians to design follow-up protocols based on an individual's potential health deterioration. Both discussions were recorded at HLTH. Read a longer article about insights related to generative AI from HLTH, which includes an overview of the key player in medical notes generation space: https://fodh.substack.com/p/generative-ai-in-healthcare. Episode summary: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/ai-for-medical-note-taking-and-risk-scoring-augmedix-hdai Augmedix: https://augmedix.com/ HDAI: https://www.hda-institute.com/ Discussion summary: More about healthcare data in the US: Healthcare data in the US series: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/healthcare-data-series-in-the-us-foundy-epic-komodo?rq=epic%20 Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/ Website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or review in iTunes: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/subscribe

In the United States, individuals' healthcare information is dispersed among various healthcare providers. But many companies have been working on creating consolidated patient views, Reveleer being one of them.  Data fragmentation often occurs because people tend to switch healthcare providers when they change jobs and, as a result, their health insurance plans. Since insurance companies have specific networks of affiliated healthcare providers, a change in insurance necessitates a change in providers. Because providers use different information technology systems, individual healthcare data becomes compartmentalized and difficult to consolidate. In this episode, Jay Ackerman, CEO and president of Reveleer, a healthcare technology workflow, data, and analytics company, supporting payers and risk-bearing providers in their value-based care programs, explained: how Reveleer consolidates patient data to give clinicians a single overview of the patient,  what are the biggest pain points in healthcare data management in the US, how is generative AI affecting Reveleer’s product development?  Discussion transcription: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/healthcare-data-consolidation-reveleer More about healthcare data in the US: Healthcare data in the US series: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/healthcare-data-series-in-the-us-foundy-epic-komodo?rq=epic%20 Generative AI in Healthcare: "The biggest challenge is in PR": https://fodh.substack.com/p/generative-ai-in-healthcare Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/ Website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or review in iTunes: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/subscribe

VR is becoming a well-established tool in healthcare and medicine to help treat pain management, anxiety, mental wellness, and more. Thousands of studies have shown the efficacy of VR approaches for health because of the impact of the immersive experience offered by this technology. We covered VR in medicine in several episodes in the past, and I’m adding the link to those in the show notes. In today’s episode, you’ll hear an update on the field with Aaron Gani, CEO of BehaVR, a company providing virtual reality solutions to address pain management, anxiety, mental wellness, and social engagement. I spoke with Aaron at HLTH in Las Vegas, where he shared the latest on reimbursement, shifts in digital therapeutics companies' business models, which might make VR solutions more widely accessible with direct-to-consumer approaches. I also asked about the impact of VR on decreasing opioid use in pain management and thoughts about VR and psychedelics since both approaches leverage altered states of consciousness. Enjoy the discussion. You can also read the summary of this chat on our website; the link is in the show notes. And if you haven’t yet, do check out our newsletter at fodh.substack.com. The latest edition focuses on the state of generative AI in healthcare, and the past editions have info on how France is approaching the reimbursement of digital therapeutics. You can find an overview of healthcare and digitalization in Africa, insight into the APAC and LATAM regions, and much more. Do check it out! Discussion summary: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/vr-healthcare-behavr-aaron-gani BehaVR: https://www.behavr.com/how-it-works/ https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/ Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/ Past episodes on VR: F106 VRx: What has over 5000 studies taught us about the healing effect of VR? (Dr. Brennan Spiegel) https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f106-vrx-what-has-over-5000-studies-taught-us-about-the-healing-effect-of-vr-dr-brennan-spiegel VR: Promises and Challenges in 2021 (Rafael Grossman, Jennifer Esposito, Aaron Gani): https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/vr-rafael-grossmann-behavr-magic-leap

Generative AI - a subset of AI technologies that employ advanced machine learning algorithms to generate content, solutions, or outcomes that weren't explicitly programmed into the algorithms. This technology has many potential applications in healthcare. But at the moment, it’s hard the digital health space is filled with noise. This discussion was recorded at HLTH 2023 in Las Vegas. Justin Norden - Partner at GSR Ventures talks about: his observes from the investor’s perspective, what he thinks about the discussions on open-sourced vs. closed AI development, why everyone should incorporate generative AI in healthcare and more. Newsletter summary of generative AI in healthcare: https://fodh.substack.com/p/generative-ai-in-healthcare Interview with Justin Norded - July 2023: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/investors-bet-on-in-generative-ai-in-healthcare https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/

Alex Mervin is Head of Growth, Healthcare & Life Sciences Startups at Amazon Web Services (AWS). In this episode, he presents the AWS Health Innovation Podcast, which showcases startups that are advancing healthcare & life science by leveraging cloud computing technology. In this episode, Alex Merwin and Tjasa Zajc, Host of Faces of Digital Health, discuss: podcasting, how AWS supports startups, what trends is Alex observing in the health innovation space, key findings from the recent Faces of Digital Health series about entrepreneurship and healthcare in Africa. ... and more.  More about AWS Health Innovation Podcast: https://healthpodcastnetwork.com/show/aws-health-innovation-podcast/  Discussion with Alex Zhavoronkov mentioned in the show: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/2019/05/03/f036-how-is-ai-decoding-aging Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/

In this episode, we navigate through the clinical landscape of Kenya with nephrologist Khalida Soki, who, after a tenure with the UK's NHS, chose to return to her native land. Our conversation delves into the stark realities clinicians face in regions constrained by resources. Khalida sheds light on the imperative for innovation amongst doctors, who often find themselves adapting—sometimes in deviation from international clinical guidelines—to maximize the impact of available resources. She also highlights the pivotal role of technology, pointing to the convenience and widespread use of telemedicine facilitated by Kenya's robust connectivity infrastructure. Access to international resources, she notes, is invaluable in offering patients informed clinical advice. Website: facesofdigitalhealth.com Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/ Ilara Health: https://www.ilarahealth.com/about-us/ Leave a rating or a review: https://lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

Kenya has a lot of talent and opportunities for innovation. Access to care is not a problem because plenty of community nurses are present nationwide. However, they have a limited problem and mostly focus on main infectious diseases, leaving serious conditions undiagnosed, says Emilian Popa, Founder and CEO of Ilara Health. Ilara health equips a network of small healthcare providers with lifesaving and essential diagnostic tools to improve the quality of medical care in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this episode, Emilian Popa talks about:  why health insurance is hard to scale in Africa, where people are concerned with daily costs and survival,  investments and how local VCs mostly invest in sectors like real estate and investments for health tech are supported by foreign investors,  why Ilara Health is expanding on the Kenyan market but not in Tanzania, South Africa, Nigeria or Egypt.  Transcript: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/kenya-ilara-health-diagnostics-africa Website: facesofdigitalhealth.com Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/ Ilara Health: https://www.ilarahealth.com/about-us/ Leave a rating or a review: https://lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth