Faces Of Digital Health

With mental health being at the forefront of our attention in 2020, next to COVID, have you ever wondered, how the work of a psychiatrist looks like? Many clinicians fear psychiatric drugs, but Roni Shiloh firmly believes the fear is unnecessary.  Roni Shiloh is an MD, specialized in psychiatry. He headed a closed Psychiatric Department, was Chief Psychiatric Officer at a large Israeli HMO as well a senior lecturer in Tel-Aviv University, Israel. He then worked in the Pharmaceutical industry before starting his own startup Seegnal, which offers clinicians decision support in medication prescribing. The system takes into account many of a patient’s variables to be as accurate as possible, and more importantly, for the decision support to not overwhelm the doctor with alerts. Electronic prescribing and medication management are very complex and plagued with errors, which I tried to outline in the documentary OVERDOSE - How can we prevent medication errors. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, find the link in th

This is a panel discussion that happened after the premiere of the documentary (OVER)DOSE - How can we prevent medication errors? which aired on 29 June. You can listen to the adapted audio-only version of the documentary in episode 137. The documentary explores and offers an overview of the current challenges and technical solutions related to medication safety to raise awareness about the need to further improve medication-related patient safety.  Unsafe medication practices and medication errors are a leading cause of injury and avoidable harm in health care systems across the world. Globally, the cost associated with medication errors has been estimated at $42 billion USD annually. Errors can occur at different stages of the medication use process. More than 237 million medication errors are made every year in England, the avoidable consequences of which cost the NHS upwards of £98 million and more than 1700 lives every year, indicate national estimates, published online in the journal BMJ Quality & Safet

This is a short documentary about medication-related patient safety. The documentary explores and offers an overview of the current challenges and technical solutions related to medication safety to raise awareness about the need to further improve medication-related patient safety.  Unsafe medication practices and medication errors are a leading cause of injury and avoidable harm in health care systems across the world. Globally, the cost associated with medication errors has been estimated at $42 billion USD annually. Errors can occur at different stages of the medication use process. More than 237 million medication errors are made every year in England, the avoidable consequences of which cost the NHS upwards of £98 million and more than 1700 lives every year, indicate national estimates, published online in the journal BMJ Quality & Safety.  The documentary premiered on 29 June and was accompanied by an expert panel discussion which you can listen to in episode 138. Watch the documentary: https://www.f

David Kliff is the author and publisher of the Diabetic Investor eNewsletter, former investment advisor and as a person living with diabetes. As the author and publisher of the Diabetic Investor eNewsletter, David Kliff has spent the last 20 years analyzing the ups and downs of the diabetes industry. He closely monitors the diabetes biomed, biotech and device market and shares intel on breaking developments in existing and emerging pharmaceutical and tech companies that operate in that space.  In this episode, David talks about improvements in diabetes care and the psychological impacts and challenges contributing to low adherence to medication adherence and other diabetes treatment-related challenges. This discussion was recorded as part of the research for the documentary (OVER)DOSE - How can we prevent medication errors?  Join the premiere on 29 June: https://www.linkedin.com/events/over-dose-howcanwepreventmedica6800062280823263232/ More details about the event: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/o

Because US healthcare is private and operates by the rules of the free market, prices for services and medications can differ substantially. Solutions such as GoodRx and Amazon Pharmacy are addressing price transparency for consumers. On the other side are the Real Time Prescription Benefit Providers which help physicians see drug prices for a specific patient even before that patient leaves their office. The challenge with knowing how much a drug will cost a patient lies in the fact that different insurance companies have different policies regarding how much they will pay for medication. Patients might have a plan with high deductibles. But it’s not just the provider and the insurance company: prices depend on the Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PMS) - intermediaries that manage prescription drug benefits on behalf of health insurers. PBMs negotiate prices with drug manufacturers and pharmacies.  In this episode, Carm Huntress, the CEO of RxRevu Real Time Prescription Benefit Provider company, talks about the u

Funding in technologies, especially software in healthcare, has been booming in the last few years. Recently, SPACs - special purpose acquisition companies have gained in popularity. SPACs are not a new vehicle that makes it much easier for companies to go public. But it seems like their use has been reborn in the last year. This episode is prepared in partnership with mHealth Israel. mHealth Israel, led by Levi Shapiro, recently organized a webinar about SPACs. That webinar is adapted for audio in this episode.  This is a three-part episode. First, you’re going to hear about what SPACs are as explained by Keith Townsend from the law firm King & Spalding. Then Sari Kaganoff, General Manager at Rock Health will take you through the state of SPACs in healthcare. The two presentations are followed by a Q&A session. The whole content is moderated by Gil Bashe, digital health thought leader and Managing Partner at Finn Partners marketing agency.  Watch the SPAC webinar on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v

Simone Lehwess Mozzilli and Liliane Dübois both had cancer in their past. Liliane as a child, Simone as an adult. They are both an integral part of the Brazilian non-profit Beaba. Beaba offers support to children with cancer and their families by demystifying cancer and informing in a clear, objective, and optimistic way about the disease and treatment. They do so through various means, for example, a printed book called Beabook which resembles a dictionary and explains more than one hundred and fifty terms about cancer. In this episode, Simone, who is the President of Beaba, and Liliane, who is the Strategy Officer, talked about how to approach children with cancer, what they’ve learned from the app and other products being used across the world and talked a little bit about cancer care in Brazil.  Join the premiere of (OVER)DOSE - How can we prevent medication errors? More info: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/overdose-how-can-we-prevent-medication-errors  Go to www.facesofdigitalhealth.com to bro

Unsafe medication practices and medication errors are a leading cause of injury and avoidable harm in health care systems across the world. Globally, the cost associated with medication errors has been estimated at $42 billion USD annually. Errors can occur at different stages of the medication use process. This is the movie trailer, adopted for audio for a short documentary (OVER)DOSE, How can we prevent medication errors? which will air on 29 June 2021. More about the event: https://www.linkedin.com/events/over-dose-howcanwepreventmedica6800062280823263232/  Video trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPKvDYSm1mI&t=29s  Speakers in this episode:  David Kliff has been living with diabetes for over 20 years. He’s known as the Diabetic Investor, which is the name of the newsletter he’s been publishing for over two decades. Dr. David W. Bates, Professor of Health Policy and Management at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Lea Dias is the founder of a healthcare startup called Quaefacta. She is a

Phishing, Whaling, and exposure of patient data are a rising occurrence of the increasingly digitalized healthcare systems. 2020 saw more data breaches than previous years. What are the basics to know? Lee Kim is Director of Privacy and Security at HIMSS. In this episode, she talks about the basics of cybersecurity every individual should know, she presents the state of cybersecurity in healthcare and the outlook. Episode Summary: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f132-whats-the-state-of-cybersecurity-in-healthcare-lee-kim See the video interview on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv1SM38siyo&t=25s Thanks to our Sponsor: Health Resources and Services Administration: Receive up to $250,000 in student loan repayment in exchange for service in a community disproportionately affected by the opioid crisis. Learn more and apply to join STAR LRP - that stands for the Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery Loan Repayment Program. Applications Close on July 22, 2021

How would you rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10? Pain is a very subjective matter and there’s plenty of research done and in progress to understand it better. In this episode Sara E. Berger, a researcher at IBM with over a decade of experience in the pain field talks about how science defines pain in the first place, how can pain be quantified given the variety of factors that impact it, and how does the research so far translate into clinical practice.  Thanks for our Sponsor: Health Resources and Services Administration: Receive up to $250,000 in student loan repayment in exchange for service in a community disproportionately affected by the opioid crisis. Learn more and apply to join STAR LRP - that stands for the Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery Loan Repayment Program. Applications Close on July 22, 2021 To read more about other topics as well go to www.facesofdigitalhealth.com. Faces of digital health is now also live on the Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEOzIOl_wI

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 rec

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 Summary More 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 gove

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 Summary To 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 fa

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 socie

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

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 Aus

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 lun