Digital Health Today

Today, we’re taking on the problem of blindness and loss of vision. This is a huge problem for hundreds of millions of people around the world who are legally blind or partially sighted. The number of people affected is set to increase as conditions like macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy become more widespread. Here to talk to us about this problem and some of the ways technology can help address it is Eliav Rodman, he’s the Director of Marketing at OrCam Technologies. OrCam is based in Jerusalem, Israel, and they have developed a compact and powerful device to help address many of the problems associated with loss of vision. Also on the call is Guy Hilton. Guy is the General Manager of Start-Up Nation Central which is an organization focused on the Israeli innovation community. Guy’s organization,Start-Up Nation Central, has recently joined Digital Health Today as a sponsor and strategic partner. We’ll be working together to highlight the great innovators and leaders working in Israel to solve th

August and September are traditionally two of the busiest months for new births, which means that right now, there are millions of pregnant women dealing with all the complexities of pregnancy and preparing for the arrival of a child. With connected devices being used for everything from monitoring general fitness to tracking post-surgical recovery, you would think that there would be a solution to help pregnant women monitor and maintain their health through pregnancy. I’m joined today by Juan Pablo Segura, he’s a passionate entrepreneur and healthcare technologist with a background in consulting and finance. He and his cofounder, Anish Sebastian, worked together at Deloitte before coming up with the idea for their company, Babyscripts. Babyscripts is a remote monitoring and big data solution used by doctors and pregnant women to detect problems much faster and deliver better care to improve birth outcomes. Juan Pablo and I dive into the traditional standards for prenatal care, and how consumer-centric solut

Our guest today is the Senior Managing Director and Head of Global Health Practice at Accenture, Dr. Kaveh Safavi. Kaveh is responsible for developing and driving a growth strategy that differentiates Accenture’s offerings for providers, health insurers and public and private health systems across the globe. He joined Accenture in 2011, and prior to that, he led the global healthcare practice at Cisco. He also spent time at Thompson Reuter’s as the chief medical officer of Health Businesses, and he was United Healthcare’s vice president of medical affairs. He’s a seasoned executive, bringing more than two decades of leadership experience to Accenture Health. I spoke to Kaveh to learn more about the findings of Accenture's latest healthcare industry report: Digital Health Tech Vision 2018. They’ve identified 5 key trends that are set to change the healthcare sector over the next three to five years. You can grab a full copy of the report here, and it is also available directly from Accenture at Accenture.com.

Our guest today is Dr. Jack Kreindler. Jack is a physician, physiologist and serial technology entrepreneur. He began programming computers at the age of 13, and couldn’t decide between a career in tech or medicine – so he chose both. He is a leading expert in health optimization and has a background in emergency medicine with a special interest in high altitude physiology.  Jack shares insights from his years working with elite athletes and very ill patients, and how lessons can be learned and applied to both groups. He also explains the mission of the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Research Fund and how her fight against cancer will have a lasting and significant impact for cancer patients and their families. Jack is a founder of the Centre for Health and Human Performance in London where he is the medical director of a multidisciplinary team of leading specialists managing complex cases. He’s also a founder of Sentrian, a remote patient intelligence platform, and he’s a cofounder of Weird and Wonderful, where h

We are proud to have such supportive partners that help make it possible to deliver this platform to innovators around the world. We choose our sponsors as carefully as they choose us. We look for companies that can participate in and contribute to our community, and that have products and programs that help drive innovation forward. One of the first companies to join our platform was Bayer and their Grants4Apps (G4A) program. When it comes to creating programs focused on fostering innovation, Bayer G4A really gets stuff done (#gsd). The innovative Grants4Apps program offers a variety of support and resources for early stage businesses, and it’s not simply money and office space – although those things are important. They’ve put together programs that provide some of the best rewards a company can hope for – such as the opportunity to land a global corporation as a key client. To tell us more about it, I invited Dr. Zsu Varga, Global Head of Bayer's G4A Digital Health Partnership Programs, to join me for a vi

Mental Health Awareness Month is observed in the US during May. In the UK, Mental Health Awareness Week is observed May 14-20, 2018. To do our part to raise awareness of mental health, I spoke to a guest that can share a real example, a success story, of how digital tools can be applied in this area. In this episode, I spoke with Dale Beermann. He’s one of the founders of the company behind the award-winning app called Pacifica. He’s here to share some of what they’ve learned as they’ve brought their solution to market, and discuss the areas of need, and the areas where they’re having the greatest impact. He tells us how both consumers and professionals can use their solution – their app is free to download and free to use, so take a minute open your smartphone, or even a browser window on your computer, download Pacifica and give it a try. Episode Download: Tips in Navigating a Mental Health Crisis Today's Topics: Dale's role in Pacifica Labs and their work with Mental Health The various solutions and s

This episode features leaders from one of the very best design companies in the entire world: IDEO. IDEO is a pioneer of human-centered design and they work with leading organizations of all sizes to solve complex challenges. IDEO has offices in 9 cities across 5 different countries. I met Dennis Boyle, one of the partners and founding members of IDEO at the Digital Orthopaedic Conference. A few days after that conference, Dennis gave me a tour of the IDEO studio in Palo Alto where he showed me some of their work ranging from toys and voting booths, to wearable sensors and surgical kits. On this podcast, I was joined by both Dennis and Dr. Farzad Azimpour. Farzad is a cardiologist and the Director of Health [...] Denise is long time e-health advocate based in the beautiful city of Paris, France. She was one of the few Americans to receive the Legion of Honor from the French government, and she was awarded that in 2011 for her work in international eHealth. Denise and I talk about Virtual Reality, the power of

In episode 61, we catch up with Denise Silber, founder-president of Basil Strategies and the Doctors 2.0 & You conference series. Denise is an American expat who has lived abroad for over 20 years, and has a great understanding of the opportunities and challenges of digital health around the world. Denise is long time e-health advocate based in the beautiful city of Paris, France. She was one of the few Americans to receive the Legion of Honor from the French government, and she was awarded that in 2011 for her work in international eHealth. Denise and I talk about Virtual Reality, the power of reverse innovation and the business environment in France, as well as tips for getting the most out of the events and conferences you attend. Today's Topics: The culture of Digital health and innovation in Paris; The establishment and mission of Station F; The meaning of “knowledgeable empathy” and how it is applied in reverse innovation; The upcoming ‘Reverse Innovation' conference coming up in Paris on May 31 –

Dr. Amir Kalali is a highly respected member of the global community in life sciences and clinical research. In fact, for 5 of the years between 2005 and 2012, PharmaVOICE magazine named him as one its 100 most inspiring leaders in the life sciences as voted by his peers. Dr. Kalali was Global Head of the Neuroscience Center of Excellence at Quintiles IMS. He was responsible for the enterprise-wide strategy for neuroscience, encompassing drug development and healthcare services. He is also a Professor of Psychiatry at University of California San Diego, Editor of the journal Innovations in Clinical Neuroscience, and Faculty at Singularity University and BART X Medicine. He has authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications, and he advises several companies such as AI Cure and Bracket. He’s the chief curator and chairman of the CNS Summit, which is an event that we talk about on this conversation. As you’ll hear on this interview, Dr. Kalali is really passionate about accelerating and improving the success of me

  In this episode I spoke with Martin Kelly, the CEO and co-founder of Health XL. Health XL provides a platform and services to connect people, companies, and solutions to lead the change needed in healthcare. But before I recently had a chance to meet and speak with Martin, I would probably have described Health XL as one of the most impactful organizations that I’d heard of, but that I knew very little about. When I was introduced to Martin late last year, and I learned more about their work, I knew I wanted to have him come on and share some of the work that Health XL is doing, and, importantly, share how you can also contribute to and benefit from being a part of their organization or taking part in their events. Speaking of events, Martin and I talk about some of the Health XL events for early 2018. We recorded this a few weeks ago so unfortunately some of the events have passed – but there is an upcoming event in London, England taking place on Wednesday May 2, and when last I checked there were still a

If you follow the work being done in Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) - you probably have already seen the work being done by today's guest: Dr. Brennan Spiegel. In this episode, Brennan gets real about the applications for virtual reality in healthcare, and what is needed to drive adoption throughout the healthcare system and around the world. Brennan Spiegel is the Director of Health Services Research at Cedars-Sinai Health System. He’s also a Professor of Medicine and Public Health at UCLA, and Co-Chair of the VR/AR Association Digital Health Committee. He has published numerous best-selling medical textbooks and has more than 170 articles in peer-reviewed journals. His work has been featured in Bloomberg, Forbes, Huffington Post, LA Times, NBC News, NPR, PBS, Reuters, and the Wall Street Journal and now we’re adding Digital Health Today to that esteemed list of media outlets! You can often find Brennan at major conferences around the world including HIMSS, Connected Health, Exponential Med,

We are joined by Dr Rasu Shrestha, an incredibly gifted individual in the health and technology space. He was recognized by Becker’s Hospital Review as one of the 26 “Smartest People in Health IT” and InformationWeek said he was one of the “Top 20 Health IT Leaders Driving Change”. He holds two roles at UPMC in Pittsburgh. He's both the chief innovation officer for UPMC and he's also the executive vice president of UPMC Enterprises, which is the innovation and commercialization arm of UPMC - we’re going to dive into that group, what they do and how they do it. And, the latest news, this was just announced on March 19, Rasu has been named by the US Department of Veterans Affairs to lead the work mapping the electronic medical record to the FHIR APIs, and to create common data standards through industry partnerships. This could bring about the end of the interoperability problem that’s been the bane of EMRs since they came into existence. Rasu is also the co-chair of the Health Datapalooza meeting which is bein

Eren Bali is the CEO and Cofounder of Carbon Health a San Francisco-based company that has its sites set on building the world's largest connected care network. If Eren was just any aspiring entrepreneur entering the healthcare space, then the chances of reaching that goal might be very small. But Eren isn't just any entrepreneur - he's also the founder of what will soon become the world's largest school. He founded Udemy, an online learning platform, in Turkey and relaunched it in the US a few years later. He's here to tell us about his experience and how he's started from scratch in connecting patients with care in the Carbon Health healthcare network. Today's Topics: How the experience of building Udemy led to Eren's ambition in tackling some of the biggest challenges in healthcare How Eren's personal experience in caring for his mother led to his discovery of ways to improve healthcare What users should expect in their patient journey How the development of leading software led to building their own

In this episode, we dive into a topic that is changing rapidly and that is the topic of reproductive health. I invited the founders of two companies that have developed technologies to help women and men to measure and improve their reproductive health, and they made a terrific duo on this topic. Lea von Bidder is the co-founder and president of Ava Science, which is the company behind the women’s wearable called Ava Women. Also on the call is Greg Sommer, he’s the founder & chief science officer at Sandstone Diagnostics, that’s the company behind the men’s health product Trak. Between the two of them we cover both sides of the reproductive health equation. They share some great insights on the topic, and the new solutions available to help women and men with easy-to-use, discrete, home-based products that you’ll find interesting. I always learn something from our guests, and one of the things I learned on this episode is that for men, our overall health is so closed tied to reproductive health that sperm cou

What does it take to become a world leader in the health tech space? Cities around the world, and even entire countries, are battling for the chance to be the digital health capital of the world. In addition to Silicon Valley, there are the usual suspects of Boston and San Diego, and we also have some up-and-comers such as Denver with people like Mike Biselli and many others leading the charge. There's Chicago with organizations like Matter, and cities in the south like Atlanta leveraging their strong corporate base. In Europe you have London, Barcelona, Naples, Helsinki. And even entire countries like Israel and Estonia are working to make themselves the premier destination for investors, startups and health tech innovation. And that’s without going further east to China, Japan and other Asia-pac countries. My guest today is Christian Seale, he’s the founder and general partner of Startupbootcamp in Miami. He’s also the Founding Partner of NextGen Venture Partners, he’s a Global Shaper at the World Economic

2017 was a banner year in digital health on multiple levels, and one key metric is investment in digital health companies. Startup Health reported $11.5 billion in investments in digital health startups in 2017, topping 2016’s record of $8 billion. Series A funding grew it’s share of overall funding for the third year in a row; it is now 36 percent of the total funding in digital health. While seed funding has grown in terms of real dollars, it’s share of the funding pie has continued to decline since 2015, but it still makes up 29 percent of the total funding. See the full report from Startup Health below. Seed funding plays a key role in developing the companies, leaders and innovations that are needed to transform health and wellness. We spoke with Fred Toney to learn more about how his company is leading and succeeding in this challenging and dynamic market. Fred is the CEO & Co-Founder of Launchpad Digital Health, which is the most active institutional lead investor in digital health at the seed stage in

Roberto Ascione is the CEO of Healthware International, a next-generation healthcare consultancy, combining a unique blend of marketing and creative services with innovation and technology capabilities. Under Roberto’s leadership, Healthware International has evolved into a cutting-edge, innovation-driven company working with some of the leading players in health, and many smaller ones too. Roberto is very active in the digital health start-up ecosystem and is an advisor to several companies both in Europe and in USA. He’s also the Chairman of Frontiers Health – one of the leading global conferences on digital health innovation that I was able to attend last year. It’s being held on November 15-16, 2018 in Berlin so put that on your calendar. Roberto shares his insights on some of the exciting changes happening in health innovation, and what he thinks we will see in 2018 and beyond. So sit back and tune into the discussion with Roberto Ascione. Today's Topics: What companies should achieve before raising a

Bayer is launching the G4A Generator program and opening for applications the week of January 8th, 2018. Tune in to hear how Bayer is creating commercial opportunities for early stage businesses - and they are delivering! To get the scoop on this new program, and also give an update on some of the programs that ran in 2017, I spoke to three people at Bayer that are bringing the G4A Generator program to life. My guests on this program are Eugene Borukhovich, Global Head, Digital Health Incubation & Innovation, Barton Warner, Vice President of Strategy and Portfolio Management, and Anna-Lena Lorenz, the Global Innovation Manager and Ecosystem Coordinator. Today's Topics: Results of 2017 G4A Accelerator Program Success of the 2017 G4A Dealmaker Program The Newest G4A Program: The G4A Generator What startups should look for in a corporate partner Four challenge areas of the G4A Generator Nutrition Support Managing Self-care External Pain Management Skin and Sun Protection Bayer's plans for continued in

In this episode, we discuss five innovators and the virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and Mixed Reality solutions they are implementing in healthcare. These types of deployments are succeeding clinically and commercially, which is a promising sign for continued and accelerated growth. Tune in to hear how these VR/AR/MxR technologies are solving real challenges and laying the foundation for what's coming next. Today's Topics (See each section below): Dr Justin Barad of OSSO VR and his work in developing VR surgical training simulators Dr. Brennan Spiegel of Cedars-Sinai and the use of VR to reduce pain in a clinical setting Dr. Rafael Grossmann and the ability to accelerate development on Apple's ARKit and Microsoft's Hololens platform Dr. Ned Sahin of Brain-Power and the use of Google Glass to train children with Autism to understand emotions, transition to new places and more Prof. Shafi Ahmed of Medical Realities and the world's first Mixed Reality live telesurgery in 2017 Dr. Justin Bar

In this episode we talk about healthcare solutions using augmented reality and virtual reality. It wasn’t that long ago that holograms and immersive environments were only found in Hollywood science fiction, but the technology is now finding its way into everything from video games and movie theaters to operating rooms and in-patient wards. As the cost of hardware and software drops and handset capabilities increase, many companies are developing creative solutions to address problems in healthcare. Products like Oculus Rift and Microsoft Hololens have set a high standard, and the industry just got a further push by Apple’s recently launched ARKit. Here to tell us about it is Dr Rafael Grossmann, he is a general, trauma, advanced laparoscopic and robotic surgeon practicing in Maine, USA. Rafael has been working to advance the use of AR/VR/Mixed R technology and advises companies in this space. In addition to his full time role as a practicing surgeon, Rafael is also an alumnus of Singularity university and fa