Empowered Patient Podcast

Dr. Mike Dulin is currently the Chief Medical Officer for Gray Matter Analytics and a professor at UNC Charlotte in the Department of Public Health Sciences where he directs the Academy for Population Health Innovation. He emphasizes that almost 80% of health outcomes are driven by social determinants.  In addition to the traditional environmental determinants including access to food, transportation, a safe place to exercise, and health care, the strength of the patient's social network needs to be considered as well. Mike explains, "Perhaps most importantly, and one area that we don't consider a lot is the social network. But often, your behaviors are driven by your social network, your peers, your friends, your family members. Their behaviors are really important in terms of shaping and determining yours. We've even found things like depression and mood can run through a social network. Well, other important factors like smoking and exercise and a healthy diet are also determined by your social network." "

Dr. Nicole Wulf is a clinical pharmacist at FDB and has recently published a study of the current evidence regarding iodine containing compounds and iodine allergy cross-reactivity.  Overall they found that there was a lack of evidence that iodine is an allergen and can cause hypersensitivity reactions particularly from contrast media used in imaging. Nicole explains, "In my job, I'm always looking for ways in which we can improve the allergy alerts for clinicians. This is one thing that I have some questions about, and it made a lot of sense because iodine is part of the thyroid hormone in the body. So to me, it didn't make any sense for us to continue to let people spread the myth that iodine could be an allergen." "I started pulling the literature and looking at it. It made a lot of sense that this was something that we needed to stop telling people that iodine was an allergen and that we shouldn't be putting it on patient profiles anymore because it was affecting patient care. People might not get the ima

Palak Shah is a physical therapist and Co-Founder of Luna who is attacking the problem of providing physical therapy to the growing population of patients with the need to receive in-person care by a physical therapist. Palak explains, "What is super different about Luna is that we're not a home health agency. We're bringing out physical therapy to patient homes for all our patients in 19 states and 32 metro markets today. Having about 1,200 therapists on the platform now throughout the country, bringing technology and high-quality care from the therapists, is Luna's superpower. The vision here is what we're trying to bring with technology and these amazing quality therapists is to reimagine the physical therapy experience." "All of Luna's therapists are moonlighting with Luna, more than 95% and hence the name Luna. So they are working at outpatient clinics today that are in our community, but also have this amazing opportunity to participate with an organization like Luna that allows them supplemental income

Dr. Daniel Schneeberger is the CEO of Anebulo Pharmaceuticals and is determined to find an antidote to acute cannabinoid intoxication, a growing problem for people of all ages as well as emergency rooms around the country. Daniel says, "THC acts mostly in the brain, it crosses the blood-brain barrier and binds to the CB1 receptor, and it activates that CB1 receptor. Our drug also goes to the brain and binds to the same receptor, much more tightly, up to 100x more tightly, and blocks it so that THC has no chance to act on that receptor anymore. One of the most important properties of our drug, too, is rapid absorption with oral dosing. So we feel very good about the drug candidate." "These drugs, CB1 antagonists, were originally developed for weight loss in the treatment of diabetes back around 2007, 2008. They were never approved by the FDA because with chronic dosing, there was an increased frequency of depression, it was 9%, it was 5% with placebo. Back then, the FDA was very concerned that chronic dosing i

Gary Rotman and Bruce Barnet are Co-Founders of SiMPL Technology, a company designing and selling simple tech products for seniors and their caregivers. With a particular focus on people with cognitive challenges and discomfort with digital technology, SiMPL is bringing solutions to the market that solve such challenges as medication adherence and media access. Gary is an inventor and explains, "So, I've been in the timepiece industry for most of my career, over 35 years, so one of the products I developed was a talking clock, and you can set the alarm by voice. In the meantime, like many other people, my father was diagnosed with dementia back in 2010, Alzheimer's dementia, and I woke up one day with this aha moment to put personalized messages in the clock. So, when my mother isn't home, and my dad forgets his meds and doesn't want to end up back in the hospital, this talking clock would announce in my mother's voice, "Honey, take your pills now.". Bruce says, "So the things that we think are easy, are not

Dr. Nick West is the Chief Medical Officer and DVP Global Medical Affairs for Vascular at Abbott.  With the launch of the Ultreon software 1.0, Abbott is bringing a new level of analysis to their Optical Coherence Tomography intracoronary imaging tool. Nick explains, "And the idea of this software package is, on top of this best-in-class in terms of resolution imaging technology to help physicians, the Ultreon software augments physician decision-making to effectively enable them to do a better job, but more easily."  "Optical Coherence Tomography already existed. A very powerful tool, as I said. A very high degree of precision and accuracy in measurement. However, one of the issues with OCT is that, as well as understanding how to actually physically use the catheter, which is reasonably straightforward, it's very similar to other devices that interventional cardiologists use, but they then have to learn to interpret the images you get out. So acquiring the pictures is relatively straightforward, but then ho

Dr. Mike Dudley is President and CEO of QpexBiopharma and seeing drug-resistant infections occurring inside the hospital as well as outside the hospital. Qpex is developing IV and oral drugs that are designed to overcome resistance mechanisms in bacteria that render penicillin-like drugs inactive. Mike explains, "We deliver our drug in combination with existing antibiotics that have already been proven safe and effective as first-line therapies but have lost their usefulness due to resistant bacteria. And we want to be able to give them via vein for the sickest patients who can't take oral drugs. But also we want to be delivering them using an oral formulation in our product so they can be taken orally." "We call the IV product OMNIvance, which provides that coverage for very, very sick patients. And then an oral product, which we call ORAvance that can be then delivered orally, and it can be useful for stepping down hospitalized patients or even treating infections in the community setting where you don't ha

Francesca Rinaldo MD Ph.D. is the Director of Clinical Quality and Innovation at Sharecare, a health and wellness engagement platform. Their SmartOmix solution allows researchers to build, launch, manage and analyze data from clinical studies using a participant-centric mobile application that leverages all the technological components of a smartphone including text-based reporting, photo, video, and audio samples. Francesca explains, "So, in my opinion, the future of clinical research is really three things: it's decentralized, it's digital-first, and it's widely inclusive. So, I think technology will impact researchers, patients, and doctors and a number of different ways. It will impact researchers because it will give them access to data that will provide a much more comprehensive view of health and wellness, as well as how disease trajectories change for study participants." "It will also impact patients because it will accelerate the cycle from research to care, fast-track insights, and novel approaches

Sam Meraj is the Senior Director of Quality, Safety, and Reporting at Walmart, including their in-store pharmacies, optical, primary care, dental, and other health services. Sam explains, " We do keep in mind the social determinants of health. We provide a lot of linguistic support, language translation services, and we always keep health equity in mind when we are providing these services." "I think a lot is being done to address health equity, but yet we have an opportunity to do a lot more. In terms of addressing the language barriers that I was talking about or the cultural barriers to continued education, one thing to keep in mind is that negative experiences with healthcare are unfortunately more common in these groups. And some social determinants of health, again, have historically made it difficult for them to have equal access to healthcare. So I think that it's important for individual providers as well as systems to be aware and intentional about addressing these gaps and sharing the right informa

Ali Dianaty is Vice President of Product Innovation at Medtronic Diabetes and reflects on the explosion of developments for treating diabetes that has allowed patients to manage their diabetes in a way that fits their lifestyle. Ali explains, "We also make smart insulin pens, which allow people to do a better job of dosing their insulin. Of course, one of the big fears is that insulin can be a very dangerous drug. Think of it as if you give yourself too much, you can put yourself into harm's way. If you don't give yourself enough, it's the same thing. So, dosing that properly is super important." "We offer pumps that help do that more automatically, as well, in terms of dosing that insulin. And then, we also offer continuous glucose monitors that measure how much glucose is in someone's body. Then ultimately, we bring all of that together into some sophisticated algorithms as a system to automatically dose people's insulin. So again, with the premise of forgetting their disease. All of these things are intend

Dr. Heidi Jannenga PT, DPT, ACT, is the Co-Founder and Chief Clinical Officer at WebPT. She points out that healthcare providers should be more aware of the benefits of physical therapy and how technology and telehealth are making PT more accessible for a broader audience. Heidi explains. "This past year, with the whole COVID thing that's going on and continues to go on, we also launched a virtual visit platform. We can do telehealth with patients while they're at home so that it doesn't always have to mean that you have to get yourself to a clinic, especially those in rural areas and such. It really now has expanded our reach in terms of connecting with more patients who could benefit from physical therapist care. "I think that it's going to take a little while for us to find the happy medium between in-person visits and virtual. By no means do I think that 100% of care from a physical therapist can be done virtually because of the nature of our clinical expertise." @WebPT #PT #PhysicalTherapy #RehabTherapy

Dr. Harvey Kaufman is the Senior Medical Director at Quest Diagnostics and has recently published a study on cancer diagnoses during the pandemic.  Data points to a significant impact of COVID-19 on the rate of cancer screenings and the need to better identify those most at risk for a wide range of cancers. Harvey explains, "There's a couple of things that we can do differently. One is we learned through the pandemic, the power of telemedicine, that we can do a lot of things through Zoom, and even without the visual, we can do the audio portion and engage people in questionnaires and asking about their health and such." "We can't do certain things remotely like a mammogram or a colonoscopy or biopsies and other procedures, but there are things that we can do. We can try to identify people who are at higher risk and prioritize them over other individuals. If we don't re-engage in healthcare, there will be more and more people who will present at more advanced stages, require more aggressive therapy, and have a

Alana McGolrick DNP is the Chief Nursing Officer at PeriGen and focused on reducing preventable maternal and newborn deaths using technology and AI to support labor and delivery activities. The PeriWatch Vigilance platform removes bias and provides objective assessment to those clinicians and physicians monitoring the physiological changes in patients and their fetuses. Alana explains, "I have been a fetal monitoring geek for my entire life in labor and delivery. I've always been fascinated with the labor and delivery process. When we do monitor our patients, we put these monitors on the patient's abdomen, so on their pregnant belly, and we're looking at uterine contractions, we're looking at the fetal heart rate. Then we're also monitoring mom's vital signs and how she's progressing in labor." "There's a number of different factors that we analyze while we're in the intrapartum stage, labor, and delivery, watching how our patient is progressing. One of our patients happens to be invisible, right? We only hav

Rosemary Kennedy is the Chief Health Information Officer at Connect America, where data collection, predictive analytics, remote monitoring, human intervention, and promotion of patient care circles are all part of the solution for keeping seniors out of the hospital and independent as possible. Rosemary explains, "There are probably three areas in terms of them achieving your goal and living independently and safely in your home. And you've identified one of them, this connected care management platform in the home that involves a system of integrated technologies." "We see that one in every ten admissions to the hospital are related to the fact that individuals are not adherent to their medication regimen. The second area is in interaction with their care circles and using technology for that. We have seen with COVID that individuals want to be connected to family, friends, neighbors. They want to do it in an easy way, and this includes voice video chat that they can interoperate with the people that are im

Andy Kidd MD is the President and COO and soon to be CEO of Aptinyx.  With a focus on Pain Awareness Month, Andy provides a view into the world of treating long-term chronic pain and the necessary innovations to treat the cause of chronic pain in conditions like diabetic peripheral neuropathy and fibromyalgia. Andy explains, "So we've discovered and are developing a new drug that has a new mechanism for chronic pain. And actually, it really takes that problem of what is happening in the brain head-on because our drug works in the brain, particularly in the part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. That is really responsible for how we control and regulate our behavior, what we pay attention to, what we don't pay attention to, how our emotions are affected by things that we're sensing in the environment, and things like that. So we are really trying to tackle this part of the chronic pain problem that has been probably under-recognized in the past and for which there really aren't any good therapies righ

Jessica Magana is the Product Manager of Lightbeam Health Solutions, a population health management company. Jessica shines a light on the biggest changes coming from CMS in risk adjustment for Medicare Advantage in 2022. Organizations need to understand the technical requirements behind the way diagnosed base risk scores will be calculated and the impact of delayed healthcare due to COVID-19. Jessica explains, "Lightbeam is a platform that facilitates end-to-end population health management for our ACOs, payers, provider groups, health systems, and some other healthcare organizations. Just some highlights about the platform and what it provides are provider alignment, tools for engagement, and satisfaction rates. It allows for some two-way information sharing. It has been proven to lower utilization rates and improve risk and coding opportunities; it also helps to improve quality scores for HEDIS and Star measures." "Another important change that I think is very important is around some of the quality bonus

Dr. Hugh Rienhoff is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Imago BioSciences.  He and his team are developing their lead asset bomedemstat for the treatment of myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) which are rare blood cancers. Hugh explains, "So MPNs, myeloproliferative neoplasms, are actually a family of diseases that include myelofibrosis, polycythemia vera, and essential thrombocythemia. And they're all characterized by an elevation of one element in the blood or another different cell type." "But they're all related in the sense that they share a family of very limited mutations. And those mutations, in one of three genes, typically arise in patients who are in their 50s or 60s and those mutations occur in the blood stem cells." "They're not hereditary, typically. They're what we call somatic mutations arising in blood stem cells. And they are called neoplastic diseases, which is a Greek name for cancer, but they typically are much more indolent than your typical bone marrow cancers, like leukemia, wh

Eric Rock is the Founder and CEO of Vivify Health and a pioneer in the application of remote patient monitoring, consumer electronics, and biometric devices combined with virtual visits to connect patients and providers outside the hospital setting. Eric explains, "Fortunately, Vivify, from our beginning days, created a solution that encompassed a connected tablet with a very unique and simple experience that spoke to the patient and connected to the provider. It made it incredibly simple regardless of your age. With an average age of 77 across our customer base, where that product was applied to, we knew this market well. And many were entering the market saying, "Okay, well, I can just give them an app to download." Well, that's a very quick failure in that population." "So, understanding the complexities of distributing devices to patients that we're all responsible for and even getting those devices returned in most cases is a big part of the services and value that Vivify brings to the table. So it is a

Craig Parker is the Chief Executive Officer at Surrozen. Their research in the Wnt pathway and proteins identified these are critical to maintaining tissues in our body and are found in tissues as diverse as the lung, intestine, liver, sensory hair cells, and the eye. The company is first targeting a patient population with a severe alcoholic injury to the liver who are not eligible for transplant but would benefit from regeneration in their liver. Craig explains, "It really starts with a signal outside the cell that gets transmitted inside the cell by this Wnt signaling pathway, which in turn activates a number of genes that are responsible for these processes, like tissue repair or embryonic development, or renewal of stem cells." "The Wnt proteins actually don't dissolve very well in the circulation, and they really only act within a few cells distance from where they're produced. What made this pathway very difficult to try to modulate for therapeutic use is that these proteins, you can't just copy one of

Dr. Richard Watson is a Co-Founder of Motient and has taken on the challenge of creating an efficient solution to solve the puzzle of how to move patients from one place to another with a focus on rural healthcare and rural hospitals. Motient was founded as a medical transport company that did air and ground transport.  They have now created Mission Control which is even more critical in this time of the Delta resurgence to help manage decisions in the care of all patients. Richard says, "The sending facility environment is different than the receiving facility. That's different from the EMS transport people. And everybody's got their head down doing solid work, but the idea that we could actually link arms and make that work better, improve the outcomes, improve patient care. I don't think that was something that was the focus. I mean, we're too busy measuring other things in the system to understand how that affects patient care. But every aspect of quality and sustainability is affected how patients move i