Faces Of Digital Health

Voice applications in healthcare are used in telemedicine, for remote patient monitoring, clinical trials, and more. Bill Rogers, CEO of Orbita - a leading provider of conversational AI for healthcare - explains the current state of voice assistants in healthcare. Orbita helps healthcare organizations tap the power of voice assistants, chatbots, and other conversational AI technologies to engage patients, improve care, and reduce costs.

In 2016 FDA approved the so-called artificial pancreas - Medtronic’s MiniMed 670G system (Medtronic) a hybrid closed-looped system for glucose measurement and insulin delivery. A lot of companies are developing AI supported decision support systems for doctors and patients. This episode dives in the complexity of diabetes, how it is treated, what role does glucose have on health and how is technology improving the lives of patients with diabetes. Speaker: prof. Dr. Tadej Battelino, the head of Department of Pediatric endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism at the UMC - University Children’s Hospital Ljubljana, Slovenia. Prof. Battelino is among other things co-organizer of Advanced Technologies and Treatment of Diabetes Conference - that provides a world-class platform for clinicians and scientists to present, discuss and exchange insights on the most rapidly evolving area of diabetes technology and treatments. He is also Chiel Clinical at Dreamed Diabetes - Israeli based developer of personalized diabetes man

The idea that AI will replace radiologists comes from the fact that today’s AI models models are very good at pattern recognition. But in reality, the “rich data” coming from radiologists is in the radiology reports, which are to a large extent unstructured. As elsewhere, the 80:20 rule applies here, says Woojin Kim. So the interesting thing are the NLP models mining radiology reports, he said in this interview. So what do radiologists actually do, are they going to start talking to the patients more, why they will not be obsolete anytime soon and more. Woojin Kim is the Chief Medical Information Officer at Nuance, former Chief of Radiography Modality, Director of Center for Translational Imaging Informatics, Associate Director of Imaging Informatics, and Assistant Professor of Radiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Short series about AI in healthcare: 1 - the potential impact of AI on patients When reading about how digital health and AI are improving disease management, waiting times in decision making healthcare, we don't only read about cost savings. These novelties show how patients are becoming more and more equal to healthy people and how diseases are affecting the quality of lives less and less due to less time spent in the healthcare systems, faster diagnosis, faster treatment and recovery. Of course, this is not going to happen tomorrow, but when has any progress ever happened fast, especially in healthcare? Yes, AI applications are still in the early stages of this, algorithms and studies currently based on retrospective studies. But the trend is what it's crucial - the hype is annoying, but it attracts talent. And more people means more knowledge and faster advancements. Other upcoming episodes in the series: 2- the current state of AI in radiology as explained by Woojin Kim3- the complexity of diabetes and d

No matter which country you go, the predictions about the healthcare workforce estimate that we will encounter significant shortages of doctors in the future. It’s less often heard that the prediction for shortages of nurses is much higher compared to doctors. So today, the spotlight is on them. Shawna is an entrepreNURSE with a wide range of experiences in emergency medicine, cardiac, critical care, international medical flight transport, and workplace wellness. Shawna is an important member of the Exponential Medicine Team. With her curiosity and drive towards a better health she has shaped and launched various initiatives: the EntrepreNURSE-in-Residence role in the Netherlands, an enterprise-wide digital radiology solution, an international emergency medicine training rotation between a US medical school and a New Zealand hospital system, and the Cancer XPRIZE focused on early detection. She explains what are challenges nurses are faced with in terms of working conditions and paving the way to acknowledge

South Korea is famous for many things - worldwide, the Republic of Korea has by far the highest robot density in the manufacturing industry, the third-largest market for virtual currency, behind the United States and Japan. South Korea is called the plastic surgery capital, because of the cultural beauty obsession. According to a recent Gallup poll, one in three South Korean women has undergone cosmetic surgery between the ages of 19 and 29. South Korea’s government is even trying to limit the stars’ presence. South Korea also managed to pull off what many other countries crave for: a substantial healthcare reform in early 2000s. Health care is financed through National Health Insurance covering the entire population. To establish big data in the medical field, the nation is currently gathering the medical records of about 50 million people from 39 hospitals nationwide by 2020. Alongside all the technological progress, telemedicine is illegal in South Korea. You will hear why from today’s speaker Ogan Gurel,

Singapore, also known as Asia for beginners, is a 5.6 million people country, offering an encouraging environment to tech companies and expats. The government in Singapore is promoting IT adoption and innovation in healthcare. National Electronic Health Record system was rolled out in 2011. Combine that with countrywide connectivity, mobile-first population, and a lot of openness for collaboration with the private sector, and you get a healthtech epicenter in Asia. Excluding China and India, Singapore took the lead by deal volume share in Asia in 2018 with 30%, followed by Japan with 27% and South Korea with 13%, according to Galen Growth. Tony Estrella is a startup founder, investor, corporate innovation leader, and strategic advisor, with work experiences in the US, Europe and Asia. He is partnering with Asia-focused companies who are developing solutions to change the face of cancer and human longevity with core IP stemming from AI, Genomics, Blockchain, and smart devices. He recently published a fiction n

If anyone, India is in dire need to increase access to quality care. According to WHO, the density of doctors of all types (allopathic, ayurvedic, unani and homeopathic) in 2001 was 8 doctors per 10,000 people, and the density of nurses was 6 nurses per 10.000 people. Project ECHO® is one of the players with an important role in bringing patients quality care with the help of a revolutionary medical education project. The ambition of Project ECHO is to touch the lives of 1 billion people by 2025. The project works by connecting doctors on the local level, allowing them to share and discuss their clinical cases through the lens of the latest clinical guidelines. In this podcast episode, the executive director of Project ECHO India — Sunil Anand and Kartik Dhar, Leading the ECHO Digital technical solutions development and India based product teams, talk about  the current state of healthcare in India,  government’s plans for “Modicare” - insurance coverage  of ₹500,000 (7200$) per year per family, for 500 milli

China’s population is larger than the population of the US and Europe combined. The country is becoming the leader in AI development. The enabling factor for China’s rapid advancement in AI is that Chinese Tech giants and government agencies are investing heavily the most important fuel for AI development - data infrastructures. In healthcare, for example, the company Yitu has a team of about 400 doctors, most of whom work part-time for about 10 hours a week to help label data. One-fifth of the healthcare team’s full-time employees have a medical background.  Asian countries were lagging behind in digitization in the past, which enabled them to leapfrog development with mobile phones. The consumers here use Tencent’s WeChat for shopping, paying bills and more. Understandably, Tencent’s new strides into healthcare are highly anticipated. According to Technode, Tencent is testing real-time clinic services in its WeChat wallet, and as reported by mobihealthnews, Tencent Trusted Doctor is among a number of techno

Asia is the second-largest digital health ecosystem in the world. 2018 ended with a record-breaking 6.8 billion US dollars invested. According to IBC Asia, the digital health market is expected to reach $379 billion by 2024. Asian countries are leapfrogging the west in tech adoption. Many countries are turning into cashless societies where all transactions are done through mobile phones. At the same time, the culture in Asia is very different compared to the West. For a light start, this first episode will give you a broad overview of the region, with Julien de Salaberry, CEO and Founder of Galen Growth Asia. But before that, a few interesting thoughts about China, India, Singapore, and South Korea, from speakers in the upcoming episodes. The latest Gale Growth report about H1 of 2019 in Asia: https://bit.ly/2ZbgeKf

This episode is the first part of a two-part series about healthcare in Slovenia. Given that drug prices are a consistently controversial topic in the US healthcare system, the first part of the series explains European regulation. Why are drug prices in Europe more affordable? How does drug pricing and medication management work in Europe and Slovenia? Why is it hard to imagine that an opioid crisis or widespread use of ADHD drugs would happen in this part of Europe? The speaker explaining the topics is the Head of the medication management department at the Healthcare Insurance Institute of Slovenia Jurij Fürst.

This is the second part of a two-part series about healthcare in Slovenia. Slovenia is a country of 2 million people, with a universal healthcare system, where electronic medical cards have been in place since the nineties. The interoperable backbone for main patient documents such as discharge letters has been in place since 2012. On the index of the digital economy and society 2018 prepared by the European Commission, Slovenia was ranked 6th according to the use of eHealth solutions. Tina Vavpotič, healthcare business strategist and consultant, with rich experience in healthcare policy design, healthcare IT product design and implementation, shares her thoughts about eHealth and digital health.

Patients are getting increasingly engaged in their treatments, becoming the decisionmakers not just recipients of care. But to design a successful solution for patient support with high user retention is, to put it mildly, an art. Every patient lives in a different home environment, has different personal goal and challenges, therefore a good disease management solution for patients needs to be highly personalized. The discussion you will hear today is focused on exactly that: what aspects to take into account when we’re addressing patient behavior and patient empowerment, to which extent can technology decrease the need for real-life human coaches, since last years have shown that apps work best in combination with coaches. I spoke to Claire Kamoun - executive director of patient innovation at the French company MedClinik. Claire also shared her thoughts on technology adoption in France.

Asia is the 2nd largest digital health ecosystem in the world. Investments in the sector totaled 6.3 billion in 2018. 5 Faces of digital health episodes are going to be published in July, offering an overview of the region, and some insights provided by speakers from China, Singapore, South Korea and India.

Developing countries are often seen as ideal test hubs for innovation: there's no existing infrastructure to disrupt, the regulation permits a faster speed of adoption. However, like any market, African countries have their own specifics. How can you scale in Africa? Can you reduce the price of your consumer solution to the affordability of African consumers? Moka Lantum, based in Kenya, is an expert on the African healthcare market. He obtained his Doctor of Medicine training at Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Yaoundé, Cameroon; a Diploma in Nutrition and International Child Health, from Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden; a Doctorate in Pharmacology, from the University of Rochester, Rochester, New York. He is a graduate of the Masters in Health Care Management at the Harvard School of Public Health. He has rich entrepreneurship history of developing solutions for the African market. 

G4A, formerly known as Grants4Apps is probably the most famous digital health accelerator inside a Pharma conglomerate. For a few years, the program was designed to support a handful of startups by offering them office space, various entrepreneurship skills training and network expansion. As the digital health market evolved, so has the program, with Eugene Barukhovich taking over the global head of G4A digital health development at Bayer in 2016. At the moment, G4A is present in some form or another in 35 countries. 8 accelerators/incubators run around the globe. This discussion explains how a global pharmaceutical corporation with almost 120.000 employees launched a digital health accelerator, what are the specifics of this year's application process, how are business scandals of digital health and biotech startups from the Silicon Valley affecting the ecosystem, Eugene briefly comments the Dutch and German digital health system.   To learn more about this year's G4A program and application, see this link: 

Longevity, eternal youth or even immortality have been an aspiration in religion and culture throughout history. Today, people adopt all sorts of approaches to increase their wellbeing, delay aging and avoid diseases. Efforts are increasingly quantified with sensors, wearables, or even biohacking - interventions to influence body biology. The new hope for advancements in longevity is seen in artificial intelligence, which is becoming increasingly powerful. Alex Zhavoronkov has been researching the use of AI in aging for years. He is the CEO of Insilico Medicine, a Baltimore-based leader in the next-generation artificial intelligence technologies for drug discovery and aging biomarkers discovery. He truly is a well of knowledge - since 2012 he published over 130 peer-reviewed research papers and 2 books including "The Ageless Generation: How Biomedical Advances Will Transform the Global Economy" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). In this episode, he talks about the complexity of aging as a biological process, types o

Estonia has only 1,3 million people but is famous worldwide for its digital governance. If you want, you can even become an Estonian electronic resident and run your business from Estonia, regardless of your country of residence. Healthcare wise, 95% of healthcare data is in digital form, some of it supported with blockchain technology. What does all this mean - is data structured or is information stored in pdf? How supportive is the system for digital health startups? And how did the country, where only 6.5% of the GDP is spent on healthcare, achieve the level of digitization many countries are only dreaming of? Hannalore Taal - digital health specialist and the Chief e-Health Specialist at the Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs explains.

This short recording offers a snippet of thoughts about healthcare China, Japan, Germany, Dubai, Israel, Japan, and Bolivia.

ClinicalTrials.gov currently lists 302,091 clinical studies in the US. It is impossible for patients and their doctors to be aware of all clinical trials an individual might be eligible for. While one would expect the trials to be run and supported by sophisticated software, the reality is often far from that expectation. Patients often come to doctors inquiring about trials doctors might not even have been aware of. Trials data is managed manually, in old fashion way — clinical trials are written in a word format, transmitted to sites in pdf files, later on along the process, the data are often manually abstracted from clinical trials to homegrown solutions for analysis in each institution. Data is collected in tailor-made 3rd party systems for different pharma companies and then re-converted to another format for FDA submissions.  There is no doubt: there are plenty of opportunities to improve clinical trials with new technologies. Samuel L. Volchenboum, MD, PhD, MS, is an expert in pediatric cancers and bl