If social media and smartphones are the root cause of the new mental health epidemic in younger generations, how successful can digital interventions be in addressing mental health issues? In this discussion, recorded at Digital Health and AI Innovation Summit in Boston in October, Katherine Wolfe-Lyga, Mental health professional and former college administrator, Vice President at BetterMynd, discussed: Digital Mental Health Interventions: Digital health solutions, especially telehealth, have im...
Oct 21, 2024•21 min•Season 11Ep. 323
In this episode of Faces of Digital Health, Michael, an experienced innovator with over 80 patents and a professor in multiple countries, joins to discuss the future of digital health. The conversation dives deep into the concepts of innovation, patent strategies, and the challenges in digital health funding. Michael shares his insights on current investment trends, the future of healthcare, and the potential of technologies like AI and digital tools to redefine medicine. Website: https://www.fa...
Oct 07, 2024•40 min•Season 11Ep. 322
Better is a healthcare IT provider of a healthcare data platform, low-code tools that help healthcare organisations to rapidly build applications that suit their specific need and hospital medication management software, working across 20 markets. In this episode, based on 30+ years of experience, Tomaz Gornik, CEO of Better explained: - what is a data platform in healthcare, - what motivates vendors to NOT lock customers in their systems - EHDS implementation from the healthcare IT perspective,...
Oct 03, 2024•49 min•Season 11Ep. 321
There are over 200 hospital trusts in the UK, encompassing more than 1,200 hospitals. With those numbers and a population of 67 million, the United Kingdom represents quite a large market. However, selling to the NHS is anything but easy. Mindy Simon is Co-Director at the NHS Innovation Accelerator. She is responsible for the program's execution and provides guidance to innovators and startups that already have customers. In this episode, Mindy talked about the importance of gaining visibility w...
Sep 26, 2024•25 min•Season 11Ep. 320
Daniel Kraft is a Stanford and Harvard trained physician-scientist, inventor and entrepreneur focused on accelerating much improved future of health and biomedicine at the convergence of accelerating technologies and human innovation. He is the founder of NextMed Health & Digital.Health, Chairs the XPRIZE Health Alliance, and is a sought after speaker on the future of medicine, with 6 TED & TEDMED Talks. Join NextMed Health in December 2024 in San Diego: https://www.nextmed.health/ In th...
Sep 13, 2024•33 min•Season 11Ep. 319
This episode features Dr. Chelsea Sumner discussing NVIDIA's significant role in healthcare, particularly in its work with AI startups. Key areas of focus include NVIDIA’s contributions to medical imaging, genomics, and drug discovery, and its innovative tools like Clara and NIMs. The conversation highlights how NVIDIA collaborates with startups, its global footprint, and insights into AI’s transformative potential in healthcare. Key Points: NVIDIA’s Role in Healthcare: GPUs in Healthcare: NVIDI...
Sep 10, 2024•40 min•Season 11Ep. 318
This episode gives an in-depth insight into healthcare digitalization in Portugal. Cátia Sousa Pinto, Head of Global Digital Health and International Affairs at SPMS - shared services of ministry of health of Portugal talked about healthcare digitalization in Portugal, European Health Data Space (EHDS), patient data and more. Key Points Summary Portugal's Digital Health System Design: To accelerate digital health development, Portugal created a national eHealth agency (SPMS) over a decade ago. S...
Sep 05, 2024•53 min•Season 11Ep. 317
In this episode Anne Forsyth, Director of Clinical Applications and Support at Women’s College Hospital in Canada, discusses the challenges and opportunities in optimizing healthcare IT systems, particularly in data management and digital literacy. She shares her experiences transitioning from a policy role to a hospital setting and emphasizes the importance of data governance, workflow design, and continuous improvement in digital health projects. Key Takeaways: Community and Collaboration: Can...
Aug 28, 2024•42 min•Season 10Ep. 316
In healthcare, consultants are present more often than we might realise: they work with healthcare providers to improve clinical efficiency, manage costs, implement new technologies, or streamline administrative processes. They can help with regulatory compliance, help insurance companies design new poducts, governments hire them to help with policy development, program evaluation, and implementation of new regulations. In this episode we take a look under the hood of consultancy work, where gov...
Aug 20, 2024•1 hr•Season 10Ep. 315
Catalonia published a new digitalization strategy in 2017. It set a new path of the healthcare IT infrastructure, based on open-platform approach, focusing on data persistence with the use of openEHR data specification. In this discussion, you will hear from Jordi Piera Jiménez, Director of the Digital Health Strategy Office at the Catalan Health Service and Director at openEHR International, representing organisational members. He discussed specifics of the Spanish healthcare market, how far Ca...
Aug 07, 2024•51 min•Season 10Ep. 314
Artur Olesch is Berlin-based journalist specializing in digital health, the founder of aboutDigitalHealth.com, and the editor-in-chief of ICT&Health International. In this discussion, he shares his thoughts on the European legislation of healthtech, his thoughts on most intriguing books in tech and AI, and more. His 3 book picks: Ray Kurzweil - Singularity is nearer Ethan Mollick - Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI Philip E. Tetlock, Dan Gardner - Superforecasting: The Art and Scie...
Aug 03, 2024•44 min•Season 10Ep. 313
John Halamka is the President of the Mayo Clinic Platform and a leading expert in digital health and AI. He has traveled to 21 countries, helping to scale digital health solutions and address regulatory and ethical challenges in the reuse of healthcare data. Addressed topics in this discussion: 1. Differences in regulatory frameworks and cultural expectations across countries. 2. Comparison of the U.S. and European approaches to AI and data exchange. 3. Risks associated with generative AI and th...
Jul 24, 2024•15 min•Season 10Ep. 312
You may not have heard about Prenuvo, but you probably know Kim Kardashian. Or perhaps you know about Prenuvo because of Kim Kardashian. Prenuvo offers whole-body MRI scans for $2500. About 3-4% of people get something discovered, 10% have detected changes that require follow-ups. Opinions about the usefulness of these scans are diverse, with some hesitation on the clinical side. At HLTH Europe, the CEO Andrew Lacy explained: 🤔 How Prenuvo uses influencer marketing to attract new customers, 🤔 ...
Jul 15, 2024•22 min•Season 10Ep. 312
If you ever want to go to a healthcare innovation conference that doesn’t shy away from potentially controversive topics, HLTH is your place to go. In June 2024, the conference, which attracts 12,000 people in the US, came to Europe. At the center of the exhibition hall stood the Heart Stage focused on topics related to women’s health. Around it were the exhibitor booth and other stages, each designed with a different theme, each like a theatre setup that made speakers feel like stars. Why do pe...
Jun 24, 2024•25 min•Season 10Ep. 310
Debates around equity and equality, especially concerning men and women and female representation, can become heated and divisive quickly. For a long time, female bodies have been perceived merely as male bodies with different reproductive organs. However, the differences go beyond that: 80% of people with autoimmune conditions are women, 66% of Alzheimer's disease patients are women, and symptoms of cardiovascular diseases present differently in women and men, among other disparities. These hea...
Jun 17, 2024•28 min•Season 10Ep. 309
Rome was buzzing with digital health at the end of May as the HIMSS Europe conference took place at La Nuova Congress Center. Delegates from 80 countries and representatives of health ministries of 20 countries marked the event with discussions about the implementation of EHDS, the EU AI Act, and more. In this episode, a few participants share their impressions from the discussions at the conference and the current state of healthcare digitalization in Europe. You will hear from: Jordi Piera-Jim...
Jun 02, 2024•33 min•Season 10Ep. 308
According to WHO, the global cost associated with medication errors is 42 billion US dollars. Errors can happen at the point of prescribing, transcribing from one system to the other, or administration, when the wrong patient is given either the wrong drug or the wrong dose. Medication administration errors can be prevented with the introduction of closed-loop medication management, where all points of medication handling are connected and done electronically; even medication administration is d...
May 22, 2024•37 min•Season 10Ep. 307
The European Health Data Space is around the corner. The legislation is confirmed. How do we get to the next steps? Today you will hear a discussion with Eric Sutherland, Senior Health Economist and Digital Health Lead at OECD, who worked on the pan-Canadian health data strategy before his current role. We discussed the upcoming implementation of the European Health Data Space, what needs to happen next, how do we involve the public, encourage trust in data sharing, and also build capacity for d...
May 07, 2024•43 min•Season 10Ep. 306
AI and predictive modeling to understand an individual’s immune system function and predict treatment response are still in very early stages. We dream about precision medicine and getting every answer we can for ourselves when we get sick. However, if we look at genomics, only about 20 percent of human coding genes are well-studied. The remaining 80 percent (about 16,000 genes, along with the proteins they make) are largely a mystery. In this episode, you will hear more about the field of immun...
Apr 25, 2024•37 min•Season 10Ep. 305
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) brings together six Arab countries – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates When one reads about the GCC countries, there’s nothing but the impression of prosperity: high investments, determination, and enthusiasm in tech-supported healthcare. The spending on healthcare by the GCC governments is on an astronomical rise. From a regionwide US$2.4 billion in 2016, it rose to more than US$30 billion in 2021 and is projected to surp...
Apr 09, 2024•38 min•Season 10Ep. 304
In the last few years, we've witnessed a whirlwind of developments in the world of Digital Therapeutics (DTx) - from FDA approvals sparking optimism for the industry, to the establishment of regulatory frameworks in countries like Germany, France, and Belgium. However, in 2023, the industry faced a stark reality check, marked by the fall of some key players and healthcare systems' hesitancy towards embracing and financing these innovations. This turbulence has reshaped strategies and raised crit...
Apr 02, 2024•22 min•Season 10Ep. 303
Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) have become increasingly integral in healthcare for assessing the effectiveness of treatments from the patient's perspective. It sounds like a reasonable step in improving clinical research and care provision, but gathering data can be more difficult then you may think. It isn't easy to get to marginalized communities. There are language barriers in collecting data. There are cultural aspects that impact responses. So, how can you design useful electronic solutio...
Mar 19, 2024•37 min•Season 10Ep. 302
Did you know that Belgium has had an idea for classifying and validating digital therapeutics since 2018? A clear framework was formed with all main stakeholders involved - from health insurance to the industry. So why are we not hearing more about DTx in Belgium? In this discussion you will hear from Dr. Steven Vandeput - he is the Advisor for Digital MedTech and Services & Technologies Home Assistance in Belgium; he is managing the mHealthBelgium portal and, since 2019, has been a represen...
Mar 12, 2024•37 min•Season 10Ep. 301
The field of oncology treatments is advancing very fast with innovative therapies and approaches on the market every day. It can get very tricky to support these therapies from an IT perspective, which is what you will hear more about in this discussion. I spoke with Anish Patankar, SVP and GM of Elekta’s Oncology Software Solutions, and we discusses: How to go about the US hospital market, Development in software for oncology treatments, Challenges in scaling healthcare IT software across marke...
Mar 04, 2024•31 min•Season 10Ep. 300
In 2023, Insilico Medicine—a biotech company developing medications with a heavy reliance on AI—used AI to develop an experimental drug for the incurable lung disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. The treatment is in mid-stage trials in the US and China, with some results expected in early 2025. Biotech is one of the fields that has been using generative AI for years, even before ChatGPT brought the technology to public view. Latest technology is essential in drug development. However, the conv...
Feb 20, 2024•39 min•Season 10Ep. 299
HLTH (https://hlth.com/) is an event where you will see a literal forest on one of the stages, be able to take a selfie with a unicorn mascot, and get perks like hlth branded pink nail polist on your entrance. In the last few years, HLTH has become the most flashy, visible and must-go digital health event in the US. In this episode, Richard Scarfo, president of HLTH, talks about HLTH's approach to making events memorable, why HLTH is taking experience economy as a guiding principle in the invest...
Feb 15, 2024•28 min•Season 10Ep. 298
Migraine is 3 times more common in women than in men. 2/3 of patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Gender differences are real and they matter. The Women's Brain Project (WBP) is a Swiss-based international non-profit organization founded in 2016. It comprises a diverse team of academic and social scientists, medical doctors, engineers, patients, caregivers, artists, and AI experts. The WBP focuses on understanding sex and gender differences in brain and mental diseases to pave the way for precisio...
Feb 07, 2024•44 min•Season 10Ep. 298
Laboratory tests provide doctors with crucial information for diagnosis, monitoring disease progression, evaluating organ function, assessing risk factors for diseases and more. Laboratory testing can be reassuring, however, it is often deemed unnecessary. In this short episode recorded at HLTH, we’re going to talk about laboratory test optimization. How can it be done without undermining clinical autonomy, what kind of real-time insights can be offered to doctors with tech and more. You will he...
Jan 23, 2024•15 min•Season 10Ep. 296
In this episode, you’re going hear about the German market for digital health startups, the innovation approach at Charite, one of Europe's largest university hospitals, the challenges with digital therapeutics in Germany and beyond. I spoke with Dorothée Marie-Louise Döpfer, Deputy Head of Digital Labs and program Manager of the Digital Health Accelerator & Community Building at Charite UMC Berlin. Dorothee also shared her expectations about the impact of AI on European health systems. News...
Jan 16, 2024•33 min•Season 10Ep. 295
ePrescribing has become a norm in the US healthcare system. Now, the expanded role of pharmacists and the integration of non-physician prescribers into the healthcare system signifies a move towards a more accessible healthcare model, potentially alleviating some of the clinicians' burdens. Surescripts is the national provider of the ePrescribing infrastructure in the US. In this short discussion, I spoke with Dr. Lynne Nowak, Chief Data and Analytics Officer, and Melanie Marcus, Chief Marketing...
Jan 10, 2024•21 min•Season 10Ep. 294