Faces of Digital Health

Between 13 and 16 November, HLTH, the largest digital health conference with over 9000 attendees, took place in Las Vegas. Over 400 speakers discussed the current trends and challenges in the industry. This short episode recaps some of the discussed topics - investment trends, holistic healthcare: food as medicine, digital therapeutics, mental health trends, telemedicine decline, patient experience as a determinant of care, health disparities and more. Speakers: Smriti Kirubanandan, Healthcare Strategist and Board Member of The World Food Bank, Lyndsey (McKay) Harper, Ob/Gyn, Founder/CEO of Rosy Aline Noziet, Digital Health Connector from Barcelona, Spain Hagai Heshes, Head of Product Marketing at TytoCare Erica Olenski Johansen, Caregiver and Patient Advocate Julien de Sallabery, CEO of Galen Growth Read the transcript in the newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/ Leave a rating or a review: lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth Official website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com *** Past episodes about DTx in Germany*** How Can A Digital Health Solution Become a "DiGA App" in Germany? https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/eit-health-germany-procarement How did Germany accelerate the speed of the digitization of healthcare? https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f095-how-did-germany-managed-to-take-the-lead-in-healthcare-digitization-henrik-matthies-maike-henningsen-maren-lesche?rq=germany

Finn Partners and Galen growth Asia partnered for a global overview of the digital health investment landscape. More than 200M data points from more than 12,000 digital health ventures worldwide were taken into account when assessing the state of the industry. In this short discussion, the CEO of Galen Growth Asia Julien de Salaberry, explained the key findings from the report, the state of digital health in China and expectations from next year. Investment trends globally: - In the first 9 months of 2022, venture funding across the globe declined by 35% YOY ($25 B compared to $39.23B over the same quarters in 2021) - 60% of the total volume comes from North America, the Middle East came in second in Q2, and Europe did NOT see a quarter-on-quarter decrease in venture funding seen in North America. - Top investment categories: oncology (though the funding shrinked by 30%) and mental health Predictions for 2023: - Investors are moving from Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) to Fear of Looking Foolish (FOLF) - Ventures are finding that funding terms & conditions are far less favorable and valuations are continuing to return to reality. ***** MONTHLY Newsletter which recaps episodes in the past month: https://fodh.substack.com/ www.facesofdigitalhealth.com

For new ideas and solutions to reach the market, startup founders need to find the right partners that are willing to listen to them and take their ideas one step further. Established in 2015, the Health Innovation Hub & Holding provides years of expert ​knowledge in innovation pathways, paving the way for better healthcare and a sustainable healthcare industry. The European organization better known under the name of Innovation in health has many programs in its portfolio. In this episode Hannes Toivanen, Lead, Global Digital Ecosystem Engagement at Takeda and Jesus Jeronimo Director of New Digital Services & Products at Sanitas + BUPA ELA. Jesus and Hannes talked about how pharma, insurance companies and healthcare providers work with startups, what makes a successful partnership, and why their organizations took part in the Innovation in health programs Start-ups Meet Pharma (Takeda) and start-ups Meet Healthcare Providers (Sanitas + BUPA ELA). More about Innovation in health: https://innovationinhealth.eu/ MONTHLY Newsletter which recaps episodes in the past month: https://fodh.substack.com/ www.facesofdigitalhealth.com **** This episode is supported by EIT Health Germany-Switzerland, which is one of eight Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) currently funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). EiT Health Germany connects 150 renowned partners from industry, research and education from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The unique network helps initiate outstanding innovations in the health sector. If you're a startup working in the field of digital health or biotech and don't know EiT Health Germany yet, I would encourage you to visit eit-health.de, where you will find more about innovation, acceleration, and education programs.

In the previous episode, you had a chance to listen to Dr Phil Koczan, GP in North East London and the Chief Clinical Safety Officer for London, Dr Katherine Buxton, Consultant in Palliative Care Medicine for Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Clinical Director, Palliative and End of Life Care Strategic Clinical Network for London talk about the recently introduced digitized urgent care planning across London. OneLondon is a project that supports a vision of joined-up health and care. It is a pan-London collaboration between leaders from the 5 Integrated Care Systems in the capital. London’s healthcare system is complex. It covers a population of 10 million people and is connecting 35 NHS Trusts and 1385 GP practices. In this episode, Gary McAllister, Chief Technology Officer of OneLondon explains how is London approaching the digital transformation of healthcare in London, how complex is the IT infrastructure at the moment, and how the core team of OneLondon works with vendors to try to connect different systems as efficiently as possible. More about OneLondon: https://www.onelondon.online/ More about Urgent Care Planning: https://ucp.onelondon.online/ MONTHLY Newsletter which recaps episodes in the past month: https://fodh.substack.com/ www.facesofdigitalhealth.com ***** The topic of this episode is supported by Better - a provider of an open data digital health platform, electronic prescribing and medication administration solution, and low code tools that help you rapidly build applications that suit your needs. The company focuses on simplifying the work of health and care teams, advocates for data for life, and strives for all health data to be vendor-neutral and easily accessible. More about the company: better.care

Too often, patients need to repeat their medical history when in contact with different healthcare providers. Consequently, clinicians need more time to make decisions than necessary because they can’t access patient data. London managed to digitize urgent care plans and make them available across 40 NHS Trusts and 1400 GP offices. This episode presents the Urgent Care Plan Programme, aiming at giving clinicians easy access to patients’ desires about their care, as defined in their care plan. Patients can fill out an urgent care plan at various points in their patient journey. The problem so far has been that accessing these plans by different providers was often difficult. Now the situation is improved with an introduction of a regional platform that stores urgent care plans and enables different care teams to access them when needed. Urgent Care Plan Programme is a part of OneLondon Portfolio. OneLondon is a project that supports a vision of joined-up health and care. It is a pan-London collaboration between leaders from the 5 Integrated Care Systems in the capital. London’s healthcare system is complex. It covers a population of 10 million people and is connecting 35 NHS Trusts and 1385 GP practices. As part of the OneLondon portfolio, the Urgent Care Plan Programme led the design and implementation of a new digital care planning solution in 2021. This solution enables Londoners to have their care, and support wishes digitally shared with healthcare professionals across the capital. By connecting all care levels, clinicians can now easily access urgent care plans to guide them in the care they provide to patients based on patient's individual preferences. This episode presents what urgent care plans are, why they matter, and more as explained by Dr Phil Koczan, GP in North East London, and the Chief Clinical Safety Officer for London, Dr Katherine Buxton, Consultant in Palliative Care Medicine for Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Clinical Director, Palliative and End of Life Care Strategic Clinical Network for London. They explained what the joint urgent care plan means for patients and healthcare providers in London. More about OneLondon: https://www.onelondon.online/ More about Urgent Care Planning: https://ucp.onelondon.online/ MONTHLY Newsletter which recaps episodes in the past month: https://fodh.substack.com/ www.facesofdigitalhealth.com The topic of this episode is supported by Better - a provider of an open data digital health platform, electronic prescribing and medication administration solution, and low code tools that help you rapidly build applications that suit your needs. The company focuses on simplifying the work of health and care teams, advocates for data for life, and strives for all health data to be vendor-neutral and easily accessible. More about the company: better.care

Medical progress is driven by research, and good research requires good data. The largest single-site cancer center in Europe and the biggest chemotherapy center in the UK - The Christie NHS Foundation Trust runs 650 clinical trials at any given time. They recently went live with a new electronic Patient Reported Outcome Measures (ePROMs) service helping to connect patients with the hospital trust through their cancer journey. As explained by Phil Bottomley, EHR Strategic Lead at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, the digitization of ePROMs is only the beginning of the digitalization process of over 600 clinical forms used in the hospital. The hospital’s digital transformation strategy is based on a data-first approach, ensuring that the used data models enable the creation of a longitudinal record. They chose openEHR specification - a product and vendor-independent specification, striving to make data independent of any software provider. Subscribe to the newsletter to receive a recap of the whole cancer series: https://fodh.substack.com/ www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or review: lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth The topic of this episode is supported by Better - a provider of an open data digital health platform, electronic prescribing and medication administration solution, and low code tools that help you rapidly build applications that suit your needs.

We are in the middle of a series of discussions related to cancer care, treatment improvements, data management in oncology, and the promise of AI to find the right treatment for the right patient in the fastest possible manner. As mentioned by Xose M. Fernandez, a genomicist and former chief data officer at Institute Curie, a faster diagnosis could lead to less aggressive treatment and better patient outcomes. We covered many perspectives so far: accessibility and cost of cancer treatments in the US and Canada in the first episode, genetics, data management, and the science of cancer; we talked about AI treatments and challenges in designing clinical trials in personalized medicine. This episode focuses on the consequences cancer diagnosis has after patients are cured. Many cancer survivors in long-term remission face restricted access to financial services because of their medical history. Some EU countries have already implemented the right to be forgotten - a right for patients not to disclose their medical history. Changes across Europe are happening slowly and given the rising incidence of cancer on the one hand, and scientific advances on the other, we need improvement in the quality of life of patients after they are cured. In this episode, you will hear from dr. Françoise Meunier, member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine, former Director General of European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer, and a Scientific Member of the European Cancer Patient Coalition. Subscribe to the newsletter to receive a recap of the whole cancer series: https://fodh.substack.com/ www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or review: lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

This is the 3rd episode in the Cancer Series. In this episode, you’ll hear a bit about precision medicine in oncology, drug repurposing and the increasing challenges precision medicine poses for clinical trials. I spoke with Tuvik Beker, CEO of Pangea Biomed, an Israeli-based company tackling oncology drug development and treatment recommendation by not only looking at the single mutations in tumor cells, which the Pharmaceutical industry has already found targeted therapies for. Cancer treatments are evolving very rapidly, but precision and targeted therapies are still only effective in roughly 10% of cancer patients. Pangea Biomed tries to understand broader gene activation patterns inside tumor cells and recommends a therapy that would help exploit cancer cells’ defense mechanisms. As explained in simplified terms by Tuvik Beker. Cancer Series Ep. 1: Access to Care, Financial Toxicity and Healthcare IT in Oncology Speaker: David J. Stewart, MD, FRCPC, Professor of Medicine in the Division of Medical Oncology at the University of Ottawa and The Ottawa Hospital. Cancer Series Ep.2: Cancer, Genomics and Data Science Speaker: Xose M. Fernandez, genomicist and up until recently the Chief Data Officer at Institut Curie in France, one of the leading medical, biological, and biophysical research centers in the world. SUBSCRIBE TO THE MONTHLY NEWSLETTER: https://fodh.substack.com/ www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or a review: lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth Thank you! :)

This is the second episode in a special series about cancer, cancer care, accessibility and technologies related to cancer care. The first episode focused on the current state of cancer care with a speaker from Canada - David J. Stewart, MD, FRCPC, Professor of Medicine in the Division of Medical Oncology at the University of Ottawa and The Ottawa Hospital. David explained the current state of cancer care, IT in oncology and financial toxicity of a cancer diagnosis for patients. This, second episode, dives into genomics, the role of AI, and data science in oncology. Speaker: Xose M. Fernandez, genomicist and up until recently the Chief Data Officer at Institut Curie in France, one of the leading medical, biological, and biophysical research centers in the world. SUBSCRIBE TO THE MONTHLY NEWSLETTER: https://fodh.substack.com/ www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or a review: lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth Thank you! :)

There were an estimated 18.1 million cancer cases around the world in 2020, according to the World Cancer Research Fund International. According to the Comparator Report on Cancer in Europe 2020, the absolute number of people diagnosed with cancer rose around 50% in Europe over the past 20 years. However, the number of deaths only increased by 20%. The numbers show we’re making great strides in survival and treatments and early screenings. But because of the aging population, cancer care and prevention are rising global public health concerns. In the next few episodes, we’ll talk about cancer, cancer care, and technology, the role of data and IT for improved care and research, AI in the search for new therapies, but also about cancer survivorship: what happens to patients after they are cancer free, but unfortunately far from back to the life they had before cancer. Speaker in this episode is David J. Stewart, MD, FRCPC, Professor of Medicine in the Division of Medical Oncology at the University of Ottawa and The Ottawa Hospital. David recently wrote a book titled: A short primer on Why Cancer Still Sucks. Find the book: https://www.amazon.com/Short-Primer-Cancer-Still-Sucks/dp/0228871999 David talked about the comparison of financial toxicity of cancer for patients in Canada and the US, and the challenges with drug development and access in the two countries; David also talked about his experience with healthcare digitalization and IT systems. SUBSCRIBE TO THE MONTHLY NEWSLETTER: https://fodh.substack.com/ www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or a review: lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth Thank you! :)

This episode explores the role of at-home diagnostic testing in managing and preventing sexually transmitted diseases. More than 1 million sexually transmitted infections (STIs), which include syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, HIV hepatitis, and other infections, are acquired every day worldwide. The majority of STIs are asymptomatic early detection that much more important to prevent the spread of these diseases. According to WHO, globally, 38.4 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2021. Science has advanced immensively to help treat and manage HIV. For over a decade, populations at risk can take preventative pills, which prevent HIV infections by over 99%. Unfortunately, access to this prophylaxis shouldn’t be taken for granted. In the US, prevention is supposed to be covered by insurance under the Affordable Care Act. However, in September, a district court ruling in Texax potentially endangered this access. A Christian-owned company argued against the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that insurers and employers offer plans that cover PrEP for free. The argument was that this statutory provision “forces religious employers to provide coverage for drugs that facilitate and encourage homosexual behavior, prostitution, sexual promiscuity, and intravenous drug use.” The company won the case, and the ruling opened up concerns about what this will mean for future efforts and coverage for preventative health measures. In this - which was published before the Texas Court ruling -, you will hear from Emma Rayer is the Head of Strategic Partnerships for Ash Wellness, a remote diagnostics solution. Ash Wellness supports traditional healthcare systems, universities, public health initiatives, and digital health companies in giving patients access to at-home sample collection kits that are then sent and analyzed in laboratories. Emma talked about the differences in the attitude towards testing for STIs in South Africa, where she grew up in and the US, where she lives now. She also explained how the Ash platform works, how is at-home diagnostics market evolving, and more. www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Recap of this episode: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/std-prevention-through-platform Leave a rating or a review: lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth Thank you! :) !Subscribe to the monthly newsletter! - https://fodh.substack.com/

This is the second episode where we will discuss healthcare delivery in Africa. In the previous episode, the entrepreneur and regulatory advisor Herve Mwamba from South Africa talked about stereotypes and medical device regulation in Africa (Full transcript: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/medical-device-regulation-mdr-africa). In this episode, you’re going to hear about an effort to manage non-communicable diseases in Africa better. Medtronic Labs is a nonprofit organization that works with governments and local communities in across Africa to create local ecosystems for the management of hypertension and diabetes. I spoke with Anne Stake, Chief Strategy and Product Officer at Medtronic Labs, who explained, how Medtronic Labs approached the African market, gaining of trust in the local communities and what challenges and innovations they observed on the ground in Kenya, Rwanda and Ghana. Did you read our newsletter yet? We finally have one! It only comes out monthly, filled with information about insights in the last month. Do check it out here: Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/ TRANSCRIPT: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/medtronic-labs-africa Website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or a review: www.lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth Thank you!

It’s September, it’s time for school and a new season of Faces of digital health podcast episodes. Faces of digital health strives to bring you an insight into digital health development across the world. We’re going to start this season in Africa. In this episode, South African entrepreneur, regulatory, and quality assurance consultant Herve Mwamba discusses the state of medical device regulation in South Africa and Africa more broadly, his observations about the consequences and problems related to the European Medical Device Regulation, his observation regarding innovation in Africa. This is the first of a few episodes where speakers talked about the African market, so do make sure to subscribe to the show to be notified about other episodes automatically. In the next episode you’ll hear about chronic disease management in Kenya and Ghana, provided by Medtronic Labs, and after that, a discussion about the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and how that can be improved with the rise of at-home testing. TRANSCRIPT: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/medical-device-regulation-mdr-africa BTW - did you read our newsletter yet? We finally have one! It only comes out monthly, filled with information about insights in the last month. Do check it out here: Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/ www.facesofdigitalhealth.com www.lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

There are “five rights” of medication use: the right patient, the right drug, the right time, the right dose, and the right route. It might seem obvious, but in practice, an error can occur at the level of each of these “right”s. Unsafe medication practices and medication errors are leading cause of injury and avoidable harm in health care systems worldwide. According to WHO, the cost associated with medication errors has been estimated at $42 billion annually globally. The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare estimates that between 2% and 3% of all Australian hospital admissions are medication-related. In the UK, it is estimated that adverse drug reactions account for 10-20% of hospital in-patient admissions, according to the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer’s National Overprescribing Review, which was published in September 2021. This episode is a recording of a panel discussion at the Talking Healthtech Winter Summit in Australia in August. The panel session you’re about to hear is focused on medication management in the hospital setting. It will give you an overview of: the current problems with medications in the hospital setting, why are decision support systems suboptimal, what it takes to implement healthcare IT in the hospital setting. Speakers: Melissa Fodera, Chief Pharmacy Informatics Officer (CPIO) Western Health Australia, Božidarka Radović, Better Meds Product Lead at the health IT company Better, Gidi Stein, CEO of MedAware. RESOURCES: Talking Healthtech Winter Summit: https://www.talkinghealthtech.com/summit www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Subscribe to the Faces of digital health MONTHLY! newsletter: fodh.substack.com Leave a rating or a review: www.lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

Patients dream about reliable and clinically meaningful digital innovations that would help improve their health in a smooth way. With the digital health market maturing, startups increasingly need to not only offer a good user experience but also comply with rigorous regulatory requirements and test their solutions in clinical trials. They need to go through long certification processes. For a few years now, Germany has in place a clear workflow for making digital health apps reimbursable. France is on its way to adopting a similar framework. In today’s episode, you will hear more about what companies need to do to get certified and reimbursed in Germany. I spoke with Jörg Trinkwalter, the Managing Director at ProCarement, a young startup that developed a telemedicine digital care solution for patients with heart failure. ProCarement is participating in the current cohort of the EIT Health Diginovation program. The Diginovation program links start-ups with an international consortium to accelerate the reimbursement of digital health apps in Europe. Jorg explained how ProCarement is preparing to have their application included in the DiGA repository, and how they’re working with the regulatory body Bfarm to achieve that goal. There are currently 35 DiGA applications in the repository. I added the link to the DiGA repository in the show notes, so you can browse through what’s approved and can be prescribed by doctors. In this episode, Jörg talks about ProCarement, telemedicine reimbursement in Germany, the benefits of the Diginovation program and plans for the French market, and how ProCarement is working towards also having a DiGA app. www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Monthly newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com Diga repository: https://diga.bfarm.de/de/verzeichnis This is the 7th out of 12 episodes prepared in collaboration with EIT Health. This episode is supported by EIT Health Germany, which is one of eight Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) currently funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). Find out more about startup opportunities in 2022.

In 2017, 57.7 million people were living with limb amputation due to traumatic causes worldwide. Apart from accidents, a person might need an amputation due to vascular diseases and diabetes. You might have come across increasingly sophisticated prosthetic limbs, which mimic human movements. The problem is, these are extremely expensive. Simple cosmetic prosthetic costs around $5,000, a functional prosthetic with a hook up to $10,000, and the latest myoelectric tech-enhanced ones cost up to $100,000. In this episode, Dima Gazda, CEO, and founder of Esper Bionics speaks about the development of the market, and how Esper Bionics operates, given that it has facilities in Ukraine. Subscribe to the newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/ Website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com

This episode was first published in summer 2021, and is one of the most listened-to episodes from 2021. Taiwan spends only 6.4% of it’s GDP for healthcare, but has high satisfaction rates with healthcare, and is also very digitalized. In this episode, a closer look into healthcare in Taiwan is provided by Prof. Yu-Chuan Jack Li - a pioneer of artificial intelligence in medicine and translational biomedical informatics. Professor Li is Editor-in-Chief for BMJ Health & Care Informatics journal, the elected president of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) and has devoted himself to evolving the next generation of Al in patient safety and prevention ("Earlier Medicine"). He has been deeply involved in biomedical informatics development in Taiwan and international cooperation on various continents, including Asia, America, Europe, and Africa. We spoke about the state of healthcare digitalization and AI in Taiwan. Subscribe to the newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/ www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or a review: lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

One of the more prominent news in July was that according to Sifted, healthcare seed investments in Europe surpassed Fintech investments in June, making the health tech industry the industry that’s attracting the most investments. At the same time, in the US, Rock Health reported that digital health startups in the US raised 10.3 billion USD in the first half year of 2022, and StartupHealth reported a lower amount of investments compared to 2021. As StartupHealth noted, the 16B raised globally in Q1 and Q2, is still much more than in the first half of the year 2020. You can tune into a reflection on the current state of digital health globally by listening to the interview with the Startup Health president Unity Stoakes in April: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/startup-health-unity-stoakes This episode takes a look at the European market and how aescuvest invests in digital health startups. We also talk about the rising problem of digital visual stress. Speakers: Simon Molitor, Associate Project Manager at Aescuvest, Michael Mrochern, Member of Investment Committee aescuvest and the CEO of Vivior which offers a novel wearable device – the Vivior Monitor – to objectively measure visual behavior prior to vision correction interventions. www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Monthly newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/p/a-glimpse-in-digital-health-and-healthcare https://www.aescuvest.eu/ https://vivior.com/ https://eithealth.eu/in-your-region/germany/ This episode is supported by EIT Health Germany, which is one of eight Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) currently funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). Find out more about startup opportunities in 2022.

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 2021. Watch the documentary and full interviews with the speakers: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/overdose-documentary Learn more about Better Meds: https://meds.better.care/ Speakers in the movie and this episode: David W. Bates, Medical Director of Clinical and Quality Analysis, Information Systems, Patient Safety Expert and Harvard MD (Clinical & Research Perspective) Professor John Horn, PharmD, University of Washington School of Pharmacy, coauthor of “The Top 100 Drug Interactions”; A Guide to Patient Management” Martina Viduka, Practicing Nurse, Co-Founder of Advosense David Kliff, author and publisher of the Diabetic Investor eNewsletter, former investment advisor, and as a person living with diabetes (Patient Perspective) Duncan Cripps, Electronic Prescribing and Medication Management Lead at University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust (Pharmacist Perspective) Roni Shiloh, CEO of Seegnal, MD degree, specialized in Psychiatry (CDS provider and doctor perspective) Hicham Naim, Global Head Integrated & Personalized Patient Care Program, Digital Advisory Board at Takeda (Pharma Perspective) Marinka Žitnik, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School (Research perspective Lea Dias, Clinical Pharmacist, Founder and CEO of Quaefacta Abdulelah Alhawsawi, Ex - founding Director-General of the Saudi Patient Safety Center (SPSC) Roi Shternin, Founder of the patient-led Israeli society for Dysautonomia (Patient perspective).

Brazil had over 200 million people; how many of them sleep well? I hope you’re enjoying summer and resting enough. Many people have issues with sleeping: either not sleeping enough or sleeping poorly. Oftentimes, due to poor sleep hygiene, such as drinking coffee too late in the day, being exposed to blue light from phones, tablets, or computers right before getting to bed, etc. As listed by the Cleveland clinic, poor sleep results in a lack of alertness during the day, excessive daytime sleepiness, impaired memory, poor quality of life, and relationship stress. And more serious problems ​​associated with chronic sleep deprivation are high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attack, heart failure or stroke. Other potential problems include obesity, depression, reduced immune system function, and lower sex drive. The Brazilian startup Sleepup is trying to help people with sleep issues with an over-the-counter digital therapeutic. The DTx works on a behavioral change approach determined for each user. The first step is an individual assessment of the causes of poor sleep. You will hear from Renata Redondo Bonaldi, Co-Founder and CEO of Sleepup. We talked about various aspects of sleep issues and the role of wearables and digital health in improving sleep. If Renata had one piece of advice for sleep improvement, this is what she’d say to you: More at: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or a review: lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

How many times in the last year or two have you heard that patients should own their data or have control over their data? These statements sound simple but are much more complex once you start to look at the implications they might have in practice. In June, the European Patients’ Forum Congress took place in Brussels. The topic was the digital transformation of healthcare, data sharing, and the role of patient organizations in this story. This episode recaps some of the patient opinions at the EPF Congress. Watch the panel sessions: epfcongress.eu Read the recap: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/what-do-patients-really-think-about-data-recap-of-the-epf-congress

After several discussions about digital health in the APAC region, we are finishing the exploration in the region with a debate about healthcare digitalization in Pakistan. Pakistan has 242 million people. It’s the 5th largest population in the world. If you look at the website of the US state department, you will see advice to reconsider traveling to Pakistan. Life expectancy is low; the country attributes only 1.1 % of its GDP to healthcare. Yet, as mentioned by Zahid Ali, HIMSS Future50 Health IT Leader 2021, A digital health and innovation thought-leader and Consultant, the strategy Pakistan took in the fight against COVID was recognized by WHO as exemplary. So what is the state of healthcare digitalization in the country, and what can other countries learn from Pakistan? That’s the topic of today’s discussion. Do check out other episodes about the APAC region: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/digital-health-in-apac-an-overview-keren-priyadashini-microsoft-asia facesofdigitalhealth.com

Dr. Keren Priyadashini is Regional Business Lead of Worldwide Health for Microsoft Asia. She leads the company’s healthcare business segment across 17 markets in Asia Pacific. Looking at digital health investments in the APAC region, according to Galen Growth Asia, last year China took the highest amount of funding (58.6%) for digital health, followed by India (22.3%), Australia (5.6%), Soth Korea (4.3%), and Singapore (3.8%). Healthcare expenditure differs a lot among countries: According to the World Bank, China attributed 5,3% of its GDP to healthcare, India 3%, Australia 9.91 %, Singapore 4%. How do these healthcare systems differ and does healthcare expenditure relate to investment in digitalization? More content at: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or a review: www.lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth.com

Many cancer survivors in long-term remission are faced with restricted access to financial services because of their medical history. Some EU countries have already implemented the right to be forgotten - a right for patients to not disclose their medical history. In most countries, the requirement is for the patient to be cancer-free for 10 years, France has changed this time limit to 5 years. Changes across Europe are happening very slowly. The understanding of the problem is poor and needs a lot more awareness. The incidence of cancer is increasing, however, at the same time, treatments are becoming more successful, returning long-lasting health to patients. Due to this scientific advancement, social care and policies should be changed as well. Dr. Françoise Meunier is Member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine, she was Director General of European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer for 24 years from 1991 to 2015. She is also a Scientific Member of the European Cancer Patient Coalition. She has been advocating for the right to be forgotten for almost 10 years. This is just an excerpt of a broader episode published in autumn 2022.

In the previous episode we explored healthcare and the position of doctors in Malaysia. Today and in the next few episodes, we will stay in the Asia Pacific region, by peeking into Australia, Pakistan Singapore, and more. My guest today is Peter Birch, creator, and host of Talking HealthTech; an Australian podcast and membership community about technology in healthcare. In the past, Pete has been running clinics, and software companies, he is still company Director at MetaOptima, creating intelligent technology to help doctors detect and treat skin cancer. He is also the company Director of the Medical Software Industry Association (MSIA), representing the software vendors of the healthcare industry in Australia. Clearly, Pete has a good understanding of tech challenges in healthcare which he shared in this discussion. We talked about the current state of My Health Record, why is Australia not a leader in exemplary telehealth solutions, what it means that the government plans to dedicate 107 million Australian dollars to invest in digital healthcare infrastructure, and more. Other episodes about Australia: Australia, AI and co-design of digital health solutions (Marie Johnson): https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/australia-ai-and-co-creation-of-digital-health-solutions-marie-johnson?rq=australia F105 The state of healthcare digitalization in Australia (Louise Schaper, AIDH): https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f105-the-state-of-healthcare-digitalization-in-australia-louise-schaper-aidh?rq=australia F115 Primary healthcare digitalisation in New Zealand, Australia, UK and US (Dimitri Varsamis): https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/us-new-zealand-australia-uk-primary-care-digitisation?rq=australia REFLECTIONS: A transocean podcast session (Joy Rios, Bianca Rose Phillips, Tjasa Zajc): https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/reflections-a-transocean-podcast-session-joy-rios-bianca-rose-phillips-tjasa-zajc?rq=australia

In the previous episode, you could listen to Dr. Abeyna Bubbers-Jones - Founder & CEO - of Medic Footprints. Medic Footprints is a UK-based company, with a mission to bring various career opportunities to doctors. The projections of clinical workforce shortages are grim. WHO estimates a projected shortfall of 18 million health workers by 2030, mostly in low- and lower-middle-income countries. The previous and this episode explore the doctor’s perspective on career development and opportunities in and outside of healthcare. In the UK in the previous episode and in Malaysia in this one. You will hear from Selina Chew - the founder of Medic Footprints Malaysia, which is a franchise of the UK organization. Its mission is the same: to empower doctors to look value their skills and look for new career opportunities if they feel stranded in their current situation. Selina talked about her own experience as a doctor, and the rigidity of hierarchy in healthcare which makes it very difficult for doctors to have autonomy in their work, and have a say in how healthcare should be run. We also briefly discussed the state of healthcare in Malaysia. With this episode, we are diving into conversations about healthcare and digital health in the APAC region. We will start with Malaysia, and continue with Australia and a few other countries as well. Recap of the two episodes: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/what-do-doctors-want-abeyna-bubbers-jones-medic-footprints https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/ Leave a rating or a review: lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

WHO estimates a projected shortfall of 18 million health workers by 2030, mostly in low- and lower-middle-income countries. However, countries at all levels of socioeconomic development face, to varying degrees, difficulties in the education, employment, deployment, retention, and performance of their workforce. In a recent survey of 20.000 doctors from 124 institutions in the US 1 in 5 said they plan to exit healthcare in the next 5 years. The pandemic hasn’t only brought different strains to healthcare workers, It has also radically redefined ways in which work can be done. Generations today have different expectations of their working conditions and career development. In this episode, you’re going to hear a bit more about what do doctors want? Speaker: Dr. Abeyna Bubbers-Jones - Founder & CEO - of Medic Footprints. Medic Footprints is a UK-based company, with a mission to bring various career opportunities to doctors. May it be inside or outside healthcare. In the episode, she talks about what options doctors have and also how to find the right medical professional for your company if you’re hiring someone with a medical background. Visit the website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or review: www.lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

Is it time to stop talking about digital health and just focus on health? Where, in which department, do digital health innovations fit within Pharma? Do we expect too much in terms of the speed of digital health innovation in Pharma? These were just some of the questions discussed at SPELLED OUT: Digital Health and Pharma event. SPELLED OUT is a group name of a series of events organised by Curated Health and Faces of digital health, with which we wish to bring clarity to specific digital health-related topics. The debate was moderated by Tjaša Zajc, host of Faces of digital health and Hicham Naim, the founder of Curated Health, also working at Takeda as Head of Strategy, Transformation & Innovation, Data Digitam & Technology. Speakers: Paul Simms, CEO of Impatient Health, Jennifer Butler, Chief Marketing Officer at Medisafe Jessica Shull, Director of Digital Therapeutics at Vicore Pharma AB Christophe Jauquet, International keynote Speaker on making customers healthy & happy. www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or a review: lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth.com

When the war in Ukraine began, Marta Kaczmarek welcomed one of the refugee families to her home. She then thought about how more could be done to help Ukrainians and started an incentive called EIT Health Ukraine. EIT Health, which is a European organsation connecting stakeholders in healthcare, partnered with the Polish Medical Mission. PMM is a 22 years old Polish humanitarian organization that provides medical aid to the countries most in need in the world. Since 1999, the Polish Medical Mission Association has been helping victims of wars, catastrophes and natural disasters. Their volunteers include doctors, paramedics, nurses, rehabilitators, as well as psychologists and medical analysts. In this episode, speakers: Ewa Piekarska, President of the Board, Head of the Development Aid Program, Polish Medical Mission andMarta Kaczmarek, Coordinator of the EIT Health Ukraine Appeal explain the current needs for medical support, what supplies are in demand and more. EIT Health Ukraine appeal is ongoing, so if you’re a medical device manufacturer or have the ability to donate medical equipment, please go to the link in the show notes and coordinate with EIT Health to provide help to Ukraine. Please complete the form on EIT Health’s website: https://eithealth.eu/ukraine-appeal/ This episode is supported by EiT Health Germany, which is one of eight Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) currently funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). If you're a startup working in the field of digital health or biotech and don't know EiT Health Germany yet, I would encourage you to visit eit-health.de, where you will find more about innovation, acceleration, and education programs. And as you will hear from Marta, it doesn’t matter if you’re a startup, a small or a large business. If you would like to contribute to support Ukraine, anything you can do to help, will help.

Jennifer Schneider used to be the Chief Medical Officer and President of Livongo. In 2022 she started a company focused on improving access to healthcare in rural America. More than 46 million Americans, or 15 percent of the U.S. population, live in rural areas. Now the company called Homeward is on the mission to deliver care to those who don’t have it, starting in rural America. In this discussion, you’ll hear more about the challenges related to rural health, how could care be brought to the community instead of patients needing to travel two to five hours for a 15 minutes visit, and more. www.facesofdigitalhealth.com

Voice could be called one of the exciting new avenues for medicine and healthcare: first, it is seen as a potential optimization tool, if we used voice tech instead of typing data into software. A few months ago, Julia Hoxha, the CEO of Zana explained how her European startup that provides healthcare organizations with the technology to design and to deploy their own chatbot and voice assistants. In the future, we might discover biomarkers in voice. After all, all the characteristics of voice - how loud or how quiet we speak, what tone do we use, how fast or slow we talk - all these characteristics probably have a correlation with something. But what about starting with something much simpler? Analysing voice recordings that already exist? US company Authenticx listens, analyzes, and activates customer voices. The AI-based software analyzes millions of conversations patients have with customer support agents through phone calls or emails. By analysing these conversations, it unveils recurring trends that healthcare organizations use to make informed, proactive decisions for improved workflows and care. In this discussion you will hear from Amy Brown, executive with 20 years of public and private sector experience in health care public relations, startup management, policy development, quality improvement and insurance operations. Enjoy the show and browse through other episodes on: facesofdigitalhealth.com

Investments in digital health have been steadily rising for the last seven years. 6.2 billion dollars were invested in digital health startups in 2015, 44 billion in 2022, according to Startup Health. Startup Health is a US-based organisation supporting digital health innovators across the world and globally spreading optimism about the potential of technology in healthcare. The vision that drives that optimism is the hope that we can bring access to healthcare to everyone in the world, that we can beat cancer and cure diseases such as diabetes or Alzheimer’s. That vision is important because healthcare innovation is not for the faint-hearted and as health indicators show, currently, life expectancy and health are worsening across the world, says co-founder and president of Startup Health Unity Stoakes. The market is maturing, he says, which is also seen in the number of companies that attract investments. The total amount of investments has been increasing for several years, but th number of companies that are invested in, is staying roughly the same - it’s just that some companies are maturing and raising higher amounts of funding. In this discussion you will hear Unity Stoakes talk about his reflection of Startup Health which is already 11 years old, he talked about the global expansion of Startup Health, why we need to think about healthcare innovation less locally, more globally, and also why we still need much more investments in the future. If you want to go down the memory lane of digital health, you can also tune in to the interview with Unity in 2017: https://podcasts.apple.com/si/podcast/faces-of-digital-health/id1194284040?i=1000380325225

Hassan Chaudhury is a global healthcare expert, he worked in several countries across the world. He currently works at Healthcare UK; a joint initiative of the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and the Department for International Trade (DIT). His global role includes advising commercial teams in over 100 UK embassies. In this discussion, we chatted about the digital transformation of healthcare and social care in the UK and Hassan’s experience with countries across the world. Which innovations are reasonable to implement in healthcare today? And which technologies are currently not ready for prime time just yet. You might be surprised by Hassan’s opinion. Read an excerpt:

Therapies for cancer are being developed at light speed and upward of 60 gene and cell therapies are projected to reach regulatory approval in the U.S. by 2030, according to the MIT NEWDIGS collaborative. Due to the nature of cancer, readiness for risks in drug development is much higher here than it might be in other medical fields. In this episode you’re going to hear a bit more about what can digital health innovation learn from the mindset present in oncology development. Sean Khozin is the CEO of CancerLinQ, a non-profit health technology company focused on improving quality of care and health outcomes for all patients with cancer. He was the Global Head of Data Strategy and Data Science Innovation at Johnson & Johnson, before that he co-founded Hello Health, a technology company focused on developing integrated telemedicine, point-of-care data visualization, and advanced analytical systems for optimizing patient care and clinical research. He was also the Founding director of a digital health incubator inside the FDA. You will hear a little bit about processes in oncology, innovation in oncology, the promise of decentralized clinical trials and more. Leave a rating or review: lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

In this episode, founders of four very different companies talk about their fundraising experiences. As critically mentioned by Fouad Al-Noor - Co-Founder & CEO - ThinkSono - we should stop talking about the myth that startups search for investors that can offer strategic benefits. It’s true, but fundraising is still primarily about getting money to be able to start a business. The key thing, in the end, is also to find an investor you like as a person. This will be crucial for the investor-startup relationship to survive once things get tough,” he says. And it does get tough. As mentioned by Kei W. Mueller, he talked to over 90 investors with very limited success because the solution Ebenbuild is creating is so forward-thinking. In this episode you will hear: About a mental health app that world with hospitals to give patients timely support after discharge and prevent to early readmissions, A startup improving mechanical ventilation with the help of digital twins, How can immunotherapy production be optimized according to a swiss based startup Limula, Revolution in ultrasound: handheld ThinkSono is shortening the diagnostics time of deep venous thrombosis. We briefly discussed each of these solutions and also the fundraising side of startups. EIT Health Catapult Program has plenty to offer, but as a startup you should consider which stage you’re in when applying, to get the most value. Speakers: Luc Henry – CEO and co-founder – Limula https://limula.ch/ Kei Wieland Müller - Co-Founder & CEO at Ebenbuild https://www.ebenbuild.com/ Fouad Al-Noor - Co-Founder & CEO of ThinkSono https://thinksono.com/ Hans Juergen Stein - Managing Director of mentalis https://mentalis-health.com/ HELP UKRAINE: If you’re a medical device manufacturer or have the ability to donate medical equipment, EIT Health is facilitating the supply of medical equipment to Ukraine. EIT Health has partnered with the Polish Medical Mission, a leading humanitarian organisation working with healthcare professionals on the border of Ukraine. If you are an organisation with the ability to donate and ship any of the medical equipment please complete the form on Eit Health’s website for Ukraine: https://eithealth.eu/ukraine-appeal/ This episode is supported by EiT Health Germany, which is one of eight Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) currently funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). EiT Health Germany connects 150 renowned partners from industry, research and education from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The unique network helps initiate outstanding innovations in the health sector. If you're a startup working in the field of digital health or biotech and don't know EiT Health Germany yet, I would encourage you to visit eit-health.de, where you will find more about innovation, acceleration, and education programs.

SPECIAL APPEAL: Dear listeners, as the war in Ukraine continues, the need for medical help is increasing. If you’re a clinician or a telehealth provider, please get in touch with Health Tech Without Borders. Health Tech Without Borders is organising a "Ukraine Telehealth Relief" initiative to provide free of charge telehealth and remote consultations to the people of Ukraine. So if you’re a clinician or telemedicine provider, please contact Health Tech Without Borders: https://www.healthtechwithoutborders.org/ukraine-telehealth-relief If you’re a medical device manufacturer or have the ability to donate medical equipment, EIT Health is facilitating the supply of medical equipment to Ukraine. EIT Health has partnered with the Polish Medical Mission, a leading humanitarian organisation working with healthcare professionals on the border of Ukraine. If you are an organisation with the ability to donate and ship any of the medical equipment please complete the form on EIT Health’s website: https://eithealth.eu/ukraine-appeal/ In this episode, you’re going to hear about metaverse and healthcare, which conditions need to be fulfilled for health tech to succeed, you will also get a glimpse into how Canada’s Primary Care Chronic Disease Surveillance System was built. And much more. I spoke with Karim Karshavjee, Family Physician with over 25 years of experience designing, developing, and implementing Electronic Health Records/Electronic Medical Records and helping clinicians use them effectively. He is also the Program Director of the Masters of Health Informatics program at the University of Toronto. Enjoy the show and if you haven’t yet, subscribe to the show to be notified about new episodes automatically.

When one starts to wonder about why data-sharing is still more or less cumbersome in healthcare, you quickly get to the challenges with interoperability siloed data and of course, data standards. Sharing of data has improved with the introduction of the messaging standard called FHIR. But throughout the years, debates about open standards and open ecosystems have started to become louder. In this episode, you’re going to hear a little bit more about that and the openEHR standard specification. I was joined by Hanna Pohjonen, eHealth management consultant and founder at Rosaldo Oy. Hanna has worked across the world, as a consultant in various regional and national eHealth projects in 31 different countries across Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia. She consults on healthcare information systems and IT architectures, vendor-neutral archiving, data sharing, and more. In her past, she also represented Finland in eHealth matters in the European Commission. In this discussion, you will hear a little bit more about healthcare digitalization in the Nordics, the complexity, and challenges with national and regional eHealth projects and openEHR, what exactly it is, and where it is used. Visit the website: www.facesofidigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or a review: lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth To read a bit more about the history of the show: A reflection after 100 episodes: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-did-i-get-100-digital-health-podcast-episodes-tjasa-zajc-1f/?trackingId=J%2BV0zLmqRSSEgTaklgTkUg%3D%3D ****Sponsor mentioned in the episode***** Master E-networking live course on Maven. In ten days, you’ll digitalize and build your network. You will learn how to maximize the value of any event you’re attending: Go to Masterenetworking.com Use the code: FACESOFDIGITALHEALTH10

Many software solutions for healthcare could be described as lacking empathy. Too often, solutions are addressing products viability and feasibility, but put desirability in the second place of priorities, says Tim Peck is Executive Portfolio Director of Health at IDEO. He is an entrepreneur and a Harvard-trained Emergency Medicine physician, who has been practicing human-centered design for over a decade. He spent 3 months in a nursing home to grasp the reality and problems of this kind of environment before he built Call9 - a health technology company that provided telemedicine for nursing home residents. In this discussion, we talked about design in healthcare. What is human.centered design? How to ask questions in your user research? What are the main mistakes innovators make? More episodes and recaps: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or a review: www.lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth ****Sponsor mentioned in the episode*** Master E-networking live course on Maven. In ten days, you’ll digitalize and build your network. You will learn how to maximize the value of any event you’re attending: Go to Masterenetworking.com Use the code: FACESOFDIGITALHEALTH10

Voice tech is one of the tech areas with high potential to optimize healthcare processes for providers and ease chronic disease in management for patients. In reality: How far are we from futuristic ideas where everything would be operated with the help of voice? How do innovators reduce the risk of misunderstandings in designing voice technologies? What does the development of human-like bots look like? Tune in to the discussion with Julia Hoxha co-founder and CEO of Zana - a healthcare startup that helps organisations to build artificially intelligent voice and chatbot solutions. Julia’s background is in computer science with a heavy focus in machine learning and particularly in conversational AI, which is also the core technology of Zana. We discussed the latest trends in the use of voice in healthcare and how far beyond scheduling appointments with the help of Alexa have we come by 2022. This episode is supported by EiT Health Germany, which is one of eight Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) currently funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). EiT Health Germany connects 150 renowned partners from industry, research and education from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The unique network helps initiate outstanding innovations in the health sector. If you're a startup working in the field of digital health or biotech and don't know EiT Health Germany yet, I would encourage you to visit eit-health.de, where you will find more about innovation, acceleration, and education programs. The application deadline for many of these programs is 14th March, so do check them: Startups meet healthcare providers: https://eithealth.eu/programmes/start-ups-meet-healthcare-providers/ All 2022 opportunities: https://eit-health.de/en/accelerator-2/ Learn more about Zana:https://zana.com/ Past EIT Health Germany series episodes: EIT Health Germany Series 2/12: Improving Medication Prescribing With Digital Twins (ExactCure): https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/eit-health-germany-medication-prescribing-digital-twins-exactcure EiT Health Germany Series 1/12: Changing The Paradigm in the Fight Against Antimicrobial Resistance (Alexander Belcredi): https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/phagomed-biontech-antimicrobial-resistance Also visit: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com

This is the second episode about digital health transformation in the Middle East. I spoke with Michele Tarnow, a healthcare leader experienced in managing across multi-national geographies, organization boundaries, and matrix organizations. Michelle has been living in UAE since 2016 and shared her insights into how are countries in the Middle East approaching digitalization of healthcare, how does cultural diversity amplify innovation and how is Alliance Care Technologies, the company she is the CEO of, using best available technologies to optimize care and offer clinicians tools for better care, without turning them into data clerks. Enjoy the show and also tune in to the previous episode with a perspective of Zaid Tabet - healthcare executive who has been living in the Middle East for a decade and worked with government and private organizations to advance healthcare operations, processes, policies and regulations to promote digital healthcare adoption and use. Enjoy the show and go to www.facesofdigitalhealth.com to browse through other episodes as well.

In the next two episodes, we’ll dive into healthcare development a digitalization in the Middle East. You’re going to hear from two speakers based in Dubai. The speaker of today’s episode is Ziad Tabet, Chief Customer Officer at Alliance Care Technologies. Ziad is a healthcare veteran with three decades of experience spanning many aspects of the healthcare space. He has extensive experience in operations and financial management of hospital systems, healthcare start-ups, sales and business development, account management, creating and bringing infrastructure and teams from idea to reality. Ziad has been living in UAE for over ten years, first in Abu Dhabi now in Dubai. In this discussion, he shared his experience in the region, commented on opportunities and mindset around digitalization. www.facesofdigitalhealth.com www.lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

Unsafe medication practices and medication errors are a leading cause of injury and avoidable harm in health care systems across the world. Exactcure is a digital health startup from France addressing the challenge of preventing the negative effects of medications. The company is building a digital twin simulator, that shows the effects and interactions of drugs in the body of an individual. They take into account any data the patient can provide, from basic personal characteristics such as age, gender, kidney status, genotype, if a person smokes or not, or any other individual parameter that has a proven influence on a specific medication. I spoke with Fabien Astic, Chief Business Development Officer at ExactCure, and Margaux Kerhousse, Business Developer at ExactCure, about the company’s journey, partnerships, and how their solution could fit into the existing prescribing workflows. This is the second out of 12 episodes supported by EIT Health Germany. EIT Health Germany is one of eight Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) currently funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). EIT Health Germany connects 150 renowned partners from industry, research, and education from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. If you're a startup working in the field of digital health or biotech and don't know EiT Health Germany yet, eit-health.de, where you will find more about innovation, acceleration, and education programs. Exactcure participated in several EIT Health Germany programs. Among others you will hear about is the Startups meet Healthcare Providers programs, which aims to bridge the gap between startups and clinicians. This can help shorten the time it takes for innovators to start testing their solutions in practice. To learn more about this program, go to the link in the show notes. Many application deadlines close in March, so do check out the links for opportunities right for you: All EIT Health Germany 2022 opportunities: https://eit-health.de/en/accelerator-2/ Startups meet healthcare providers: https://eithealth.eu/programmes/start-ups-meet-healthcare-providers/ www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Recap of the episode: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/eit-health-germany-medication-prescribing-digital-twins-exactcure Leave a rating or review: www.lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

If you took part in the Clubhouse frenzy last year, you probably came across the Digital Health Channel and MedNet club. Digital Health Channel which currently has 6400 members, was among the key digital health topics related hubs on Clubhouse with an active schedule of discussions each week. It was founded by MD Jhonatan Bringas and healthcare expert Amit Goldman. MD Diana van Stijn who was often a speaker in the channel too, founded MedNet, a club targeted at medical professionals. While the married couple Diana Van Stijn and Jhonatan Bringas are not active on Clubhouse anymore, they are continuing their pursuit of bridging the gap between medical practice and innovation. They work with Medscape and occasionally facilitate digital health-related discussions. They’re the co-founders of Lapsi health, a digital health startup that was first looking at a digital therapeutic solution for asthma in children but is now pivoting in the space of digital biomarkers. Most of the time, however, Diana works as a clinical resident at Amsterdam UMC Hospital and Jhonathan as the digital health consultant and lecturer. In today's short discussion you’re going to hear a bit more about their journey, perspective on digital therapeutics, and bridging the gap between academia and the industry to accelerate healthcare innovation. More on the website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com

The positive potentials of AI in healthcare are breathtaking. From smoother processes to more accurate care with fewer medical errors. But if we learned anything from the last 15 years of living with social media, it is that the development of algorithms without proper regulation can have negative impacts on society. In healthcare, AI development is still in the early stages. Many regulation-related questions still need to be addressed. It is not easy to create regulation, because it needs to take into account all sorts of aspects: safety, trust, values of the environment it is designed for. In today’s episode, you’ll hear a discussion with Bart de Witte - Founder of Hippo AI foundation - a non-profit organization that fights for making medical knowledge openly available and AI-based healthcare a common good. This is a diametrically opposing approach to the direction of current medical AI developments — the majority of which focus on the privatization of medical knowledge. Bart and I discussed what exactly does it mean to have open AI models, how can we create an environment to support that, the state of AI regulation in Europe, and more. Learn more about the Hippo AI Foundation: https://www.hippoai.org/ The European artificial intelligence strategy: implications and challenges for digital health: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(20)30112-6/fulltext www.facesofdigitalhealth.com

Antimicrobial resistance is a global problem related to the overuse of antibiotics and the lack of development of new ones. Many solutions are entering the market to address the issue: software solutions to identify, track and predict antibiotic-resistant infections and help prescribers with more accurate prescribing of antibiotics. Antibiotics are not appealing to the pharmaceutical industry from a business perspective. The reason is that new antibiotics are intended for a fraction of all patients. So if you develop a drug that’s meant to be used as the last resort for clinicians after they've tried all other options, clinicians would more often than not try to avoid using these new antibiotics if not absolutely necessary. Among the problems with antibiotics is the fact that many are very broad-spectrum, used to kill several different bacteria. So in this episode, we’re going to change the paradigm of antimicrobial treatments: what if you could target harmful bacteria more precisely? You’ll hear from Alexander Belcredi, co-founder and Co-CEO of the biotech startup PhagoMed, which was acquired by BioNTech and renamed BioNTech R&D Austria in October 2021. Phagomed has been researching the field of antimicrobials and also developed an innovative treatment for bacterial vaginosis. In today’s discussion, you’ll hear about the challenges with the development of antimicrobial therapies, and also learn more about Phagomed’s journey before the acquisition. This episode is supported by EiT Health Germany, which is one of eight Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) currently funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). EiT Health Germany connects 150 renowned partners from industry, research and education from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The unique network helps initiate outstanding innovations in the health sector. If you're a startup working in the field of digital health or biotech and don't know EiT Health Germany yet, I would encourage you to visit eit-health.de, where you will find more about innovation, acceleration, and education programs. Learn more: EiT Catapult Program: https://eit-health.de/en/eit-health-catapult-2021/ EiT Health Germany: https://eit-health.de/en/ More about antimicrobial resistance: How Can We Optimize the Use of Antibiotics? (Oliver Schacht, OpGen): https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f130-how-can-we-optimize-the-use-of-antibiotics-oliver-schacht-opgen?rq=antibiotic US Clinicians: Reflect on how this Podcast applies to your day-to-day and earn AMA PRA Category 1 CMEs here: https://earnc.me/UpR9lQ

Have you ever had the experience of not knowing how to decide about your medical condition? Or when you went to the doctor’s and haven’t asked half of the things you remembered might be useful to know when you returned home? Maybe you’re an app developer trying to figure out how to prevent churn and have a lasting user engagement with your health app? In today’s episode, you’ll hear from Talya Miron- Shatz, PhD, an expert in medical decision making, and author of a new book titled “Your Life Depends on It: What You Can Do to Make Better Choices About Your Health.” She talks about why physicians and patients need to abandon old behavior patterns that no longer work and learn to help each other make better collaborative choices. In this discussion, Dr. Miron-Shatz discusses the latest findings about health choices and medical decisions, how can doctors talk to patients so they will leave the doctor’s office informed and we ended the discussion with three questions you should practice before going to see a doctor. https://talyamironshatz.com/ Leave a rating or a review: www.lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth Episode recap: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/what-to-ask-the-doctor

The field of healthcare digitalization is maturing and getting increasingly sophisticated, demanding healthcare and technology leaders to think more strategically than they were perhaps required a few years ago. Chief Innovation or Chief Digital Officers are moving more to the executive level, where they need to take into consideration not just which tech solutions are really good, but which make most business sense at a given time for a given institution. In today’s discussion you’ll hear about current top challenges for healthcare leaders, how can healthcare providers do more with less and other findings by McKinsey. Speakers: Karl Kellner, Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company, New York Venkat Inumella, Partner at McKinsey & Company www.facesofdigitalhealth.com Leave a rating or a review: www.lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

This is the last episode of Faces of digital health in 2021. Instead of an interview or a string of predictions for 2022, you will hear a reflection about the past year or two which I had with two other podcasters - Joy Rios - the host of HIT like a girl podcast - a podcast and a community supporting women in healthcare IT, and Bianca Rose Phillips - the host of Voice of Law podcast. Bianca is a digital health lawyer, and the author of a recently published book Making The Digital Health Revolution. This was a cross-continental discussion, with Joy based in Mexico, Bianca in Australia, and Tjasa Zajc in Slovenia, Europe. We exchanged experiences with the pandemic in our environments. We also talked about our learning through our shows in the last year. Faces of digital health: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com. HIT Like a Girl Podcast: https://www.hitlikeagirlpod.com/ Digital Health Think Tank: https://www.biancarosephillips.com/ (OVER)DOSE - Documentary about medication errors: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/overdose-documentary

A lot has been done in the VR for healthcare space today, especially in the US. The therapeutic potential is undeniable. Over 5000 studies have shown the efficacy of VR for pain management, PTSD, eating disorders, mental health, even helping manage pain during childbirth. In 2020 the FDA gave VR ​​a special designation for virtual reality as a breakthrough device for managing pain. In November 2021 the FDA a prescription-use immersive virtual reality (VR) system that uses cognitive behavioral therapy and other behavioral methods to help with pain reduction in patients 18 years. The regulators are on board with VR, progress is happening on the software and hardware side, so where is VR at the moment in terms of development, challenges and accessibility? In this episode, three experts answer these questions. Speakers: Jennifer Esposito is currently Vice President and General Manager, Health Business Unit at Magic Leap, which is pioneering an augmented reality platform to amplify enterprise productivity. https://www.magicleap.com/en-us Aaron Gani - CEO of BehaVR which cultivates community with the country’s leading researchers, advocates and clinical domain experts to co-develop solutions https://www.behavr.com/ Rafael Grossman - Surgeon, Educator, speaker and one of the leading voice in medical extended reality space. https://www.rafaelgrossmann.com/ US clinicians: Reflect on how this Podcast applies to your day-to-day and earn AMA PRA Category 1 CMEs here: https://earnc.me/4x7hfK Listen also: F106 VRx: What has over 5000 studies taught us about the healing effect of VR? (Dr. Brennan Spiegel) https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f106-vrx-what-has-over-5000-studies-taught-us-about-the-healing-effect-of-vr-dr-brennan-spiegel Leave a rating or a review: https://lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

Claire Murigande is a Medical Affairs leader born in Burundi, lived in Kenya, and is now based in Switzerland. She is a biologist by background, passionate about empowering team members and bringing value through science. Among other things she recently completed an advance business degree in digital leadership and looked at the future development of digital health, where, as she says, being mindful of diversity. She’s also a TEDx speaker and the host of an award-winning podcast Narratives of purpose, in which she talks with people making an extraordinary social impact in various areas, such as youth empowerment, healthcare initiatives, and sustainable business. In this short discussion, we talked about her journey, healthcare in Switzerland, diversity, and what she has learned about global healthcare through her podcast. Enjoy the show and if you haven’t yet, do subscribe to the podcast to be notified about new episodes automatically. I will add the links to Claire’s TED talk and podcast in the show notes. TEDx Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxSg32Le3kA Narratives of purpose podcast: https://narratives-of-purpose.podcastpage.io/ 3D printed assisted suicide pods approved in Switzerland: Series about digital health in Africa: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f056-f060-digital-health-in-africa-series-tanzania-nigeria-south-africa-rwanda