Episodes
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What you’ll get out of this episode
Listen in as host Tim Fitzpatrick chats with Jess Ackerman, VP of Strategic Partnerships and Impact at Responsum Health, about her experiences across healthcare and technology, including her path from Speech Language Pathology to patient-facing roles at health tech startups. Today, Jess leads partnerships for Responsum Health, a mission-driven digital health tech company that has built empowered, informed communities of patients with chronic health conditions to drive better outcomes and to strategically align them with resources, clinical trials and best options for their health. Responsum Health knows how to build communities, and fast.
How Jess and her team have launched and grown communities in as little as 3 weeks alongside their sponsor partners.Patient communities the Responsum Health team has helped so far, including menopause, chronic kidney disease (CKD), long-COVID, glaucoma, COPD, and even rare diseases like pulmonary fibrosis and Sanfilippo syndrome.How Responsum reduces clinical burden and improves communication, because patients can go to their doctor with a baseline level of education. Because of this, providers can perform at the top of their license and spend more time on treatment information rather than the basics.How Responsum engages patients with resources and education to help prepare a baseline for those initial conversations with their care team, and how this leads to better outcomes like recruitment, adherence, engagement, and reduced hospitalizations.Why the greatest barrier and competition to Responsum’s mission is the status quo, and what it will take to help patients, providers, and communities thrive if we can change it.
In this episode you’ll discover:
Top Challenge: Adoption of digital health tools Top Opportunity: Meeting patients where they areTech Trend You’re Following: Using our voices as diagnostic toolsPower of vocal quality as a health tracker (e.g. Sonde Health)Top Media Recs: The Humans by Matt HaigMad Honey by Jodi PicoultAuthor Elizabeth StroutThe Scent Keeper by Erica BauermeisteHealthcare / Tech Leader(s) You’re Following: T-Minus 10 guests are at the top of my list! 🚀🎉
Final Frontier - 5 Questions in 50 Seconds
Quotables“ Our Medicare community is quick to jump on the mobile apps and platforms. Our parent's generation between ages 70 - 80 – My mom is on her phone constantly researching and doing this and that – so I think people are judging a little bit quickly that the older population is not going to adopt the technology. I think it’s a huge opportunity because everyone has a smartphone. “
Recommended Resources
Responsum HealthResponsum Chronic Kidney Disease CommunityListen to Jess on the Empowered Patient Podcast Responsum Health Announces Partnership with Society for Women’s Health Research to Develop Unique Knowledge Resource for Women Living with Menopause
Join the ConversationJess Ackerman on LinkedIn
“ This is my mom TODAY...She is 2 years, 3 months since her Stage IV Lung Cancer diagnosis; an "incidental finding" with NO symptoms, non-smoker, EGFR+ mutation. She was on the golf course when she received the call with the dreaded "c-word" diagnosis. Her story is both unique and like so many others with a stage IV, no symptom dx. #lungcancerawarenessmonth There has been considerable progress in reducing the burden of #lungcancer through effective #earlydetection and #precisiononcology ... and we need more! More #patientvoice. More #patientadvocacy. More integrated solutions. More focus on #patientexperience. More #access to #clinicaltrials #decentralizedclinicaltrials. My mom is strong and vibrant, in a #clinicaltrial at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute ... but DFCI cannot do it alone- in need of an ongoing holistic, personalized, integrated approach through #medtech #digitalhealth solutions.... Let's keep the momentum... Jasper Health Circuit Clinical
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Episode 38: Using AI, Data, and Telepharmacy To Drive Medication Optimization with Jason Rose, CEO of AdhereHealth
What you’ll get out of this episode
Join host Tim Fitzpatrick as he chats with Jason Rose, CEO of AdhereHealth. In this voyage we learn more about AdhereHealth’s mission to deliver data-driven technology that improves medication optimization and quality measures to achieve value-based outcomes. We also hear how Jason’s 30 years of experience in this space shaped the company’s rebrand and transformation since he took over its helm in 2018. Today, AdhereHealth is the market leader using telepharmacy to overcome social determinants of health (SDOH) and improve the patient experience.
Disclaimer: In this video Jason incorrectly states Dr. John Halamka left Beth Israel and is now at Johns Hopkins but he is actually at Mayo Clinic.
How AdhereHealth delivers purpose-built, innovative technology solutions to improve the quality of care, medication adherence , and cost outcomes.Why AdhereHealth is still the only national telepharmacy solution operating at scale in the United States today, touching more than 30 million people through its technologies and at-risk engagement services.How their unique combination of analytics, clinical workflow software, and proactive telepharmacy outreach addresses an estimated half a trillion dollars of unnecessary annual medical costs attributed to medication adherence issues.Why AdhereHealth developed the first-of-its-kind PRM (patient relationship management) software to further their understanding of patients’ Social Determinants of Health (SDoH).How Jason and his team think about things like risk and data architecture for their PRM platform by leveraging claims data (mile wide), medical history (mile deep), and pharmacy records (updated daily).
In this episode you’ll discover:Final Frontier - 5 Questions in 50 Seconds
Top Challenge: Leveraging a combination of technology and clinician enablement that actually accelerates outcomes (hint - not an EHR)Top Opportunity: Medication adherenceTech Trend You’re Following: Public-Private PartnershipsTop Media Recs: Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One by Dispenza, Joe. Modern Healthcare, Fierce Healthcare, Rama on Healthcare, WSJRockefeller, George LukasHealthcare / Tech Leader(s) You’re Following:Elon MuskDr. John Halamka, CIO at Mayo ClinicDr. David Brailer, First US Health IT Czar, Bush AdministrationSarah London, CEO of Centene CorporationDan Mendelson, CEO of Morgan HealthDavid Cordani, CEO of CignaGail Boudreaux, CEO of Elevance
Quotables“The pandemic was a…wasted opportunity to tackle [medication adherence] in a really big way. Who were those most hurt in the pandemic? It was not about the genetic code, it was about the zip code. It was the same patients before we still see today who are not getting their drugs for the chronic conditions.”
“We’re using the data of yesterday to inform our decisions today, and artificial intelligence to drive our actions tomorrow.”
Recommended Resources
Medication Adherence Is a “Force Multiplier” for Medicare Advantage Profitability, Enrollment, Star Ratings (AJMC, 2023)The Quintuple Aim for Health Care Improvement: A New Imperative to Advance Health Equity - PubMed (nih.gov)Cost of Prescription Drug-Related Morbidity and Mortality - PubMed (nih.gov)Charting a New Path to At-Home Medication Adherence With Digital Pharmacy Support (AJMC, 2022)Join the Conversation
Are you a healthcare innovator? Tell us what topics and people you’d like us to cover in future episodes:
Jason Rose on LinkedIn
AdhereHealth on LinkedIn
AdhereHealth on Twitter
““It’s a long-standing belief that star ratings are Darwinism in healthcare. If you don’t get the four stars, you’ve lost a percentage of your premium and lost funding to put into the product, and now because you’ve lost that, you’ve also lost membership enrollment,” says Rose. “And because you’ve lost the ability to compete with your peers, it’s going to take two years to come back with a higher star rating.”
Great article Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare and Matt Phillion!
#healthcare #sdoh #pharmacy #quality #starratings#medicationadherence” @Jason Rose on LinkedIn
About Your Host
Tim Fitzpatrick is the CEO of IKONA Health, a company using neurobiology and immersive technology to improve how patients learn about their care and treatment options. Tim co-founded IKONA based on his own patient experiences while serving in the US Navy and now in the VA health system. He has served as Principal Investigator on multiple federal research grants, has co-authored papers on learning science, VR, and mental health in the age of COVID-19, and has partnered with top healthcare investors and institutions including the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Artificial Intelligence Institute, StartUp Health, On Deck, FundRx, MATTER and NVIDIA.
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Missing episodes?
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What you’ll get out of this episode
Listen in as host Tim Fitzpatrick chats with Hillary Lin about Hillary’s journey from launching Curio at the start of the pandemic to navigating their latest pivot into cancer care. Hillary’s training and clinical experience led her to founding a holistic wellness startup that evolved into psychedelic-assisted therapy to where it is now as a comprehensive care delivery and navigation company. While Curio’s vision has not wavered, the team’s resilience and continued focus on patients has guided the evolution and expansion of their care infrastructure platform.
What led Curio to provide supportive care to patients who have recently been diagnosed with complex chronic illnesses like cancer.How Hillary and her team have adapted their ketamine-assisted therapy treatments in this new model, and the outcomes they’ve seen from PHQ-9 and GAD-7 in as little as one month for patients using the assisted therapy.Why Hillary is hopeful that generative AI will revolutionize patient education in healthcare and make managing diagnosis easier to navigate.Why New York City is the place to build your health tech startup – Spoiler Alert: a community of familiar faces and fearless friends!
In this episode you’ll discover:
Top Challenge: The recent company pivot. When Curio changed the company vision, Hillary worked on rebuilding the relationship with partners and gaining new patients. Also, becoming in-network providers with insuranceTop Opportunity: Building AI native care delivery.Tech Trend You’re Following: VR/AR - New Apple VR headsets.Top Media Recs: Outlive by Peter AttiaHealthcare / Tech Leader(s) You’re Following: Peter Attia Eric Topol Andrew Ying
Final Frontier - 5 Questions in 50 Seconds
Quotables“In the beginning, I was so burnt out and frustrated with healthcare that I very much wanted to start a wellness company. What I mean by that, is we were coaching people to explore their emotions. From the basics of even labeling emotions and understanding mindfulness around your emotions to regulating them and to much more sophisticated ways of interacting using emotional language and expression. We even used to host improv classes to help people explore.” @HillaryLin #joinCurio on Ep37 @T-Minus10 w/ @trfitzpatrick.
Recommended Resources
We're redefining comprehensive care.We Are Overmedicated. How Can We Use Psychedelics To Heal Not Just Individuals, But Entire Systems? DEA, SAMHSA Extend COVID-19 Telemedicine Flexibilities for Prescribing Controlled Medications for Six Months While Considering Comments from the Public
Join the ConversationHillary Lin on LinkedIn
Hillary Lin on Twitter
Curio on Medium
“I am a physician and founder of a mental healthtech startup (Curio). So what are my thoughts on emotional chatbots? At the time of writing, I'm undecided because this realm is still developing as we speak. I think early versions of emotional support chatbots will not feel incredibly fulfilling or validating to most users. However, there is a world where people may be so socialized to AI entities that they will feel at home interacting with them. For now, I'm more interested in how AI can help us think and stay accountable to our own goals. More of a coach, perhaps, than a therapist. The New York Times published an article on Inflection AI's Pi companion, which seems to validate this feeling. "With a level of enthusiasm only a robot could muster before coffee, Pi pushed me to break down my to-do list to create a realistic plan. Like much of the bot’s advice, it was obvious and simple, the kind of thing you would read in a self-help article by a productivity guru. But it was tailored specifically to me — and it worked.
I'm curious to hear from people who have tried interacting with the latest emotional chatbots - what did you think about your experience?” (LinkedIn)
“ 🎉 Breaking News for Digital Health Companies 🌐💊 The DEA has decided to extend the current COVID-19 telemedicine flexibilities for the prescription of controlled medications while they continue to consider the 38,000 comments received on their proposed telemedicine rules. This decision reflects a recognition of the essential role that telemedicine plays in providing Americans with access to necessary medications, and it is a significant milestone for companies like Curio. Our services, which include care navigation, coaching, therapy, medication management, and ketamine-assisted therapy, will continue to be available for those struggling with mental health challenges. We await further details on the draft Temporary Rule and its implications for digital health. This extension will enable us to continue offering transformative ketamine treatments virtually to those who need it most, bridging the gap between patients and quality care. 🙌💡” (LinkedIn)
About Your Host
Tim Fitzpatrick is the CEO of IKONA Health, a company using neurobiology and immersive technology to improve how patients learn about their care and treatment options. Tim co-founded IKONA based on his own patient experiences while serving in the US Navy and now in the VA health system. He has served as Principal Investigator on multiple federal research grants, has co-authored papers on learning science, VR, and mental health in the age of COVID-19, and has partnered with top healthcare investors and institutions including the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Artificial Intelligence Institute, StartUp Health, On Deck, FundRx, MATTER and NVIDIA.
Tim explores the future of learning and technology in healthcare on T-Minus 10 (biweekly podcast) and in Signals From [Space] (monthly newsletter). -
What you’ll get out of this episode
Listen in as host Tim Fitzpatrick chats with Kanishka Rao about the unexpected loss of his grandfather, who passed away from kidney disease, and how he was not aware he had kidney disease until his kidneys had already failed. Because of this, Kanishka and his father, Bharat, co-founded Carenostics with the goal of tackling the underdiagnosis, undertreatment, and health inequities of chronic disease. Carenostics’ vision is to transform healthcare into a data-driven paradigm where readily-available patient data is leveraged to make personalized patient recommendations for diagnostic and therapy decisions.
Carenostics serves both physicians and patients by streamlining the diagnosis process for patients with chronic diseases and ensuring the patient is receiving proper diagnosis and more personalized treatment.How Kanishka and Bharat think about existing barriers to Carenostics short- and long-term success, including (1) provider friction; (2) changing workflows; and (3) cost.Technical questions that arise from using AI in these diagnostic settings, including around temporal stability, which refers to the question of keeping a model you’ve trained updated as you add new patients and guidelines to the data set. Questions also arise around bias adjustment and the cost of being wrong while using tools like generative AI to take on more and more of your administrative and decision making tasks.Carenostics just received the Bio-IT World Innovative Practices Award in 2023 alongside their partners at Hackensack Meridian Health for their AI approach to identifying undiagnosed CKD and activating clinicians at the point of care. Past winners include Astrazeneca, Merck, Regeneron, and Duke University.Kanishka and his team strive to change the status quo by shifting the way practitioners diagnose and treat patients to a more data-driven model where readily-available patient data is leveraged to make personalized patient recommendations for diagnostic and therapy decisions. This could save millions of lives through early diagnosis and intervention, and appropriate long-term treatment and care.
In this episode you’ll discover:Final Frontier - 5 Questions in 50 Seconds
Top Challenge: Talent / hiringTop Opportunity: Awareness / acceptance of AITech Trend You’re Following: Bias-adjusted AITop Media Recs: Shoe Dog, by Phil KnightHealthcare / Tech Leader(s) You’re Following: Aneesh Chopra
Quotables“When I reflect back to that first conversation with my dad, one of the first questions I asked was ‘You built these models 2 decades ago – the first FDA-approved way of diagnosing lung cancer from CT scans, it’s one of Baret’s patents – you know why isn’t AI used every day at the point of care. AI is not a new thing.’ The biggest reason was provider friction, and all these different models of charging providers morbid amounts of money for these operating systems, diverting them to a different workflow, providing black box recommendations or, fundamentally even trying to change the way they deliver care.” @KanishkaRao #Carenostics on Ep26 @t-minus10 w/ @trfitzpatrick
Carenostics Debuts AI-Driven Tool to Diagnose Chronic Kidney Disease (Carenostics)Bio-IT World Names 2023 Innovative Practices Winners (Bio IT World)SBIR Phase I: Artificial intelligence platform for secure, collaborative learning across medical institutions (NSF Award Search)Is the Software Function Intended to Provide Clinical Decision Support? (FDA)
Recommended Resources
Join the ConversationKanishka Rao on LinkedIn
Bharat Rao on LinkedIn
Carenostics on LinkedIn
“Thrilled to have our partnership with Hackensack Meridian Health awarded the Bio-IT World Innovative Practices Award! Excited to have our work using AI for CKD recognized alongside other innovative recipients, including AbbVie, City of Hope, & Regeneron!
Thank you to Bayer G4A for the nomination - and looking forward to presenting with Bharat Rao & Kash Patel at the conference on May 18th! “ @Kanisha Rao on LinkedIn
About Your HostTim Fitzpatrick is the CEO of IKONA Health, a company using neurobiology and immersive technology to improve how patients learn about their care and treatment options. Tim co-founded IKONA based on his own patient experiences while serving in the US Navy and now in the VA health system. He has served as Principal Investigator on multiple federal research grants, has co-authored papers on learning science, VR, and mental health in the age of COVID-19, and has partnered with top healthcare investors and institutions including the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Artificial Intelligence Institute, StartUp Health, On Deck, FundRx, MATTER and NVIDIA.
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Episode 35: Harnessing The Power of Play For Adolescent Health with Dr. Lynn Fiellin, Founder of Playbl, Inc.
What you’ll get out of this episode
Listen in as host Tim Fitzpatrick chats with Dr. Lynn Fiellin about her path to founding Playbl, the Yale spin-out company harnessing the power of play to enable healthier and better lives for adolescents. We learn what tools, principles, and earned wisdom Dr. Fiellin and her teams have developed over the past 13 years building serious games. From 30-page playbooks to randomized controlled trial designs for hundreds of teens, this is a must-listen for anyone interested in the use of video games for health education and behavior change at scale.
How Lynn landed her first grant from NIH in 2009 to begin building her first gamesPlaybl has now created games for ages 10 - 20 years old between topics ranging from health promotion, vaping and smoking awareness, and mental health awareness, to preventing opioid misuse and addiction.The importance of scientific process and study design in the development of Dr. Fiellin’s games, with 12-18 months from initial design through piloting and evaluation before its ready for randomized study.How an early partnership with Shell Games enabled Lynn and her team to combine best in class game development with academic research to get these games off the ground, and led to the creation of a “Games Playbook” to align gaming and research teams on a set of common goals, outcomes, and milestones.How Lynn and Playbl think about studying impact at various time points, and the durability of those results in the adolescent populationPlaySmart, Playbl’s latest game for kids ages 16 to 19, that was funded by NIH’s HEAL initiative and aims to address mental health and opioid misuse (see game).Playbl has long targeted K12 education settings due to the demand of parents and educators looking for these types of solutions, especially during the pandemic. Now, Playbl is exploring working with major children’s hospitals to provide health education content in clinical settings as kids are sitting in waiting rooms. Playbl has now recorded upwards of 420,000 logins for their educational games.
In this episode you’ll discover:Final Frontier - 5 Questions in 50 Seconds
Top Challenge: System-level support and standardization in health education, School fundingTop Opportunity: Serious games for skills development in adolescent health and well-beingTech Trend You’re Following: ChatGPT, AITop Media Recs: “What's The Point of Your 20s?” By Emma Goldberg (New York Times)Healthcare / Tech Leader(s) You’re Following: Dr. Vivek Murthy, US Surgeon General
Quotables“Finding Kids where they are, and where they wanna be is really the ticket.” @LFiellen #PlayBl on Ep 35 @T-Minus10 w/ @trfitzpatrick
“We design our efficacy trials in the way that we would design any other efficacy trials. The only difference is that the delivery vehicle is a video game. So, our current study is enrolling 532 kids ages 16 - 19, at 10 schools around Connecticut. We will follow them for 12 months, and they are essentially assigned to play our Play Smart game, which again focuses on Mental Health and opioid misuse, or a set of control games. We then collect data from all of them and baseline them 6 weeks at the end of gameplay, and 3, 6, and 12 months. This allows us to really say that we have accomplished something and that we accomplished what we set out to accomplish.” @LFiellen #PlayBl on Ep 35 @T-Minus10 w/ @trfitzpatrick
Recommended Resources
PlayBlPlay2PREVENT Lab - YaleA Yale doctor is using a video game to fight the opioid crisis - WaPoSeriousGames@Google: PlayForward: Using Games to Improve Adolescent Health (YT)Protecting Youth Mental Health - US Surgeon General
Join the ConversationLynn Fiellen on LinkedIn
Lynn Fiellen on Twitter
“What an amazing celebration! Congratulations to the brilliant Bernice Pescosolido and the Indianapolis Colts
for this ground-breaking work by launching The Irsay Institute to address stigma related to mental health. The play2PREVENT Lab at Yale is thrilled to be partnering w you and Bring Change to Mind (BC2M)!
Yale University School of Medicine Yale School of Public Health Yale Child Study Center” @Lynn Fiellen on LinkedIn
“ “We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.”
My honor to give my Professorial Medical Grand Rounds last week, sharing the past 20 years of my career: down the research road and the other roads I have had the opportunity to travel.
Thank you to my teams and partners at the play2PREVENT Lab at Yale, Yale University School of Medicine, Yale University, Yale Department of Internal Medicine, Yale New Haven Hospital, and others.
I am so proud of this career and the work we have done together.” @Lynn Fiellen on LinkedIn
About Your HostTim Fitzpatrick is the CEO of IKONA Health, a company using neurobiology and immersive technology to improve how patients learn about their care and t...
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What you’ll get out of this episode:
Listen in as host Tim Fitzpatrick chats with Dr. Osman Khawar about the impact and benefits of home dialysis, and the potential of building a hemodialysis machine versatile enough for any care setting. Dr. Khawar describes feeling frustrated by not being able to offer flexible dialysis prescriptions to his patients. In today’s health system, nephrologists are often dialysis-centric and trying to get dialysis to fit into the patient's life, versus the other way around. Osman and his team want to change that. Today, he's leading Diality, a medical device company that aims to develop a hemodialysis system that will enable physicians to prioritize patients while also helping their practice thrive and grow. Their mission is to develop solutions that improve lives impacted by kidney disease.
Why early career mentorship was vital in Osman’s understanding and championing of home dialysis for his patientsWhere Osman learned to address key barriers in awareness and education around home dialysis in his practiceWhy Osman believes CKD should be patient-centric to determine each patient's needs and evaluate all possible methods of treatmentWhile patient education is highly important, sometimes we need to go back to the basics and ensure nephrologists are educated and confident in teaching patients the ins and outs of home dialysisWhat it takes to build a medical device company, especially as a first-time founder with a background in clinical medicine
In this episode you’ll discover:
Top Challenge: TimeTop Opportunity: Broadening the user base in dialysis and leveraging data to improve outcomesTech Trend You’re Following: Artificial IntelligenceTop Media Recs: Essentialism, Thinking Fast and SlowHealthcare / Tech Leader(s) You’re Following:
Final Frontier - 5 Questions in 50 SecondsDr. Khawar’s mentors from medicine, technology and entrepreneurship
Quotables“As Diality thinks about education – of course, as a device company we think about it in 2 ways – how do we ensure patients and care providers are comfortable using the device, but also as we move up the funnel, how do we make both patients, payers, and physicians understand the flexibility that they have in the choice of dialysis: modality, choice of machinery, choice of dialysis prescription, all of these pieces and I think we need to continue to leverage technology to do that.”
What is Chronic Kidney Disease and how does dialysis work? (Scientific American)Pam Wapnick Presents Diality at LSI USA ‘23 (YouTube)Diality Names Pamela Wapnick as Chief Financial Officer: Wapnick brings decades of financial experience to the company as it prepares for commercialization of its smart, mobile hemodialysis platform (Link)Hemodialysis Technology Company Diality Joins Innovative Kidney Care Campaign, Seeks to Improve Choice for Kidney Patients (Link)
Recommended ResourcesJoin the Conversation
Osman Khawar on LinkedIn
‘This weekend, Diality organized a kidney walk to raise proceeds for the National Kidney Foundation. It was a beautiful day in Laguna Niguel spent walking for a great cause to raise awareness and improve education for those impacted by kidney disease. #diality #kidneymonth #kidneydisease #patientsfirst”
@Osman Khawar on LinkedIn
“In medical startups, particularly in the early days, a CEO should be accustomed to wearing many hats and making many decisions daily. As your company matures, as Diality has, you must consider how to target your time and effort to the essential things in today's distraction-filled world.
I recently read Greg McKeown's "Essentialism." This book teaches the systematic discipline of getting the right things done by asking what is essential and eliminating what is not to support more deliberate decision-making. Essentialism is more than a principle. It's a way of life and thinking that helps us operate at our highest point of contribution.
Becoming a true essentialist won't happen overnight, but I'm excited to take an active approach to view life through the essentialist lens. In so doing, I will become more intentional.
Have you read this book? If so, what do you think? Do you have a suggestion on what I should read next? Looking forward to your comments! #ceo #reading#productive #business #essentialism”
@Osman Khawar on LinkedIn
About Your HostTim Fitzpatrick is the CEO of IKONA Health, a company using neurobiology and immersive technology to improve how patients learn about their care and treatment options. Tim co-founded IKONA based on his own patient experiences while serving in the US Navy and now in the VA health system. He has served as Principal Investigator on multiple federal research grants, has co-authored papers on learning science, VR, and mental health in the age of COVID-19, and has partnered with top healthcare investors and institutions including the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, Na...
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What you’ll get out of this episode
Tim sat down with Carla Bond, Founder and CEO of UpSkill VR, to discuss the transformative role that virtual reality is playing in emergency training. Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) kills 1 person every 2 minutes in the United States, and 70% of SCAs happen at home. But did you know your chance of survival increases 45% when CPR is administered promptly?! UpSkill VR uses VR to help students, EMTs, and communities prepare for emergency situations, rooted in Carla’s own personal experience. She shares her personal experience as an EMT, including a story where she arrived at a call and found an infant in need of help and the surprising realization that led Carla to founding the company. We dive into the details of her journey as an entrepreneur, her target market, ideal partners and end users, and what's next for UpSkill beyond CPR. Here are some of the key takeaways from the episode:
Why Carla and UpSkill VR are on a mission to improve the ways emergency training is delivered using virtual reality, and how they create more immersive and realistic scenarios for trainees to practice in a safe environment.Carla’s personal story as an EMT and how that experience shaped the UpSkill mission.We discuss the potential of VR to help bridge the gap in healthcare education and training and improve patient outcomes.Carla talks about the importance of partnerships in growing UpSkill VR and how they are working with different organizations to expand their reach.We also chat about Carla's experience as a Navy veteran, the challenges she faced transitioning to civilian life, and the importance of having a support system within the veteran community.Finally, we explore the exciting developments on the horizon for UpSkill VR beyond CPR training, including the potential to expand into other areas such as public health and safety.
In this episode you’ll discover:
Top Challenges: Exposure, VR hardware prices, content availabilityTop Opportunity: PersonalizationTech Trend You’re Following: Realism – game art and designTop Media Recs: The Transition, by Bunker Labs (Link→)"Stand for Something", by Brian Burkhar (Link→)Healthcare / Tech Leader(s) You’re Following: Ryan Ribeira, CEO at SimX (LinkedIn →)Tim Cook, CEO at Apple
Final Frontier - 5 Questions in 50 SecondsQuotables
“When you think about a traditional CPR class, you’re in a controlled environment and you’re playing essentially with a doll, of course they are manikins, but it's a torso. So the first thing you’re not going to encounter out in the real world is a torso and a head that needs CPR, and there is nothing else going on. So me showing up to calls; to summarize, I showed up to a call that really was a catalyst for me, I showed up to a call where according to the mother who had been a nurse for 20 years; so that’s at least 10 CPR classes that she sat through, but when we got there, he was still wedged between the tub and the toilet. It was not that she did not have the education to do it, she did not have that emotional tie to be able to take what she used in the class room and bring it to real life, and that’s where VR came in. “
“Our perfect candidate is people who are professionals in the healthcare space, who are typically 1. Required to have it, since they are doing it anyway, and 2. Students who are going into the healthcare field, whether they are in highschool or college. We want to be there before you hit the clinic or hospital, so by the time that you get your first job, you’ve had endless amounts of practice on the most realialistic scenarios possible so we don’t have doctors passing out at the first sign of arterial blood or EMTs having those difficult calls. We can out them in there ahead of time and expirence it. This weeds out a lot of darkness, because you don’t really know how you’re going to respond, but if I out you in VR, I can pretty much tell you how you are going to respond. With our experiences, we track your heart rate, so I can tell you when you got scared, and I can tell you when you got out of breath. It’s like flight simulation, we want you to screw it up with us, not with anyone else.”
Recommended Resources
NIST, Commerce Launch Emergency Response Training Center with Virtual Reality (NextGov)Emergency Medicine VR (Booz Allen)See What Richie’s Plank Game Looks Like (Playstation VR)Join the Conversation
Are you a healthcare innovator? Tell us what topics and people you’d like us to cover in future episodes:
Carla Bond on LinkedIn
“Upskill VR is excited to be pitching this year at the annual DC Startup Week Early-Stage Pitch Competition next week on Friday, September 16th at Convene sponsored by Sands Capital!! DC Startup Week is the largest event in the DC area for entrepreneurs and startups! 🎉.” Carla Bond on LinkedIn
“Meet the winners of DC Startup Week’s annual pitch competition! Ten finalists competed at DC Startup Week's closing event, split between early- and growth-stage groups. Here are the winners.” Read the full article on Technical.ly (September, 2022)
About Your HostTim Fitzpatrick is the CEO of IKONA Health, a company using neurobiology and immersive technology to improve how patients learn about their care and treatment options. Tim co-founded IKONA based on his own patient experiences while serving in the US Navy and now in the VA health system. He has served as Principal Investigator on multiple federal research grants, has co-authored papers on learning science, VR, and mental health in the age of COVID-19, and has partnered with top healthcare investors and institutions including the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Artificial Intelligence Institute, StartUp Health, On Deck, FundRx, MATTER and NVIDIA.
T-Minus 10 is a part of the Slice of Healthcare podcast network.
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What you’ll get out of this episode
Listen in as host Tim Fitzpatrick chats with Eric Gantwerker about how Level Ex brings together the best minds across healthcare and interactive entertainment to accelerate the adoption of new skills and treatments in medicine. Eric shares how he and his team think about designing new games, entering new markets, and finding ways to make medical education available anytime, anywhere. Since joining the team nearly 8 years ago, Level Ex has seen more than 1 million users and partnered with 30 out of the top 40 life sciences and medical device companies, including Medtronic, Johnson & Johnson and Boston Scientific.
How we know games work, including the story of how a young boy was able to safely pull over his grandma’s car and wait for EMS from playing Mario Kart. Why games are such powerful mechanisms for knowledge and skill transfer. How Level Ex identifies intent to help their users put behaviors into practice.How Eric thinks about outcomes, and what goes into planning and design in order to generate evidence required to make Level Ex a renowned medical education toolWhat factors go into needs assessment, market analysis, and the sizing of new markets created by game-based opportunitiesThe top qualities of innovators and early stage teams when entering healthcare markets with novel technology, and why listening and asking questions is key to their successThe power of adaptable platforms and matching platforms to learning tasks and skills development
In this episode you’ll discover:Final Frontier - 5 Questions in 50 Seconds
Top Challenge: AwarenessTop Opportunity: PersonalizationTech Trend You’re Following: LLMs, AI, MLTop Media Recs: What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, By James Paul Gee (Link to PDF →)Healthcare / Tech Leader(s) You’re Following:Justin Barad, Osso VR (LinkedIn →)Danny Goel, Precision OS (LinkedIn →)Richard Vincent, FundamentalVR (LinkedIn →)Bertalan Mesko, MD (LinkedIn →)Rafael Grossman, MD (LinkedIn →)Quotables
“We’ve relied on outside PI’s to run studies, and we have studies on a bunch of what we call our core games. You know AirwayX there was a study looking at inhibition times and confidence and skill. We looked at PulX and the interest in anatomy and pulmonary function and interest going into pulmonary interventional specialties. We just had a study come back about our dermatology game which is one of our first knowledge-based mechanics and it actually showed that practicing clinicians did better in clinical scenarios” @DrEricGant on #T-Minus 10 w/ @trfitzpatrick
BackTable Innovation PodcastAdvancing The Practice Of Medicine Through Play (LevelEx)Play LevelEx Games (LevelEx)Level Ex study shows the efficacy of game-based training for experienced dermatologists (Fierce Healthcare)59 practicing dermatologists participatedParticipants played five game modulesphysicians’ scores and practical knowledge increasedthree-quarters of participants preferred learning through medical video games over traditional continuing medical education
Recommended ResourcesJoin the Conversation
Eric Gantwerker on LinkedIn
Eric Gantwerker on Twitter
Love that play has found it's rightful place per Sam Glassenberg's vision! - Eric Gantwerker on LinkedIn
About Your HostTim Fitzpatrick is the CEO of IKONA Health, a company using neurobiology and immersive technology to improve how patients learn about their care and treatment options. Tim co-founded IKONA based on his own patient experiences while serving in the US Navy and now in the VA health system. He has served as Principal Investigator on multiple federal research grants, has co-authored papers on learning science, VR, and mental health in the age of COVID-19, and has partnered with top healthcare investors and institutions including the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Artificial Intelligence Institute, StartUp Health, On Deck, FundRx, MATTER and NVIDIA.
T-Minus 10 is a part of the Slice of Healthcare podcast network.
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What you’ll get out of this episode
Listen in as host Tim Fitzpatrick chats with Smit Patel about how the Digital Medicine Society, better known as “DiMe”, is building the professional home for digital medicine. Smit shares how DiMe and its partners are tackling the toughest digital medicine challenges, developing clinical-quality resources on a tech timeline, and delivering actionable resources to the field via open-source channels and educational programs. DiMe serves professionals at the intersection of the global healthcare and technology communities. BONUS: Smit is our very first T10 Alum to go through the Final Frontier, Tim’s 50-second gauntlet to finish all future Voyages. Enjoy!
Smit’s path to clinical medicine and his decision to pursue a career in service to patients as a PharmDWhy Smit is passionate about advancing digital medicine and his work at DiMeThe power of connectedness and treating digital health as a team sportHow Smit and his team are supporting the adoption and deployment of digital medicine in large integrated care organizations like the Department of Veteran AffairsHow DiMe led its 8-month collaboration called the Digital Health Regulatory Pathways Project that brought together stakeholders from Medtech, academia, trade associations, and digital health innovators to create free, interactive resources for the communityHow DiMe’s Reg Path Tool helps innovators from square one as they begin to navigate the landscape of digital health regulation and the FDA.How many different stakeholders have a hard time navigating regulations and laws for publishing the devices that are being built, and how often that leads to products not reaching their full potential in the marketplace.
In this episode you’ll discover:
Top Challenge: Building trust across stakeholdersTop Opportunity: Ethics, equity, and accessibilityTech Trend You’re Following: AI/ML in oncologyTop Media Recs: Exits & Outcomes (Link→); DTx Podcast (Link→)Healthcare / Tech Leader(s) You’re Following: Jennifer Goldsack (LinkedIn →)Ben Schwartz (LinkedIn →)Ami Bhatt (LinkedIn →) Grace Cordovano ( LinkedIn →)Joe Connolly (LinkedIn →)
Final Frontier - 5 Questions in 50 Seconds
Quotables“ Digital health is a team sport, at the end of the day we are driving towards that one common goal. I call it in Hindi, seva, which means serving patients or serving individuals who are in need. “ @smitpats #DiMe on Ep31 @T-Minus10 w/ @trfitzpatrick
Recommended Resources
Seek Not Sleep: Navigate health choices with technology (TEDx)Catalog of Regulatory Pathway Resources (DiMe)
Join the Conversation
Are you a healthcare innovator? Tell us what topics and people you’d like us to cover in future episodes:
Smit Patel on LinkedIn
DiMe on Twitter
“DTA partnered with the Digital Medicine Society (DiMe) community and Smit Patel to develop resources that will help any company looking to engage with the FDA. This page is a great place to start on that journey.” @Smit Patel on LinkedIn
“Excited to share: Answering the call of The White House, DiMe and Moffitt Cancer Center will co-host #CancerX, a new public-private partnership effort to rapidly accelerate the pace of cancer innovation in the U.S., alongside the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health.” @Smit Patel on Linkedin
About Your HostTim Fitzpatrick is the CEO of IKONA Health, a company using neurobiology and immersive technology to improve how patients learn about their care and treatment options. Tim co-founded IKONA based on his own patient experiences while serving in the US Navy and now in the VA health system. He has served as Principal Investigator on multiple federal research grants, has co-authored papers on learning science, VR, and mental health in the age of COVID-19, and has partnered with top healthcare investors and institutions including the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Artificial Intelligence Institute, StartUp Health, On Deck, FundRx, MATTER and NVIDIA.
T-Minus 10 is a part of the Slice of Healthcare podcast network.
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What you’ll get out of this episode
Listen in as host Tim Fitzpatrick chats with Adeline Dorough about the importance of patient reported outcomes (PROs) including the Patient Activation Measure (PAM). The “PAM” has been highlighted as a key variable in more than 750 peer-reviewed studies to date. Adeline teaches us that while high-quality medical care is an important determinant of health outcomes, patients’ health behaviors play a large role, too. By leveraging patient activation to gauge an individual’s ability to manage their own health and take an active role in their care, care teams can be better equipped to provide high-quality care that meets a patient’s individual needs.
In this episode you’ll discover:
Patient activation refers to an individual’s ability to manage their own health and take an active role in their care. At its core, the concept of patient activation stems from one underlying question: Does this patient possess the knowledge, skills and confidence to manage their own health and healthcare?A patient-reported outcome (PRO) is a report of a person's health status that comes directly from the patient. Patient-reported outcomes are important because so many diagnoses cannot be made by a lab test or imaging. In many ways, PROs capture health data that are invisible in the standard of care, but essential to how we deliver high quality-care.Why the PAM is the gold standard tool for assessing patient activation, and is endorsed by the National Quality Forum (NQF).How Phreesia partners with companies to give patients the tools they need to take an active role in their care. How patients move between PAM levels during their care journeys, and why that matters. Clinicians can use the PAM levels to understand where each person may need a little more support and modify their approach to care delivery.Quotables
“By leveraging PROs and our work at Phreesia, we are able to better understand how to help patients and meet them where they are in their individual healthcare journey; and beyond that, we are able to help clinicians and staff as well, because we are electronically administering these PRO measures before they even step foot into the office. That means providers can spend time understanding that information and then using the appointment time to really get into the meat of it. “@AgileAdeline #Phreesia on Ep30 @T-Minus10 w/ @trfitzpatrick
Recommended Resources
Development of the Patient Activation Measure (PAM)10 Strategies to Increase Patient Activation (Phreesia Blog)White Paper: The key to reducing no-shows? Patient engagement (Phreesia)Join the Conversation
Phreesia
Adeline Dorough on LinkedIn
“This is a beautiful infographic and the content is often underappreciated.
Dr. Murdoch’s quote is insightful and true, “Often, the ‘oh by the way’ comments are the biggest thing.”
Thanks for sharing Dr. Maida Affan!” Adeline on LinkedIn
About Your Host
Tim Fitzpatrick is the CEO of IKONA Health, a company using neurobiology and immersive technology to improve how patients learn about their care and treatment options. Tim co-founded IKONA based on his own patient experiences while serving in the US Navy and now in the VA health system. He has served as Principal Investigator on multiple federal research grants, has co-authored papers on learning science, VR, and mental health in the age of COVID-19, and has partnered with top healthcare investors and institutions including the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Artificial Intelligence Institute, StartUp Health, On Deck, FundRx, MATTER and NVIDIA.
T-Minus 10 is a part of the Slice of Healthcare podcast network.
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What you’ll get out of this episode
Listen in as host Tim Fitzpatrick chats with Caroline Webb about her journey over the past decade working in kidney care settings. From dialysis centers to home dialysis, and case management to pursuing professional development, Caroline shares lessons from a winding and accelerating career path. Caroline also talks about her excitement for new and innovative solutions in a traditionally complex, challenging care setting and patient population. Finally, we chat about her role leading IKONA’s Clinical Education efforts, where Caroline gets to share her insights with a virtual group of patients, care partners, and health professionals on a monthly basis.
In this episode you’ll discover:
Why kidney care’s unique patient population, disease complexity, and science-based approaches to care first drew Caroline to work in this space.How Caroline has navigated new opportunities to serve patients across multiple clinical settings and disease stages.The role of mentorship and professional networking in Caroline’s decision to pursue her own continuing education opportunities, and why she hopes to inspire others to follow in her footsteps.How innovation and technology can play key roles in addressing gaps in health literacy, catching kidney disease earlier, and expanding access to care in rural and underserved populations across the country. And why those same technologies have made it possible for Caroline to network with her peers in the wake of COVID.Where we need innovation most acutely today, including around modalities education and decisions to pursue options like home dialysis or transplantation. Caroline shares her hopes for increasing awareness of these treatment options and anecdotes from her time working with patients in home dialysis programs and as a case manager in chronic kidney disease (CKD).
“When it comes to innovations in kidney care, I think there are a lot of opportunities. Starting from just catching kidney disease earlier, I think technology can help out with the screening process, I think it can help us with identifying people who are at risk earlier. That way we are kind of on top of it and preventing dialysis where possible, and of course where that isn’t possible and we end up on dialysis, it’s going to be immensely helpful as we continue on, and with IKONA, that’s what we’re working on - promoting patients to have autonomy and to understand their modality options.” @CarolineWebb #IKONAhealth on T-Minus 10 w/ @trfitzpatrick“Having to go in to the dialysis center 3-4x a week is strenuous, and it’s a lot. I really like the holistic approach of home dialysis and I just want everybody to have the opportunity to understand all of their options and to maybe be able to choose that.” @CarolineWebb #IKONAhealth on T-Minus 10 w/ @trfitzpatrick
QuotablesRecommended Resources
IKONA Community Webinars (YouTube)230+ Patient Education Resources (IKONA)1,000+ Papers From AR/VR, Healthcare, and Learning (IKONA)NNCC Announces New President and Commissioners (NNCC Newsletter)Join the Conversation
IKONA on LinkedIn
Caroline Webb on LinkedIn
Follow IKONA on YouTube
Email: [email protected]
About Your HostTim Fitzpatrick is the CEO of IKONA Health, a company using neurobiology and immersive technology to improve how patients learn about their care and treatment options. Tim co-founded IKONA based on his own patient experiences while serving in the US Navy and now in the VA health system. He has served as Principal Investigator on multiple federal research grants, has co-authored papers on learning science, VR, and mental health in the age of COVID-19, and has partnered with top healthcare investors and institutions including the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Artificial Intelligence Institute, StartUp Health, On Deck, FundRx, MATTER and NVIDIA.
T-Minus 10 is a part of the Slice of Healthcare podcast network. -
What you’ll get out of this episode
Tim Fitzpatrick chats with Steve Winfree about the struggles he and so many other patients face when it comes to living with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end stage kidney disease (ESKD). Steve takes us through his journey, from his surprise diagnosis while playing college basketball to eventually needing dialysis to survive, and finally to his transplant story that went viral and has logged more than 700 MILLION views to date. Since receiving his transplant from his wife, Heather, Steve has embarked on a personal mission to help other patients and care partners to share their stories and better understand their care.
How Steve struggled to understand dialysis when it came time for him to start treatment, even after more than a decade with kidney disease.Why Steve found the pre-dialysis education experience intimidating and scaryWhy Steve’s experience (and a great care team) shows us kidney transplantation is not a cure, but rather one form of treatment. And like most fellow transplant recipients, we learn how Steve deals with having to take medications that suppress his immune system’s ability to fight off common viruses and colds.What it means to be a proactive patient, and why being a proactive patient is the most important part of your journey. Learn why Steve sets the example when it comes to resilience, optimism, and taking every opportunity to reframe his unexpected hospital trips as learning experiences.Steve and Heather recently signed a book and movie deal to share their story – so be sure to follow along after you listen to his voyage!
In this episode you’ll discover:Quotables
“The only thing I learned about dialysis through Google and looking through all these sites, was that it was very scary sounding. There was definitely a negative connotation over dialysis. It was something you wanted to avoid and should try your hardest to avoid and stay away from. Because of that, it scared me and it scared a lot of patients.” @Steve_Winfree #IKONAhealth on Ep28 @t-minus10
“Patients need to remember, I saw this all the time, doctor’s work for you in a sense, right? Like they are on your team. So, utilize their expertise, utilize their knowledge. Go into these meeting’s knowing you’re the expert on you” @Steve_Winfree #IKONAhealth on Ep28 @t-minus10
Recommended Resources
Watch Steve find out that his wife is a match to be his kidney donor! (Tennessean)Heather Winfree shared the video of Steve finding out she’s his donor (YouTube)Steve has helped curate 300+ top patient education resources (IKONA)Steve joined IKONA’s Patient Experience Series to share more of his story (YouTube)Join the Conversation
Are you a healthcare innovator? Tell us what topics and people you’d like us to cover in future episodes:
Steve Winfree on LinkedIn
Steve & Heather Winfree on Facebook
“The most powerful thing you can do as a kidney patient is to turn pain into purpose.
I stand by my saying that, "if you can take the worst thing happening in your life and find a way to use it to help others going through the same thing", you can answer the question 'why me?' at the end of the day.
It took time for me to fall into that mindset after dealing with self pity and feeling sorry for myself. Your journey as a kidney patient, and any other disease, makes you very unique. People want to hear stories from others just like them. They yearn for that familiarity.
This is a photo from my very first dialysis session and my first time speaking to congress on Capitol Hill. The world needs your story, so please do not be afraid to share it!” @Steve Winfree on Linkedin
About Your Host
Tim Fitzpatrick is the CEO of IKONA Health, a company using neurobiology and immersive technology to improve how patients learn about their care and treatment options. Tim co-founded IKONA based on his own patient experiences while serving in the US Navy and now in the VA health system. He has served as Principal Investigator on multiple federal research grants, has co-authored papers on learning science, VR, and mental health in the age of COVID-19, and has partnered with top healthcare investors and institutions including the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Artificial Intelligence Institute, StartUp Health, On Deck, FundRx, MATTER and NVIDIA.
T-Minus 10 is a part of the Slice of Healthcare podcast network. -
What you’ll get out of this episode
Listen in as host Tim Fitzpatrick chats with Linta Mustafa about the impact Vitract is making on chronic illnesses with strong ties to gut health, and the future of personalized nutrition thanks to advances in at-home testing and diagnostics. Vitract's mission is to reverse chronic illnesses that are strongly tied to the gut, including digestive, metabolic and mental illnesses. Learn how Vitract is accomplishing its mission by building the most advanced and comprehensive at-home gut test that decodes the gut microbiome.
In this episode you’ll discover:
Over 60% of Americans have at least one gut-related issue. Digestive, metabolic, and mental illnesses can all be tied back to the patient's gut. These problems all systematically connect to dysbiosis within the gut microbiome.How hidden in the walls of the digestive system, our “second brain” is revolutionizing medicine’s understanding of the links between digestion, mood, health and even the way we think.The NIH funded almost $1 billion to research regarding the gut microbiome. Vitract’s mission is to use that research and make it an actionable lens in healthcare.How Vitract’s unique insights will enable alternative care providers to deliver highly personalized nutrition recommendations and high quality care for patients with chronic illnesses.Why Vitract targets providers, and the importance of testing multiple channels in at-home testing solutions in a crowded consumer health and wellness market.
Quotables“I think this is a pain point not only for providers but patients too; how siloed we treat each condition patients are experiencing. So, it’s really interesting that nearly 70% of children diagnosed with Autism have a diagnosis of IBD as well. But, what that looks like is a whole different set of doctors and different care teams that don’t talk to each other, and that pain is deeply felt in the consumer journey and that’s one of the reasons why I started Vitract.”
@linta_mm #Vitract on Ep27 @T-minus10 w/ @trfitzpatrick
“When you look at the spectrum of alternative care providers, you have naturopaths, functional medicine doctors, dietitians, and they are all kind of playing detective. They are trying to look at the body as a whole and trying to figure out how they can best treat their patients. So the more information you can equip them with, the easier you make their job. If you make their job easier, the more likely they are to use your product. “ @linta_mm #Vitract on Ep27 @T-minus10 w/ @trfitzpatrick
Check out Vitract’s free 8 Steps To Improve Wellness PDF Guide (Vitract)Speaking of Psychology: Episode 78: The mind-gut connection (APA)Watch Linta’s episode on Finding Genius with Kunal Mehta (Finding Genius)The Brain-Gut Connection and the Enteric Nervous System (Johns Hopkins)Learn more about dysbiosis, an imbalance of microbial species and a reduction in microbial diversity within certain bodily microbiomes. (Osmosis)
Recommended Resources
Join the ConversationVitract’s company website
Linta on LinkedIn
Linta on Twitter
“Provider burnout is real. When your compensation is tied directly to billable hours, you are inching close to burnout by default.
Everything from medical compensation, insurance reimbursement models, licensing restrictions, lack of interoperability, siloed patient information, and lack of communication between care providers is causing frustration that's DRIVING the wellness market.
Often investors and founders struggle to grasp the breadth of solutions/their impact and place in the medical system if they're straddling the line between medical care and wellness. The at-home testing market is a great example of that.
Industry trends show us that we are headed towards a convergence and interconnectivity between what is now viewed as separate fields. In my opinion, if you're building in health tech, its worthwhile to consider how your solution leverages this industry transformation. “ @Linta Mustafa on LinkedIn
About Your HostTim Fitzpatrick is the CEO of IKONA Health, a company using neurobiology and immersive technology to improve how patients learn about their care and treatment options. Tim co-founded IKONA based on his own patient experiences while serving in the US Navy and now in the VA health system. He has served as Principal Investigator on multiple federal research grants, has co-authored papers on learning science, VR, and mental health in the age of COVID-19, and has partnered with top healthcare investors and institutions including the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Artificial Intelligence Institute, StartUp Health, On Deck, FundRx, MATTER and NVIDIA.
T-Minus 10 is a part of the Slice of Healthcare podcast network.
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What you’ll get out of this episode
Listen in as host Tim Fitzpatrick chats with Paul Julius from Thread Health about adolescent care and how their parents play a role. Thread Health focuses on supporting the physical and mental health of teens while reducing friction between teens, doctors, and their parents. Paul and his team are focused on the stage of life where we make our first health care decisions, and they are leveraging their experience and their target populations' platforms of choice to do it.
Why Thread Health focuses on teens and supporting the stage of newfound independence, often making health decisions on your own for the first time.How Thread Health thinks about managing the relationship between kids, guardians and doctors from tweens to twentysomethings.Why Thread health made the decision to leverage SMS and text-based interactions with teens. In this demographic, teens are very proficient in digital platforms, and this tends to make them more comfortable controlling their health and asking questions.Opportunities for health education in the teen and parent population, especially around common questions like acne, colds, nutrition and family histories.The role of Adolescent Health Specialists, how few there are across the United States, and how many there are at Thread Health.
In this episode you’ll discover:
Quotables“It’s really interesting when you look at some of the polls around teen health and children's health. The [Mott] Poll out of the University of Michigan is really prominent. A lot of parents don’t think that their teens are capable or willing to ask questions directly to their doctor. In some cases, only 10%...” @PaulJul1us #ThreadHealth on EP26 @T-Minus10 w/ @trfitzpatrick
What is an Adolescent Health Specialist? (HealthyChildren.org)Is TikTok The Next Social Media Frontier for Medicine? (AEM Education and Training)National Poll on Children’s Health (Mott Poll, U Michigan)#304 – Paul Julius, CEO & Co-Founder at Thread Health (Slice of Healthcare)
Recommended Resources
Join the ConversationPaul Julius on LinkedIn
@teenhealthdoc - Thread Health Co-Founder (Dr. Hina Talib)
@Thread_Health on Instagram
“Now is the time for Family Tech in Health Care. Thanks Betty Chang for the Thread Health mention. Adolescents make up over 20% of the population, we have to design health services for teens and families.
#teens #adolescentes #families #healthcare #design” @PaulJulius on LinkedIn
“It is great to have a thought leader as a Co-Founder. Hina Talib, MD shares her thoughts on Teen Health in 2022 on Halle Tecco, MPH, MBA's The Heart of Healthcare Podcast. It couldn’t be clearer the health system needs to change for Teens, excited for what we are launching Thread Health and in improving access to care for Teens. #healthcare #health #pediatrics #teens#parenting #teenhealth #adolescentmedicine” @PaulJulius on LinkedIn
About Your HostTim Fitzpatrick is the CEO of IKONA Health, a company using neurobiology and immersive technology to improve how patients learn about their care and treatment options. Tim co-founded IKONA based on his own patient experiences while serving in the US Navy and now in the VA health system. He has served as Principal Investigator on multiple federal research grants, has co-authored papers on learning science, VR, and mental health in the age of COVID-19, and has partnered with top healthcare investors and institutions including the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Artificial Intelligence Institute, StartUp Health, On Deck, FundRx, MATTER and NVIDIA.
T-Minus 10 is a part of the Slice of Healthcare podcast network.
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What you’ll get out of this episode
Listen in as host Tim Fitzpatrick chats with Owen Willis about the role of education across stakeholders and systems in healthcare. Owen discusses the power of education in creating patient ownership and enabling frontline clinicians to focus on delivering great care (and less so on whether the information is complete, accurate and up to date). Owen also dives into the challenges of clinician retention, risks surrounding the patient-clinician relationship, and how education can play a role in reducing risk for patients, providers and systems alike.
The majority of healthcare education content is targeted at clinicians and providers, which means most patients struggle to understand important health information.From the provider's point of view, there is a big difference between learning content in a school setting and applying it in the practice of medicine, nursing or frontline care.How providers are always learning new information and new discoveries as knowledge of the human body evolves, which means providers need to be able to access, understand, and teach the updated information to their patients.The playbook for building effective partnerships between founders and internal champions, and why founders need to have their stories down, find their champions, and build support and “whisper networks” around that long-term vision.Why startup champions inside large healthcare organizations should understand risk dynamics and share candid feedback with founders and their teams.
In this episode you’ll discover:
Quotables“As a system, we are not especially good at training people on becoming doctors, we are really good at training them in terms of how to learn medicine. We are not very good about training them around the business of medicine or necessarily the application of medicine. So, as somebody goes into practice, what ends up happening is, they require more content that I would describe as just-in-time learning.” @jowenwillis on Ep 25 @T-Minus10 w/ @trfitzpatrick
“One of the elephants in the room that people just don’t really seem to be willing to talk about, is the crisis that we are facing around clinician retention. Being a doctor is an exceptionally difficult job, and the big challenge is, as we are looking to bring more patients in and looking to expand access as sort of who can get care in the US, we are also looking at the exodus of skilled professionals and a limited top of funnel supply coming in from our training programs.” @jowenwillis on Ep 25 @T-Minus10 w/ @trfitzpatrick
Getting To Conviction in Health Tech (Long on Humanity)Building A Better Healthcare Hammer (Long on Humanity)Deploying digital health tools within large, complex health systems: key considerations for adoption and implementation (Nature)
Recommended Resources
Join the ConversationAre you a healthcare innovator? Tell us what topics and people you’d like us to cover in future episodes:
Owen Willis on LinkedIn
Owen Willis on Twitter
“Investing in health tech is a daunting task.
Regulation, opaque inventive structures, and entrenched incumbents make building in the space seem like a futile task.
There are still plenty of opportunities for innovation, you just need to know where to look.
My latest piece synthesizes hundreds of conversations with founders, investors, and healthcare experts to answer the question, "how do you get to conviction in health tech?"
https://lnkd.in/gxckRmjx
Excited for any and all feedback!
Far too many people to name, but a special shoutout to all of the folks who contributed to this piece through shared insights and feedback, especially Thomas J. W., Elina Onitskansky, Sean Doolan, Brian Nguyen, Saba Haq MD, Derick En'Wezoh, Justin Larkin, Yoni Rechtman, Daisy Wolf, and Christopher Lee.
#healthtech #health #venturecapital #investing” @Owen Willis on LinkedIn
“Last year I had an achilles injury that all but crippled me. No treatment we tried seemed to work and in a moment of sheer frustration I turned to alternative medicine.
It worked and I was able to get my life back.
I'm not the only person who has had this experience. Millions of patients are not being served by the healthcare system and Payers are starting to take notice.
I wrote about my experience and the gigantic opportunity for startups building in the alternative medicine and emerging therapies space.
I hope you enjoy!
https://lnkd.in/gRuQtB8p
#healthcare #healthtech #venturecapital’ @Owen Willis on LinkedIn
About Your HostTim Fitzpatrick is the CEO of IKONA Health, a company using neurobiology and immersi...
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What you’ll get out of this episode
Listen in as host Tim Fitzpatrick chats with RJ Briscione from The Focus Group about his work in the social determinants of health (SDoH) areas of food, housing and transportation having worked in leadership at several large payers. RJ talks about the importance of getting it right in the last mile of care and services, why having data isn’t always enough, and how startups and large organizations are partnering to improve the quality of life in communities across the United States.
In this episode you’ll discover:
The importance of creating a closed-loop system for providers to refer people to resources in need of social support such as food banks, housing opportunities, heat sources, etc.Why the outreach to patients is equally as important as the behind-the-scenes work of getting a program designed and implemented.How companies like Unite Us, Season and WellTheory are thinking about designing services that truly make a difference, and why they are differentiated from the way health plans traditionally operate.What RJ has learned in his journey from working in health plan leadership to supporting early stage startups and now as an advisor at Next Ventures working alongside Lance Armstrong, Melanie Strong and Julian Eison to optimize health and human performance.Quotables
“We did so much work on what we call the backend in designing these programs, that all sound amazing and sound great, but the outreach misses at the last mile, like right in front of the member. It falls flat in front of the member's face. So, when we think of new and innovative and interesting ways to get to those members and make them aware of this.” @rj_bris #TheFocusGroup on Ep 24 @T-Minus10 w/ @trfitzpatrick
“ I can give a good example, WellTheory, who you probably know, Tim. They said well what’s the difference in that and that the health plan already does; and the difference is that, like get up every day and make life better for those with autoimmune disease, in that example right, to have a specific set of health nutrition and wrap-around services built around that specific condition.” @rj_bris #TheFocusGroup on Ep 24 @T-Minus10 w/ @trfitzpatrick
Recommended Resources
Next Ventures Q&A with R.J (Next Ventures on Substack)On a Mission to Break Down SDoH Barriers (Icario Webinar) Should Social Determinants Come From Payers and Providers? (Out-Of-Pocket)Food-as-medicine startup Season Health nabs $34M backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Cityblock's Toyin Ajayi (Fierce Healthcare)
2023 may bring progress in SDOH tech, telehealth and interoperability (Healthcare IT News)Join the Conversation
Are you a healthcare innovator? Tell us what topics and people you’d like us to cover in future episodes:
RJ Briscione on LinkedIn
RJ Briscione on Twitter
Huge step forward for access to #cancertreatment #clinicaltrials . Provider friends, this is built for you and to keep community practices whole. Jump on this/happy to connect! //
@ RJ Bricione on LinkedIn
I generally list Mental Health Access as one of the bigger problems in Healthcare... check out what Sero Health is doing to provide EMDR therapy at home! // @ RJ Bricione on LinkedIn
About Your HostTim Fitzpatrick is the CEO of IKONA Health, a company using neurobiology and immersive technology to improve how patients learn about their care and treatment options. Tim co-founded IKONA based on his own patient experiences while serving in the US Navy and now in the VA health system. He has served as Principal Investigator on multiple federal research grants, has co-authored papers on learning science, VR, and mental health in the age of COVID-19, and has partnered with top healthcare investors and institutions including the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Artificial Intelligence Institute, StartUp Health, On Deck, FundRx, MATTER and NVIDIA.
T-Minus 10 is a part of the Slice of Healthcare podcast network.
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What you’ll get out of this episode
Listen in as host Tim Fitzpatrick chats with Dr. Gupta about different barriers to education and treatment selection for people with kidney disease (CKD) and kidney failure (ESKD). Shammi dives into how Monogram Health is supporting care teams in over 30 states to educate their patients, delay disease progression, experience home dialysis options, and design care plans with social support and individual goals in mind.
How the current dialysis education approach often scares patients away from home dialysis due to a lack of available hands-on education and shortened time to make a decision.The disconnect between what physicians think and what patients want, given that 90% of kidney doctors would choose to do home dialysis while just 10% of patients is at home today.Why it’s so important for care teams to consider the whole person beyond their treatment prescription, and what role the multidisciplinary care team plays in meeting those needsWhy allowing patients to visit a home dialysis center and meet a home dialysis patient leads to patients visualizing the process and removing their fear of home dialysis. How experiential learning enables patients to feel more empowered to pursue new treatment options like home dialysis
In this episode you’ll discover:Quotables
“It’s my firm belief that patients can do home dialysis if given the opportunity and support, and not be on a rush pathway. Ideally, we would explain to a patient was it means and support them with that journey depending on where they are with an open-ended time frame as opposed to a here's your first presentation and you need to decide by tomorrow and if you don’t, we’ll put you in a center and that’s the end of it. “ @Dr.ShaminderGupta #MonogramHealth on Ep23 @T-Minus10 w/ @trfitzpatrick
“90% of physicians would choose home dialysis for themselves or a loved one. Yet only 10% of patients are doing home dialysis in this country. So I think that says it all, frankly.” @Dr.ShaminderGupta #MonogramHealth on Ep23 @T-Minus10 w/ @trfitzpatrick
Monogram Health and Banner – University Health Plans Announce Innovative Kidney Care Partnership (Monogram Press)AdventHealth Partners with Monogram Health to Improve Health Outcomes for Those Impacted by Chronic Kidney Disease (Monogram Press)Kidney care startup Monogram Health eyes expansion boosted by $160M investment (Fierce Healthcare)Monogram Health launches "couple hundred million" capital raise (Modern Healthcare)Value-Based Care in Nephrology: The Kidney Care Choices Model and Other Reforms (Kidney360)Value-Based Care Catalyzes Transformation of Kidney Disease Care (Healthcare Innovation)
Recommended Resources
Join the ConversationDr. Shaminder Gupta on LinkedIn
Monogram Health on LinkedIn
About Your Host
Tim Fitzpatrick is the CEO of IKONA Health, a company using neurobiology and immersive technology to improve how patients learn about their care and treatment options. Tim co-founded IKONA based on his own patient experiences while serving in the US Navy and now in the VA health system. He has served as Principal Investigator on multiple federal research grants, has co-authored papers on learning science, VR, and mental health in the age of COVID-19, and has partnered with top healthcare investors and institutions including the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Artificial Intelligence Institute, StartUp Health, On Deck, FundRx, MATTER and NVIDIA.
T-Minus 10 is a part of the Slice of Healthcare podcast network. -
What you’ll get out of this episode
Listen in as host Tim Fitzpatrick chats with Raihan about bringing dignity and technology to the end-of-life care experience. They also talk about opportunities for supporting and upskilling the family and caregiver roles, and what it means to allow families to practice at the top of their license.
While death is guaranteed, a great way of dying is not. The Guaranteed team is on a mission to provide 24/7 support and resource for families as they care for their loved ones during and after dying.How Raihan's personal experiences as a physician, patient and caregiver during COVID drew him toward the opportunity to help build Guaranteed alongside Founder & CEO Jessica McGlory.Where the Guaranteed team is focusing their efforts today and what they have on the horizon as they build this platform and care delivery offering from the ground up.Why the opportunity to understand families’ needs throughout the second half of life will play a vital role in how Guaranteed will be able to predict subjective and objective factors that improve end-of-life care.
In this episode you’ll discover:
Quotables“We are planning on doing a family admission. Which is a novel concept in healthcare. So we are treating and caring for the patient, while we are also treating and caring for the family. Families do a tremendous amount of unpaid labor for aging and dying family members. It's important for us to understand what the needs and the wants of the family are.’ @RMFnyc1 #Guaranteed on EP22 @T-Minus10
Recommended Resources
Learn more about Guaranteed (onguaranteed.com)Exclusive: Guaranteed a dignified death (Axios)Guaranteed’s Funding Nears $10M on Journey to Improve End-of-Life Care (MedCity News)Guaranteed Raises $6.5M Seed Round to Modernize End-of-Life Care (BusinessWire)Palliative Researcher Oliver: Family Caregivers Are Also Patients (Hospice News)
Join the ConversationAre you a healthcare innovator? Tell us what topics and people you’d like us to cover in future episodes:
Raihan Farouqi on LinkedIn
Raihan Farouqi on Twitter
About Your Host
Tim Fitzpatrick is the CEO of IKONA Health, a company using neurobiology and immersive technology to improve how patients learn about their care and treatment options. Tim co-founded IKONA based on his own patient experiences while serving in the US Navy and now in the VA health system. He has served as Principal Investigator on multiple federal research grants, has co-authored papers on learning science, VR, and mental health in the age of COVID-19, and has partnered with top healthcare investors and institutions including the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Artificial Intelligence Institute, StartUp Health, On Deck, FundRx, MATTER and NVIDIA.
T-Minus 10 is a part of the Slice of Healthcare podcast network. -
What you’ll get out of this episode
Listen in as host Tim Fitzpatrick chats with Dr. Leah Houston (Founder of HPEC) about the importance of decentralized ownership in the physician community amid the changing landscape of data security and transparency.
How more data and information to both the patients and physicians can help improve the care of patients and save billions of dollars in exploratory care. More information leads to a faster diagnosis and better choices.Why the Humanitarian Physicians Empowerment Community (HPEC) is focused on building a future healthcare ecosystem optimized through open access trusted space for the physician community to easily connect to the patients who need them the most.How the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) evolved from a communication tool to the data surveillance system we see today, and how we can fix it.How HPEC is working to rebuild the physician community in an era of massive turnover.
In this episode you’ll discover:
Quotables“As Physicians, we are the only ones who took the Hippocratic oath. The oath to put patients first and we take that oath very seriously, so if there is no autonomy and agency for the one who actually care about the patients first, then how are patients going to be cared for?” @leahhoustonMD #HPEC on Ep21 @T-Minus10 w/ @trfitzpatrick
Recommended Resources
Learn more about HPEC (HPEC.io)Dr. Leah Houston on the mission of HPEC (HPEC on YouTube)Web3 & Healthcare (Hashed Health)How Web3.0 might revolutionize healthcare (by Abhishek Rungta in Forbes)How NFTs, DAOs, Web3 and the metaverse impact health care (by Dr. Christopher Loo in KevinMD)HPEC on Twitter
HPEC on LinkedIn
About Your HostTim Fitzpatrick is the CEO of IKONA Health, a company using neurobiology and immersive technology to improve how patients learn about their care and treatment options. Tim co-founded IKONA based on his own patient experiences while serving in the US Navy and now in the VA health system. He has served as Principal Investigator on multiple federal research grants, has co-authored papers on learning science, VR, and mental health in the age of COVID-19, and has partnered with top healthcare investors and institutions including the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Artificial Intelligence Institute, StartUp Health, On Deck, FundRx, MATTER and NVIDIA.
T-Minus 10 is a part of the Slice of Healthcare podcast network. -
What you’ll get out of this episode
Listen in as host Tim Fitzpatrick chats with Lucy Chen about how her transition from transplant pharmacist to informatics manager has expanded her perspectives on patient and clinician education.
How patient education resources are not a size fits all and there are many gaps that are left in this area. For example, many CKD patients have troubled vision and the generic PDFs are not easy for them to see or comprehend.Many clinicians are too busy to learn about learning science, let alone apply in their own interactions with patients. When a patient can be provided with background information about their diagnosis prior to their appointment, they can be involved in the conversation with the clinician, rather than receiving a brain dump of the diagnosis and next steps. But how do we ensure patients can build that foundational knowledge to have those conversations?In a recent study, Lucy and her team learned how technology impacts both the illness experience and the healthcare experience for patients. Examples of online health information include peer support and patient portals for accessing lab results. Basic tools can be helpful, but it all comes back to asking the right questions and listening to your patients.
In this episode you’ll discover:
Quotables“Prior to this, I had a shallow understanding of education. My thinking was that if people know the right information they can do the right thing to take care of their health. But, because we had this opportunity to really dive deep into the inner worlds of patients and hear them speak about their experiences. I think learning from their providers and their peers really plays a much deeper and more impactful role than simply knowing what to do. Speaking to their peers and learning what that experience is like, it gives people back what chronic illness often takes from them. Sort of confidence and agency over their lives, and sort of a connection where chronic illness is often isolating” #FresniusKabi on Ep 20 @t-minus10 w @trfitzpatrick
Recommended Resources
What is medical informatics? (NIH)Roles and Impacts of the Transplant Pharmacist: A Systematic Review (CJHP)
What Patients Like — and Dislike — About Telemedicine (HBR)Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management Systems (Credly)
Digital Medicine: A Primer on Measurement (Karger)
Digital inclusion as a social determinant of health (Nature)
User Experience (UX) Measures (Node Health)
Join the ConversationAre you a healthcare innovator? Tell us what topics and people you’d like us to cover in future episodes:
Lucy Chen on LinkedIn
Fresenius Kabi on LinkedIn
"Among the reasons the telehealth connection seems to resonate with patients is that providers can actually seem more attentive on-screen. One patient commented that while her doctor always seemed distracted by a computer screen during in-person visits, during video visits the doctor looked directly at her."
Surprising and interesting results indeed”. @ Lucy Chen on LinkedIn
“Fascinating that Germany has a regulatory fast track for #digitaltherapeutics which will be covered by statutory health insurance (90% of population).
Anyone know what's the reimbursement landscape in Canada and elsewhere in the world?” @Lucy Chen on LinkedIn
T-Minus 10 on LinkedInIKONA Health on YouTube
About Your HostTim Fitzpatrick is the CEO of IKONA Health, a company using neurobiology and immersive technology to improve how patients learn about their care and treatment options. Tim co-founded IKONA based on his own patient experiences while serving in the US Navy and now in the VA health system. He has served as Principal Investigator on multiple federal research grants, has co-authored papers on learning science, VR, and mental health in the age of COVID-19, and has partnered with top healthcare investors and institutions including the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Artificial Intelligence Institute, StartUp Health, On Deck, FundRx, MATTER and NVIDIA.
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