Faces of Digital Health

Why are clinical trials complicated and how is technology from platforms to AI helping accelerate trial development and data analysis.

Germany is one of the European countries with higher healthcare expenditures. 11% of GDP goes to healthcare compared to the 9.6% European average. Patients can be covered under public health insurance, or if they earn more than 5000 euros monthly, they choose from private health insurance providers. Health insurance is mandatory but competitive as there are around 100 health insurance companies on the market.  When Jens Spahn became the health minister In March 2018 Germany quickly became the European northern star of accelerated healthcare digitization. How did they do it? You will hear from three speakers - Henrik Matthies, managing director of the health innovation hub of the German Ministry of Health, Maren Lesche - Head of Incubation at Vision Health Pioneers a pre-seed incubator ‘Vision Health Pioneers’ based in Berlin and dr. Maike Henningsen - medical doctor, who specialized in OBGYN, oncology, endocrinology and reproductive medicine and who partially still works in the clinical practice but is also involved in Vision Health Pioneers as Head of Medical Business Strategy and involved in several other innovation projects.

There are well over 300.000 digital health apps on the market. However, only a third of them have been updated in the last 18 months, says Liz Ashal Payne - CEO and Founder of ORCHA - a UK based organization with a mission to distribute validated apps to patients who need them. Liz Ashal Payne - a digital health veteran, who started her career as a speech ad language therapist, worked as Assistant Director of Allied Health Professions (AHPs), she was a Clinical Programme Manager of Academic Health Science Network for the North West Coast, International Outreach Coordinator for ECHAlliance and more. After years of being in the digital health space, she founded ORCHA - an organisation with the mission to distribute digital health apps to people who need them.    See also F062 GDPR, MDR, and what you can do about you medical data (Jovan Stevovic): https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f062-gdpr-mdr-and-what-you-can-do-about-you-medical-data-jovan-stevovi

Despite enjoying clinical practice, Benedict Evans still came to a point where he felt he is not passionate enough about what he does, and as a surgeon, he realized he enjoys talking to patients more than treating them when they are under anesthesia. He went to a consulting position at McKinsey, then back to an NHS Trust to drive digital innovation and now to a VC position.  Resources: InHealth Ventures: https://www.inhealth.vc/ Episode recap: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f093-how-does-a-doctor-become-a-vc-benedict-evans

Leah Houston is an Emergency Physician who has been following blockchain development since 2012 and now designed a solution that would empower doctors, make their credentialing easier which would simplify transitions from one hospital to the next one if one wished to switch jobs.    HPEC is restoring agency and autonomy to the physician-patient relationship with self-sovereign (physician-owned and controlled) digital identities and verifiable credentials. The key thing is that the solution is returning autonomy to physicians and eliminates third party interference from the doctor-patient relationship.    In this discussion, you will be able to hear how credentialing works in the US, what are the powerful forces that are hurting healthcare, and why doctors and patients should regain control over their communication and treatment choices.   Episode recap: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f092-how-can-blockchain-bring-back-autonomy-to-the-physician-patient-relationship-leah-houston-hpec

This is the fourth episode in the short series about nurses who moved to entrepreneurship.   Mary Lou Ackerman is Vice President of Innovation and Digital Health with SE Health. Mary Lou is a founding member of SONSIEL (Society of Nursing Scientist, Innovator, and Entrepreneur Leaders) and an active member of CHIEF (Canada’s Health Informatics Executive Forum) with Digital Health Canada. Her background is extensive — she has led the development and implementation of many business transformation projects, innovations and partnerships. Mary Lou joined Saint Elizabeth in 1987 as a visiting nurse, and she has augmented her clinical background with a graduate business degree and significant experience with health informatics and technologies. Mary Lou has a passion for community health care, combined with a desire to advance care, creating innovative service models supported by digital health technologies, to create a future that will provide a personalized, accessible, meaningful health experience for individuals, their families and the service providers that support them.   More about other episodes: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f087f091-series-nurses-the Are you a digital health startups? Check out Health Venture Lab and apply for their next accelerator program: https://hvlab.eu/

This is a third discussion in the short series about nurses going into entrepreneurship. Karmi Soder started working as a pediatric clinical care nurse in 1992. Today she is a skilled communicator with over 25 years of healthcare experience in clinical, administrative and tech, which she gained by serving as Chief Administrative Officer at Sutter Health, leading pediatric department for Kaiser Permanente, worked at Google and co-founded NewboRN Solutions — a registered nursing corporation, which aimed at helping new parents get the best care and shared community after the birth of their newborn. Based in Israel Karmi now works as a consultant for program development and strategy, analyzes, designs and executes improved operations and workflows.    More about the series: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f087f091-series-nurses-the Apply for the Reactor accelerating program: https://hvlab.eu/program/1/reactor-2020

Sherezade Ruano is an Arrhythmia Specialist Nurse at Imperial College NHS Trust, Founder of RhythmiaBreath Medical Well-being programme and Co-Founder, CEO of RB Hub Digital Therapeutics. Passionate about the importance of mental wellbeing, stress and trauma in cardiac patients, Sherezade works closely with a team of world-renowned Mental Health specialists and Cardiologists offering outstanding services. In the interview she spoke about neurocardiology, struggles she came across as a nurse entrepreneur when looking for validators of her solution, she also commented the faster adoption of digital health in the UK because of COVID-19 and more.

2020 is the year of the nurse and the midwife. What do nurses actually do and why are they still a hidden innovation treasure in healthcare?   In this series consisting of discussions with nurse innovators, you will hear about: What nurses actually do, The changing role of nurses in healthcare, Relationship nurses have with technology — IT systems, new innovations, Why they should be at the policy making table.   The first episode features Shawna Butler, Nurse Economist and EntrepreNURSE from the US, currently the Host of SEE YOU NOW podcast, focused on sharing perspectives of nurses on healthcare. She is a member of the core team of the Exponential Medicine team at Singularity University. In this discussion, Shawna Buttler, speaks about the current situation healthcare workers have found themselves in due to COVID-19, what she’s learning about nurses through hosting the See you now podcast, we also touched very human aspects of nursing we don’t hear about often, that is the needs and support in end of life care. Recap of the series: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f087f091-series-nurses-the

Karan Raj is a "veteran" in online education. He founded TheOSCEstation - an online medical education website with videos explaining different medical topics. TheOSCEstation primarily targets medical students and has been around on Youtube for several years. Dr. Raj works at Frimley Park Hospital NHS Foundation Trust as a Surgical Registrar, but he is also a Honorary Lecturer at Imperial College London, where he teaches e-learning & undergraduate medicine; he is Honorary Senior Lecturer at Sunderland University. He started using TikTok as a consumer in November 2019 and hardly in February this year, during a discussion with a colleague, he came up with the idea of talking about and explaining weird medical facts on TikTok. Following him, you can learn about embarrassing things he did as a doctor, weird things patients have said, and even more unusual topics such as - Can cheese give you nightmares? Recap: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f086-tiktok-22-interested-in-weird-medical-facts-karannbspraj See also: F085 Tik tok 1/2: #MedicineExplained - doctors sharing medical knowledge in a whole new format (Amanda d’Almeida and Dan Villavecer)