Faces of Digital Health

G4A, formerly known as Grants4Apps is probably the most famous digital health accelerator inside a Pharma conglomerate. For a few years, the program was designed to support a handful of startups by offering them office space, various entrepreneurship skills training and network expansion. As the digital health market evolved, so has the program, with Eugene Barukhovich taking over the global head of G4A digital health development at Bayer in 2016. At the moment, G4A is present in some form or another in 35 countries. 8 accelerators/incubators run around the globe. This discussion explains how a global pharmaceutical corporation with almost 120.000 employees launched a digital health accelerator, what are the specifics of this year's application process, how are business scandals of digital health and biotech startups from the Silicon Valley affecting the ecosystem, Eugene briefly comments the Dutch and German digital health system.   To learn more about this year's G4A program and application, see this link: http://bit.ly/2JL1gWo You have until May 31st to apply!

Longevity, eternal youth or even immortality have been an aspiration in religion and culture throughout history. Today, people adopt all sorts of approaches to increase their wellbeing, delay aging and avoid diseases. Efforts are increasingly quantified with sensors, wearables, or even biohacking - interventions to influence body biology. The new hope for advancements in longevity is seen in artificial intelligence, which is becoming increasingly powerful. Alex Zhavoronkov has been researching the use of AI in aging for years. He is the CEO of Insilico Medicine, a Baltimore-based leader in the next-generation artificial intelligence technologies for drug discovery and aging biomarkers discovery. He truly is a well of knowledge - since 2012 he published over 130 peer-reviewed research papers and 2 books including "The Ageless Generation: How Biomedical Advances Will Transform the Global Economy" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). In this episode, he talks about the complexity of aging as a biological process, types of artificial intelligence and the role of AI in research advancements.   Some of his latest research articles include:  Blood Biochemistry Analysis to Detect Smoking Status and Quantify Accelerated Aging in Smokers - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35704-w#author-information Artificial intelligence for aging and longevity research: Recent advances and perspectives - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S156816371830240X?via%3Dihub Artificial Intelligence for Drug Discovery, Biomarker Development, and Generation of Novel Chemistry - https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.molpharmaceut.8b00930 Listen also:  F013 What to expect from artificial intelligence in healthcare in the next 10 years? (Sally Daub, Enlitic) https://medium.com/faces-of-digital-health/f013-what-to-expect-from-artificial-intelligence-in-healthcare-in-the-next-10-years-fdaf2edf32f8

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

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

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

Anyone who wishes to learn about blockchain in general or specifically in healthcare can get overwhelmed by the number of results offered by a Google search. Awareness of the difficulty of finding credible, helpful and nuanced information around blockchain, was among the triggers to create the book Blockchain in Healthcare Innovations that Empower Patients, Connect Professionals and Improve Care. In this episode David Metcalf and Alex Cahana share their view on the current blockchain in the healthcare landscape, accompanied by a comment on industry discussions seen at HIMSS 2019 Global conference, where the book was presented to the public from the first time.  Other episodes on blockchain in healthcare: F021 What is the CDC doing with blockchain? (Jay Jemal, IT specialist) https://medium.com/faces-of-digital-health/f021-what-is-the-cdc-doing-with-blockchain-36c15dac3603 F020 Blockchain, value of data, and the role of legislation with adoption (Ray Dogum, Health Unchained) - https://medium.com/faces-of-digital-health/f020-blockchain-value-of-data-and-the-role-of-legislation-with-adoption-ray-dogum-health-80919d909e97 iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/si/podcast/f020-blockchain-value-data-role-legislation-adoption/id1194284040?i=1000421920886&mt=2&ls=1 Podbean: https://tjasazajc.podbean.com/e/f020-blockchain-value-of-data-and-the-role-of-legislation-with-adoption-ray-dogum-healthcare-unchained/ Episode 14 of Medicine today on digital health - What is blockchain and how fast could it be applied in healthcare: iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/014-blockchain-in-healthcare-how-how-fast-could-it/id1194284040?i=1000389721696&mt=2&ls=1 Podbean: https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-na6nf-7e3965   Episode 23 of Medicine today on digital health - Misconceptions about blockchain: iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/023-misconceptions-around-blockchain-what-it-will-not/id1194284040?i=1000397151361&mt=2&ls=1 Podbean: https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-3s9bh-7efd59   F007 The hype and the hope around blockchain (SXSW panel discussion): iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/f007-hype-hope-blockchain-in-healthcare-michael-dillhyon/id1194284040?i=1000407073820&mt=2&ls=1 Podbean: https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-vimnn-8db4e0   F008 How do sex, blockchain and medical anthropology go together: iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/f008-how-do-sex-blockchain-medical-anthropology-go/id1194284040?i=1000408108683&mt=2&ls=1 Podbean: https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-ew3f9-8e8f7a

Every person is unique and we all differ in our looks, but have you ever wondered, how much do people differ on the inside? This is something surgeons are most familiar with. Rafael Grossmann is known in the digital health community as the VR surgeon. Originally from Venezuela, Rafael has been practicing medicine for a few decades in the US by now. In this episode he talks about technological advancements in surgery - from minimally invasive surgery to robotic-assisted surgery -, followed by his passion towards digital technologies, telemedicine, and VR and in the end comments the national crisis currently happening in Venezuela, and its effects on healthcare.

Hackathons have by today become a popular approach for bringing people with various backgrounds in the same room, offering them a concentrated time, usually during a weekend, to come up with innovative approached for various challenges. The speaker of episode 31 is Annie Lamontagne - Special Projects Advisor and former Head of Global Growth at Hacking health - a global digital health organisation, currently active in 17 countries. Annie talks about how are hackathons evolving through the years, what kind of experiences can Hacking health chapters share among each other, since each chapter is active in a different country with a different culture. Annie also mentioned a few inspiring examples of solutions that were a product of hackathons organised inside the hospitals.

Hal Wolf III became the CEO of HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, the largest global organisation connecting healthcare IT providers) in 2017. While having rich experiences in the healthcare industry, he started his career in a very different sector — the entertainment business. Hal first workes in Sales and Marketing for MTV Networks in the 80s, later as VP of Content at Time Warner. Then, after 20 years, did his professional development shifted to healthcare when he became the Chief Information Officer for Kaiser Permanente in Colorado.  Some questions addressed in the podcast:  What can healthcare learn from the entertainment industry?  What is the price of interoperability, what can we learn from Keiser Permanente, where $6 billion USD was spent to implement a unified system in 10 years time?  What is the role of HIMSS in the interoperability story? How has HIMSS changed since the acquisition of Health 2.0 in 2017? How to stay informed as a health executive in the era of overwhelming amounts of new information about new technologies?  What are the global healthcare challenges?

Investments in digital health have been rising for the last few years, encouraging innovation in applications of artificial intelligence, virtual reality, analytics, and other latest technologies in healthcare. At the same time, the next generations of doctors, who are supposed to embrace and use these inventions, are trained in an outdated model with little room for creative engagement. One of the people passionate about the re-invention of medical education is Dr. Nana Bit-Avragim, a digital health transformer and medical sciences expert. Nana is an MD/PhD, who formerly worked as Director of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Charité Foundation and was the Head of Digital Health and Life Sciences program at the German hub of Singularity University. In the 29th episode of Faces of digital health, Nana discusses how new cross-disciplinary models within academia in collaboration with industry and startups should be established to upgrade and rethink medical education.