Empowered Patient Podcast

Kim Brunisholz, director of Population Health Research at Johnson & Johnson, is conducting research to bridge the gap between evidence-based care and its implementation in routine clinical practice. Overcoming the challenges of translating research into practice requires understanding patient-provider perspectives and using qualitative and quantitative methods to identify and address care gaps. This research can also identify root causes and barriers to care, enabling stakeholders to develop and implement interventions to improve patient care.   Kim explains, "My goal is really around how I impact the translation and implementation of evidence-based care into routine practice. What I'm looking to do is ensure that all patients have access to what we know works in medicine. So, there are a variety of questions that we may pursue in our research programs, mostly around how we might think around closing the evidence-to-practice gap for patients and bringing what we know works to them." "It starts with the pa

Nick Orser, General Manager at Verato, highlights the importance of trusted identity data in the healthcare industry and how master data management can help healthcare organizations deliver personalized patient experiences. The proliferation of data sources and health record systems makes maintaining a single, accurate view of each patient challenging. The MDM technology can help healthcare organizations access patient data across multiple systems to improve care outcomes and provide effective analytics and population management tools.   Nick explains, "To summarize what I'm talking about here, despite EHR consolidation with many organizations choosing to go all Epic or all Cerner, despite health system consolidation where organizations are buying up hospitals and physician practices like crazy, there's now this challenge in the industry that is 10 times harder today than it was just a decade ago." "The challenge is that dozens of these new applications in which a patient's data might be stored that an organ

Richard Mackey is the Chief Technology Officer at CCS, a company that provides chronic care management services focusing on diabetes. CCS uses machine learning and generative AI to analyze patient data from continuous glucose monitors and patient interactions to predict potential issues and proactively provide personalized information and support. CCS works with the patient's healthcare provider to support the prescribed care plan, improve adherence to care plans, and improve outcomes.   Richard explains, "On the machine learning side, we have a tremendous amount of data and information about how our patients will understand the devices they might be using. For example, continuous glucose monitors or CGMs are an important standard of care that we work with a lot of patients across the US to equip them, find the right device, help them begin using that device, and best understand what it can do and how it can help them make better decisions to manage their conditions."   "We might talk to the patient once or

Dr. Raza Bokhari, Executive Chairman and CEO of Medicus Pharma, has developed a novel, non-invasive treatment for basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer. This cost-effective transdermal Skinject patch delivers a chemotherapeutic agent applied in a clinician's office over three sessions to remove the lesion, potentially avoiding the need for Mohs surgery, the current standard of care. Medicus is incorporating AI and advanced imaging techniques in its clinical trials to improve diagnosis and monitoring of the treatment's effectiveness.   Raza explains, "The gold standard to treat basal cell carcinoma of the skin is surgical intervention, generally speaking, all solid tumors to eliminate cancer if it is caught in the early stage. The treatment regimen is that you surgically take the malignant cells out. The same is true for basal cell carcinoma of the skin. It is a slow-growing cancer. It appears on areas of the body that are exposed to ultraviolet radiation, which is being exposed primarily t

Scott Xiao, Co-Founder and CEO of Luminopia is developing a virtual reality-based treatment for amblyopia, also known as Lazy Eye in children. A traditional treatment is eye patching, which children find difficult to comply with. The Luminopia approach allows children to use a VR headset to watch content licensed from Sesame Street and Nickelodeon as a treatment to improve visual acuity by modifying the content presented to each eye.  This FDA-approved VR-based medical treatment is an immersive environment that reduces distraction and enhances engagement so that children are more likely to comply with and complete treatment plans. Scott explains, "We're pioneering a new class of treatments for a variety of visual conditions, and we're starting with a condition called amblyopia, which is more commonly known as Lazy Eye. And it's the number one cause of vision loss in children. And despite that, there hasn't been innovation in this space for a long time. Traditional treatment for amblyopia requires patients to

Shaun Rothwell is Chairman and CEO of EVOQ Nano, a company focused on developing antimicrobial technology to combat healthcare-associated infections. EVOQ nanotechnology involves a unique non-ionic silver nanoparticle that can effectively kill even the most dangerous drug-resistant bacteria. These nanoparticles can be incorporated into medical devices to prevent bacteria from colonizing and causing infections. The bacteria can not form resistance to the nanoparticles, making hospitals safer for patients and healthcare workers. Shaun explains, "We're surrounded by bacteria all day, every day. When compromised, when we're compromised from an immune perspective, those infections take hold and cause some serious damage in addition to acquired healthcare-associated infections. We understand that paying attention to the issues of the healthcare system today also involves antimicrobial resistance. These bugs are hiding and present everywhere around us. The antibiotic solutions available today are becoming less and

Manish Arora, the CEO and Co-Founder of LinusBio, is developing technologies to measure and analyze the exposome which reveals lifelong exposure to environmental factors. Their platform measures molecular signatures in hair samples for early detection and diagnosis of conditions such as autism, where traditional observational methods can be limited. LinusBio is also exploring the use of the platform for other neurological conditions like ADHD and ALS and gaining a better understanding of the role of environmental exposures in the development of diseases. The company has received Breakthrough Designation from the FDA for its autism biomarker to bring this technology to patients.   Manish explains, "Our genes are static. So if I were to measure your genes when you were a child, or measure them today, I would get the same answer pretty much. Whereas your exposome changes all the time and so does your body's reaction to it. Let me give you a very simple example. A cup of espresso in the morning has a very differ

Shailu Verma, CEO and Co-Founder of Mila Health is addressing missed appointments and no-shows for appointments to improve patient outcomes, drive staff efficiency, and reduce clinician stress. The Mila platform aims to automate time-consuming tasks, allowing staff to manage their schedules and patient flow better. This AI-powered assistant drives patient engagement by reminding about appointments, checking on medication adherence, and helping address social determinants of health that may be barriers to care. Shailu explains, "These are conditions where a patient has to manage many of these elements that I just talked about. And because the conditions don’t have low equity, as we would call it, patients tend to have a relatively high no-show rate. If you look at chronic, which is almost 50% of the spend in healthcare, the no-show rates where patients aren’t able to keep up with their care plans is anywhere between 36% to 45% in some cases." "There are these external variables around a healthcare plan. I cal

Dr. Joseph Dayan is a board-certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon at the Institute for Lymphatic Surgery and Innovation, a division of the Institute for Advanced Reconstruction. Doctors have traditionally focused on treating cancer rather than long-term effects such as lymphedema, a swelling condition caused by dysfunction of the lymphatic system. New surgical techniques such as lymph node transplants and lymphovenous bypasses can help reconstruct the lymphatic system and reduce lymphedema symptoms. Joseph explains, "Lymphedema is swelling, usually most often in the arms or legs, that’s permanent and often gets worse over time caused by dysfunction of your lymphatic system. The lymphatic system is basically the sewage system of the body. It clears out fluid waste from your body’s tissues and channels that waste into your lymph nodes, which are part of your immune system that has billions of immune cells that kill bacteria and purify that waste. That fluid then goes back into your veins and back in the

Dr. Tom Coughlin, Founder and CEO of OncRef, has developed a platform that provides oncologists with a single source of information to keep up with the rapidly evolving field of cancer research and therapies. OncRef is addressing oncologists' information overload and time constraints, as well as curating and structuring the vast amount of available cancer data. The company recognizes the potential for AI and data-driven tools to advance cancer care while acknowledging the challenges of developing hallucination-proof AI models for use in the medical field.   Tom explains, "OncRef is looking to create a single source of truth for oncologists to keep up with the field of cancer. Cancer is now progressing so quickly with more personalized medicine. And now, with AI, more research publications are being published than ever, making it extremely hard to stay on top of this field. So, we're making it very easy by providing oncologists and oncology professionals with a single source of truth, all curated, and giving

Bradley Bostic, CEO of hc1, uses advanced data science, AI, and natural language processing to identify optimal patient testing, better predict disease development, and provide insights that can help prevent disease progression. The use of lab data is crucial for making diagnostic decisions, yet the potential of leveraging data is not being realized. Using technology to address issues like over-utilization of testing and data silos that prevent clinicians from seeing the complete story, hc1 is building a diagnostic insight network that unifies the provider and pharmacists to improve the patient journey and improve outcomes. Bradley explains, "We are transforming laboratories into strategic assets that improve patient care and boost the bottom line for healthcare systems. And really, the way that I came about this was having been in the healthcare industry for quite a while, most of my career, I started seeing this common fact that data was important. The largest component of the data that was used to make di

Niels Riedemann, the CEO, Founder, and Executive Director of the Board of InflaRx, explains that InflaRx develops pioneering anti-inflammatory therapeutics against a specific portion of the complement cascade, a part of the body’s immune system that responds to infectious microbes. By applying its proprietary monoclonal anti-C5a and anti-C5aR technologies, InflaRx hopes to affect the progression of a wide variety of inflammatory diseases.  Niels explains, "Absolutely. So, I was a postdoc and research fellow at the University of Michigan and I researched this immune response I was talking about with another fellow in settings of sepsis of devastating, life-threatening inflammation and the other fellow and myself found it so intriguing that we ended up founding a company saying we're going to one day hopefully save people's lives with this approach by controlling this immune response. And when COVID came along, while we had a focus on other diseases and we have a key focus on devastating chronic diseases as w

Michael Oleksiw is the CEO of Pleio, a company focused on addressing the emotional barriers to patient engagement and medication adherence that medical professionals often overlook. Emotional barriers like loneliness, fear, and stigma can impact patients of all ages and backgrounds when they are facing a health challenge. Pleio uses technology and a peer-to-patient model to personalize interactions with empathetic humans, provide ongoing patient support, track emotional patterns, and bring pharmacists in to work with patients taking multiple medications or with chronic conditions.   Michael explains, "Our focus on the emotional barriers is meant to complement what’s out there today. The bulk of the focus when it comes to engaging patients and supporting patients is really on supporting the transaction, ensuring that a patient can get their medication, that they can get it cost-effectively, that they can pick it up, that it gets into their hands. But once they’re at home, everything gets real really fast and

Dan Levendowski, Co-Founder and President, and Chris Berka, Co-Founder and CEO of Advanced Brain Monitoring, have developed medical devices that measure brain activity through electroencephalography (EEG) during awake and sleeping states. These easy-to-use EEG devices can be used at home and in a clinic to identify biomarkers for cognitive decline and neurodegenerative diseases.  The company has built large databases of EEG data from healthy individuals and those with various neurodegenerative diseases, which allows them to compare a patient's brain activity to healthy controls and track changes over time.   Dan explains, "We're now in year seven of a large longitudinal study where we've identified and extracted these measures of the brain's electrical activity under different conditions that help us differentiate or characterize whether the person has normal cognition or their sleep looks like somebody with normal cognition. Or how the brain responds to certain stimuli and if it looks like somebody with Park

Dr. Julie Schulz, VP of product at Avalon Healthcare Solutions, a company that helps health plans manage their laboratory spend and benefits by contracting with labs and analyzing lab data.  Lab tests are important for identifying the right patients for GLP-1 drugs and assessing their cardiometabolic health. While GLP-1 drugs were initially developed for diabetes they have been found to have broader benefits in treating conditions like obesity, heart disease, and kidney disease.  Avalon's real-time access to lab data can help health plans and providers better identify appropriate patients for GLP-1 drugs and address health equity and access issues. Julie explains, "Labs are increasingly looking at biomarkers that provide an overall sense of patient health. Molecular diagnostics, including genetic testing, is on the upswing. Understanding the complexities of that testing and the clinical decisions that come from it is more and more important for health plan employers in the broader healthcare ecosystem." "So

Adrian Mendes, CEO of Perimeter Medical Imaging AI, is solving the problem of margin assessment in cancer surgery. Surgeons often have to perform a second surgery on breast cancer patients because they are unable to completely remove all of the cancerous cells the first time. The company has developed Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) imaging technology that allows surgeons to see cells at a microscopic level in real-time during surgery, helping them remove the tumor and all surrounding cancerous tissue. Adrian explains, "The surgeon is trying to ensure that when they extract the tumor and the cancer, there is a margin of healthy cells around it. Studies have shown that if they can achieve that, and with breast cancer, that margin needs to be two millimeters generally, then the likelihood of them having left cancer cells back in the body goes down drastically. This is every surgeon's objective for cancer treatment. We help the surgeons ensure that they've achieved what they call clean margins." "Yes, it's q

Brent Lucas, CEO of Envoy Medical, highlights the lack of innovation in hearing aids and the need to better address hearing health. Envoy has developed fully implanted hearing devices that provide 24/7 hearing assistance without the need for daily recharging of the battery.  With the introduction of over-the-counter hearing aids and the advanced Apple AirPods Pro 2, customer options have been expanded, making it easier to address some forms of hearing loss. Implanted devices eliminate the limitations of external hearing aids and reduce the impact of hearing loss on their daily lives. Brent explains, "Part of the problem in the hearing loss industry has been that it's not well understood. So there has not been a great deal of competition and innovation in the hearing loss world. Most of us have thought about hearing loss and how it's addressed by looking to our grandparents, the elders. Plenty of people joke about our dads or our grandfathers not being able to hear our grandmothers. When I tell people I'm in

Caleb Manscill, President of Vyne Medical, has a mission to present a holistic view of data, from origination to use, within a healthcare organization. The goal is to guide them to find ways to streamline the workflow, save time, reduce errors and costs, and improve patient outcomes. Using AI to handle faxes, data entry, and other administrative tasks can free up staff to handle issues that require human intervention. Vyne Medical provides insights about implementing technology and overcoming cultural resistance to changes in healthcare organizations.  Caleb explains, "We've got multiple use cases, but I'll speak to two. The first one is the simple handling of faxes. There's lots of unstructured data coming into different points of care. In this case, I'll talk about the hospital, but there are lots of referrals being made. There are lab reports being sent and there's data that needs to be appended through HIM. Often, this data will come in through the fax machine as unstructured data, and individuals will p

Andre Esteva is the CEO and Co-Founder of Artera, a company focused on improving prostate cancer diagnostics. The company uses an AI-driven test, validated in large-scale clinical trials, to analyze a tumor biopsy or surgical specimen and predict response to therapy and likely long-term outcomes. This helps inform treatment decisions, reduce the risk of over-treatment, and support healthcare equity in diverse patient populations. Plans are underway to expand the AI-driven diagnostic tools to other solid tumor types leveraging the ability of AI to learn across different cancers.   Andre explains, "In general, when it comes to the treatment of prostate cancer, and this is true for most cancers, clinicians tend to be conservative, rightfully so, and there is a tendency to overtreat patients. You see, when it comes to assigning a therapy to a patient, there's this notion of the optimal therapy, and you want to get it right. If you undertreat your patient, the disease will progress, and nobody wants their cancer

Len D'Avolio is the CEO of Blue Circle Health a program launched with the support of the Helmsley Charitable Trust to provide care, education, and support to adults with type 1 diabetes. The program provides free, remote support for 6 months including access to continuous glucose monitors, endocrinologists, counseling, insurance navigation, and affordable insulin and clinical care. The program aims to address the care gaps that exists for people with T1D and support them to better manage their condition.   Len explains, "The Helmsley Charitable Trust, which is a major philanthropic donor to the space dedicated to improving the lives of people with T1D, basically recognized that there's this big care gap between what people with T1D need to live healthy lives and what the US healthcare system tends to provide, based on what is or isn't reimbursable. So, they gathered a bunch of experts and conducted a number of focus groups and decided they'd like to close that gap. They formed Blue Circle Health as a free ca