Faces of Digital Health
The Power Of At-Home Diagnostics and Prevention of STDs (Ash Wellness)
This episode explores the role of at-home diagnostic testing in managing and preventing sexually transmitted diseases. More than 1 million sexually transmitted infections (STIs), which include syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, HIV hepatitis, and other infections, are acquired every day worldwide. The majority of STIs are asymptomatic early detection that much more important to prevent the spread of these diseases.
According to WHO, globally, 38.4 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2021. Science has advanced immensively to help treat and manage HIV. For over a decade, populations at risk can take preventative pills, which prevent HIV infections by over 99%. Unfortunately, access to this prophylaxis shouldn’t be taken for granted. In the US, prevention is supposed to be covered by insurance under the Affordable Care Act. However, in September, a district court ruling in Texax potentially endangered this access. A Christian-owned company argued against the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that insurers and employers offer plans that cover PrEP for free. The argument was that this statutory provision “forces religious employers to provide coverage for drugs that facilitate and encourage homosexual behavior, prostitution, sexual promiscuity, and intravenous drug use.” The company won the case, and the ruling opened up concerns about what this will mean for future efforts and coverage for preventative health measures.
In this – which was published before the Texas Court ruling -, you will hear from Emma Rayer is the Head of Strategic Partnerships for Ash Wellness, a remote diagnostics solution. Ash Wellness supports traditional healthcare systems, universities, public health initiatives, and digital health companies in giving patients access to at-home sample collection kits that are then sent and analyzed in laboratories.
Emma talked about the differences in the attitude towards testing for STIs in South Africa, where she grew up in and the US, where she lives now. She also explained how the Ash platform works, how is at-home diagnostics market evolving, and more.
Recap of this episode: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/std-prevention-through-platform
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Kenya, Rwanda, Ghana: How is Medtronic Labs Redefining Chronic Disease Management
This is the second episode where we will discuss healthcare delivery in Africa. In the previous episode, the entrepreneur and regulatory advisor Herve Mwamba from South Africa talked about stereotypes and medical device regulation in Africa (Full transcript: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/medical-device-regulation-mdr-africa).
In this episode, you’re going to hear about an effort to manage non-communicable diseases in Africa better. Medtronic Labs is a nonprofit organization that works with governments and local communities in across Africa to create local ecosystems for the management of hypertension and diabetes. I spoke with Anne Stake, Chief Strategy and Product Officer at Medtronic Labs, who explained, how Medtronic Labs approached the African market, gaining of trust in the local communities and what challenges and innovations they observed on the ground in Kenya, Rwanda and Ghana.
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TRANSCRIPT: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/medtronic-labs-africa
Website:
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South Africa & Africa More Broady: What’s The State of Medical Device Regulation?
It’s September, it’s time for school and a new season of Faces of digital health podcast episodes. Faces of digital health strives to bring you an insight into digital health development across the world. We’re going to start this season in Africa. In this episode, South African entrepreneur, regulatory, and quality assurance consultant Herve Mwamba discusses the state of medical device regulation in South Africa and Africa more broadly, his observations about the consequences and problems related to the European Medical Device Regulation, his observation regarding innovation in Africa.
This is the first of a few episodes where speakers talked about the African market, so do make sure to subscribe to the show to be notified about other episodes automatically. In the next episode you’ll hear about chronic disease management in Kenya and Ghana, provided by Medtronic Labs, and after that, a discussion about the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and how that can be improved with the rise of at-home testing.
BTW – did you read our newsletter yet? We finally have one! It only comes out monthly, filled with information about insights in the last month. Do check it out here:
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What Makes Hospital Medication Management Complex? (Talking Healthtech Summit)
There are “five rights” of medication use: the right patient, the right drug, the right time, the right dose, and the right route. It might seem obvious, but in practice, an error can occur at the level of each of these “right”s.
Unsafe medication practices and medication errors are leading cause of injury and avoidable harm in health care systems worldwide. According to WHO, the cost associated with medication errors has been estimated at $42 billion annually globally. The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare estimates that between 2% and 3% of all Australian hospital admissions are medication-related. In the UK, it is estimated that adverse drug reactions account for 10-20% of hospital in-patient admissions, according to the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer’s National Overprescribing Review, which was published in September 2021.
This episode is a recording of a panel discussion at the Talking Healthtech Winter Summit in Australia in August. The panel session you’re about to hear is focused on medication management in the hospital setting. It will give you an overview of:
- the current problems with medications in the hospital setting,
- why are decision support systems suboptimal,
- what it takes to implement healthcare IT in the hospital setting.
Speakers:
- Melissa Fodera, Chief Pharmacy Informatics Officer (CPIO) Western Health Australia,
- Božidarka Radović, Better Meds Product Lead at the health IT company Better,
- Gidi Stein, CEO of MedAware.
RESOURCES:
Talking Healthtech Winter Summit: https://www.talkinghealthtech.com/summit
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EIT Health Germany Series 7/12: How Can A Digital Health Solution Become a “DiGA App” in Germany?
Patients dream about reliable and clinically meaningful digital innovations that would help improve their health in a smooth way. With the digital health market maturing, startups increasingly need to not only offer a good user experience but also comply with rigorous regulatory requirements and test their solutions in clinical trials. They need to go through long certification processes. For a few years now, Germany has in place a clear workflow for making digital health apps reimbursable. France is on its way to adopting a similar framework. In today’s episode, you will hear more about what companies need to do to get certified and reimbursed in Germany. I spoke with Jörg Trinkwalter, the Managing Director at ProCarement, a young startup that developed a telemedicine digital care solution for patients with heart failure.
ProCarement is participating in the current cohort of the EIT Health Diginovation program. The Diginovation program links start-ups with an international consortium to accelerate the reimbursement of digital health apps in Europe. Jorg explained how ProCarement is preparing to have their application included in the DiGA repository, and how they’re working with the regulatory body Bfarm to achieve that goal. There are currently 35 DiGA applications in the repository. I added the link to the DiGA repository in the show notes, so you can browse through what’s approved and can be prescribed by doctors.
In this episode, Jörg talks about ProCarement, telemedicine reimbursement in Germany, the benefits of the Diginovation program and plans for the French market, and how ProCarement is working towards also having a DiGA app.
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Diga repository: https://diga.bfarm.de/de/verzeichnis
This is the 7th out of 12 episodes prepared in collaboration with EIT Health.
This episode is supported by EIT Health Germany, which is one of eight Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) currently funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). Find out more about startup opportunities in 2022.
How Advanced are Artificial Limbs? (Dima Gazda, Esper Bionics)
In 2017, 57.7 million people were living with limb amputation due to traumatic causes worldwide.
Apart from accidents, a person might need an amputation due to vascular diseases and diabetes. You might have come across increasingly sophisticated prosthetic limbs, which mimic human movements. The problem is, these are extremely expensive. Simple cosmetic prosthetic costs around $5,000, a functional prosthetic with a hook up to $10,000, and the latest myoelectric tech-enhanced ones cost up to $100,000.
In this episode, Dima Gazda, CEO, and founder of Esper Bionics speaks about the development of the market, and how Esper Bionics operates, given that it has facilities in Ukraine.
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