Faces of Digital Health
F111 The full circle in telemedicine – adding home delivery of medications and at-home diagnostics ( Sid Viswanathan, Truepill)
The U.S. prescription drug market is worth $400 billion. Companies such as GoodRx, RxSaver and now Amazon Pharmacy are starting to bring pricing transparency. Online pharmacy services are projected to hit revenues of $131 billion by 2025 worldwide. The Amazon Prime prescription savings benefit can save members up to 80% off generic and 40% off brand name medications when paying without insurance. The pharmacy market is evolving and getting disrupted in the US. One of the players revolutionizing the customer experience in the space is Truepill. Truepill helps traditional healthcare companies, plan groups and pharmaceutical manufacturers create customized, digital experiences at scale with their Truepill’s digital platform. In this episode, the Co-Founder and President of Truepill – Sid Viswanathan talks about
– how is digitalization changing the pharmacy industry,
– the rise of modern digital healthcare,
– what healthcare companies need to know about building digital experience for their customers and more.
For more content go to www.facesofdigitalhealth.com
Truepill: https://www.truepill.com/
F110 “Patient records on the blockchain are still a dream” (Robert Miller)
In the last two years, the hype around blockchain settled down, and now projects can focus more on development rather than managing attention. Many projects have gone from an idea to a pilot program or an actual implementation. However, we probably won’t see patient medical records on the blockchain soon, says Robert Miller – Director of Product Management and Strategy at Consensys Health. ConsenSys Health builds Ethereum-based solutions for cybersecurity, compliance, privacy, bioethics and identity, applying the deep technical capabilities of ConsenSys to advance the healthcare industry. The blockchain community knows Robert because of his regular newsletters about blockchain in healthcare. He is diligently following and reflecting on the development of the industry. We discussed why are patient health records on blockchain currently still a dream and which projects are slowly moving beyond the project phase. An interesting research initiative is MELLODY – (acronym for Machine learning ledger orchestration for drug discovery). MELLODY is a collaboration among 10 major pharma companies that are using a blockchain-based infrastructure and federated learning to speed up drug development. Robert also shared his view on MELLODY – and I also added the link to his analysis in the show notes. We also talked about the potential use of blockchain for vaccination certification and more. Further reading: Robert’s analysis of the data and privacy-related challenges in the MELLODY project. Recap of the show: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/f110-patient-records-on-the-blockchain-are-still-a-dream-robert-miller
109 How digitally healthy is New Zealand? (Scott Arrol)
When this discussion was recorded on 20th November, New Zealand, which has 4.9 million people, only had 50 reported cases of COVID in the whole country. The reason the country is successful in containing the virus better than most countries in the world, is the discipline of the people, says Scott Arrol, the former CEO of NZ Healtchare IT – an organization connecting insurers, healthcare providers and the healthcare industry. Scott is soon leaving the organization after running if for over 6 years. He talked about the character of New Zealanders, the complexity of the healthcare system, the hurdles related to the digitalization of healthcare, and explained how New Zealand approached the COVID-19 pandemic, so today, unlike most of the rest of the world, people can attend live events. Enjoy the show, and to read the recap of the discussion or browse through other episodes as well, go to www.facesofdigitalhealth.com.
Among the discussions about the healthcare system, you can listen to a recently published talk with dr. Louise Schaper about healthcare and digitalization in Australia, before that you can find discussions about Spain and France, episodes 97-100 focused on South America, and there’s been series about Asia and Africa published last year.
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F108 What’s the value of telehealth consultations for doctors and patients? (Julian Flannery)
In this episode, you will hear a discussion with Julian Flannery – the CEO of. Summus Global. Summus global provides access to specialists and physicians from across the world. The company has a network of over 4,000 specialists and physicians from 48 hospitals and dozens of fields, from oncology to cardiology, psychology, and pediatrics. Their customers come from the US, China, Canada, Philippines, Spain, England, United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, Turkey, and Ireland. The CEO Julian Flannery and I talked about how the platform works, how do customers differ based on the country of their residence and more. Enjoy the discussion and to browse through other episodes as well, go to www.facesofdigitalhealth.com. If you haven’t yet, subscribe to the show to be notified about new episodes automatically. Coming up next are a discussion about the latest development in blockchain in healthcare and an introduction to the digital health landscape in New Zealand.
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Summus Global: https://www.summusglobal.com/
F107 AI driven health insurance (Rajeev Ronanki, Anthem)
Rajeev Ronanki is Chief Digital Officer at Anthem, which is striving to become a digital AI-first enterprise. In September Anthem launched a digital incubator where companies can test their solutions on Anthem’s anonymized data. Among other things Rajeev spoke about what kind of mindset shift happened in insurance companies due to COVID, how does an AI-driven insurance policy mindset look like and how will AI shape the future of healthcare.
Anthem’s incubator: https://www.anthem.ai/
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F106 VRx book discussion: What 5000 studies taught us about the healing power of VR? (Dr. Brennan Spiegel)
We are in the middle of an unprecedented time of anxiety, depression and worries because of the global coronavirus pandemic. It’s affecting people’s jobs, a sense of security, and relative predictability, consequently our relationships and health, especially mental health. I think it’s safe to assume we wish for this to be over as soon as possible and that we could be in a different reality. To a certain extent, that’s actually possible, if you have virtual reality equipment. Virtual reality can have a literally healing effect. Over 5000 studies by today have shown the efficacy of VR for pain management, PTSD, eating disorders, mental health and more. In this episode, you will hear from dr. Brennan Spiegel a gastroenterologist who directs the Cedars-Sinai Center for Outcomes Research and Education. He recently published a book titled VRx in which he explains the applicability of VR and looks at this digital therapy from a philosophical and critical point of view. In this discussion, you will hear him explain what makes VR so healing, what are its potential side-effects and why different patients respond differently to it.
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