Moving Digital Health: Recent Episodes
MindSea
At MindSea, we believe that the best apps start with a great idea, and by launching this podcast, we are creating a platform to support the free exchange of ideas among leading experts in our field.
This podcast is an extension of MindSea’s commitment to a collaborative process. We often hear that our clients feel that we’re all on one team—this is our opportunity to grow it. Backed by our firm belief in responsiveness and transparency, we are inviting industry players to join our team and share their expertise to move digital health forward, together.
The Moving Digital Health series will focus on insights and trends in the digital healthcare industry. Join us as we invite industry authorities and thought leaders to share their stories, their successes and challenges, and their predictions for the future of digital healthcare.
Healthcare organizations have spent years preparing their data for AI, and Ajay Dhaul argues the hard part was never the technology.
Travis previously built Kinduct, the athlete management platform used by the NBA, NFL, and MLB. He now applies that same data science to public health, working with school boards and municipal governments to get whole community populations moving.
Travis walks through how the platform works, from augmented reality workouts to rewards for volunteering and donating blood. He and Reuben also dig into the economics of prevention, including why its payoff takes years to prove and how Wellnify plans to show governments the ROI.
Most digital health pilots never make it to production, and according to Dr. Anastasia Christianson, the reason usually has nothing to do with the AI itself.Dr. Christianson has led AI and global informatics at Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, and now advises healthcare organizations on agentic AI and clinical trial design.In this episode of Moving Digital Health, Dr. Christianson joins MindSea CEO Reuben Hall to talk through why most pilots never find a path to P&L. They also cover the real question clinician-founders should ask before going all-in: do you love the business problem, or the clinical solution?
In this episode of Moving Digital Health, host Reuben Hall speaks with Dr. Daniel Lieberman, professor of biological sciences and former chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard. Dr. Lieberman makes the case that one of the most powerful design levers for getting people to move is social connection. He walks through why Peloton works despite being a screen in a basement, why Strava motivates one type of user and alienates another, and what his team learned building the Crimson ZIP app with us at MindSea to get Harvard students moving.
In this episode of Moving Digital Health, host Reuben Hall speaks with Asya Paloni, Chief Product Officer at Welltory, about what seven product pivots taught her team about building a health app that 16 million people actually keep using. Asya shares how each iteration brought Welltory closer to a core insight: the engagement tactics most health apps rely on are often the same things driving users away. She walks through the UX philosophy that replaced them, how Welltory's data architecture handles 1,200+ device integrations, and why her team threw out traditional dashboards in favor of animated visual metaphors.
In this episode of Moving Digital Health, host Reuben Hall sits down with Will Falk, a prominent figure in Canadian health policy, about the evolving landscape of digital health and the impact of skyrocketing AI adoption in Canadian healthcare systems.
In this episode of Moving Digital Health, host Reuben Hall sits down with Alyssa Abo, Vice President of Clinical Innovation at DeepSight Technology and Adjunct Clinical Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. Alyssa shares how her career across academia, clinical practice, and industry shapes the way she approaches being a health tech leader. Drawing from real-world pediatric care gaps and years on the clinical front lines, she explains why staying close to clinical reality leads to better problem selection, stronger technology adoption, and more meaningful impact. The conversation explores ultrasound innovation, AI-driven diagnostics, and what health tech leaders can learn from operating at the intersection of research, care delivery, and product development.
In this episode of the Moving Digital Health podcast from MindSea, Parados founder and CEO Pascal McCarthy shares how his experiences as an athlete led him to build a new kind of motion capture technology for healthcare to more frequently assess patient movement. Parados helps clinicians and athletes record and analyze movement using simple video capture, making it possible to identify gait imbalances, track recovery, and optimize performance without relying on a full motion lab. Pascal also discusses where this technology is headed next, including the potential for large-scale movement analysis to diagnose mental health issues earlier and improve long-term rehab and athletic outcomes.
Our guest today is Mike DeSimone, General Manager of Medicine at Ascend Learning. Mike shares his extensive experience in healthcare technology and education and discusses, with Reuben Hall, the importance of a diverse background in scaling health tech companies, the challenges of mergers and acquisitions, and the unique aspects of the healthcare industry.
Reuben Hall speaks with Darren Klugman, Vice President of Clinical Operations at CalmWave, about the critical issue of alarm management in ICUs. Darren shares his extensive background in pediatric cardiac intensive care and discusses the alarming noise levels in ICUs that distract healthcare providers from patient care.
In this episode Salvatore Viscomi, CEO of Carna Health, joins Reuben Hall in discussing the urgent global health crisis of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and the innovative solutions being developed to address it. Salvatore shares his journey from physician to digital health entrepreneur, highlighting the importance of prevention and early diagnosis. The conversation delves into the challenges faced in different healthcare systems, particularly in the US, and the role of AI in personalizing patient care.
Our guest this episode is Marco Smit, Vice President of Business Development at gesund.ai. Marco joined Reuben Hall to discuss the challenges and opportunities of integrating AI into healthcare. He shares insights on the importance of evidence generation, the pitfalls of pilot projects, and the need for organizations to embrace AI governance.
Our guest this episode was Brian Book, President at Book Zurman. Brian joined Reuben Hall to discuss healthcare interoperability, and how veteran-led innovation is reshaping digital health.
Our guest this episode was Farnoosh Abbas Aghababazadeh, who joined Reuben Hall to explore how machine learning and federated data approaches are shaping the future of cancer research.
Our guest this episode was Alex Mitchell, who joined Reuben Hall to discuss the role of artificial intelligence in improving mental health care. Alex shares insights on the current challenges within the mental health system, the inefficiencies of traditional intake and triage processes, and how AI-driven tools can help streamline access to care.
Our guest this episode was Jennifer Zelmer, President & CEO of Healthcare Excellence Canada. Jennifer joined Reuben Hall to discuss the integration and scaling of digital health innovations within the Canadian healthcare system.
Our guest this episode was Vanessa Roknic, Senior Commercial Innovation Executive & Digital Transformation Leader. Vanessa joined Reuben Hall to discuss the intricacies of innovation in the pharmaceutical and digital health sectors.
Our guest this episode was Arjun Puri, CEO & Cofounder of Symbiotic AI. Arjun joined Reuben Hall to discuss the importance of leveraging healthcare information to improve decision-making for both clinicians and patients in cardiology.
Our guest this episode is Arielle Smith, Vice President of Growth at Event Cadence. Arielle joined Reuben Hall to delve into her unique career journey from her initial pursuit of medical school to her shift into the digital health sector, and the evolution of Event Cadence from a startup to a pivotal player in healthcare event management.
Our guest this episode was Darren Steeves, Chief Supporter & Founder of JackHabbit. Darren joined Reuben Hall to discuss the design and implementation of strategies for health and wellness platforms, as well as the negative perception surrounding tech solutions in health.
Reuben talks with MindSea's Director of Client Experience, Alex Ferrari about how we work with and advise clients on their digital health projects.
Our guest this episode was Melissa Frew, a Senior Service Designer with Healthcare Human Factors. Melissa joined Reuben Hall to discuss how service design (and human-centered design) can have a major impact in designing and improving services in the healthcare industry.
Takeaways
- Dyania Health uses AI to automate the chart review and abstraction process for clinical trials, saving time and improving efficiency.
- Synapsis AI, Dyania Health’s AI system, analyzes electronic medical records to identify patients who may be eligible for specific clinical trials.
- The match output from Synapsis AI provides a level of compatibility between patients and trials, helping physicians make informed decisions.
- Explainability is crucial in AI, and Dyania Health’s system provides granular explainability to physicians, allowing them to understand the reasoning behind the AI’s conclusions.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Background
03:00 Automating Chart Review and Abstraction
08:09 Matching Patients with Clinical Trials
12:16 Matching Output and Explainability
13:55 Synapsis AI vs. General Language Models
17:07 Feedback and Learning Over Time
21:52 The Problem of Inefficient Clinical Trials
25:47 Success Stories and Impact
29:43 Building the Dyania Health Team
38:09 Revolutionizing Clinical Trials
Our guest this episode was Lorne Segal, Co-Founder and Director of Operations at the Bariatric Medical Institute and Co-Founder of Constant Health, who discussed with Reuben Hall the background and creation of BMI, the expansion to pediatric obesity and partnership with the Ottawa Hospital, the introduction of technology and the need for the Constant Health app, the role of dietitians in the app, the integration of AI, the expansion of Constant Health across Canada, success stories and the impact of Constant Health, and future plans for the company.
Our guest this episode was Dr. Jonathan Baktari, the CEO of eNational Testing, E7 Health, and US Drug Test Centers. He brings over 20 years of clinical, administrative, and entrepreneurial experience. He’s been a triple board certified physician, specializing in internal medicine, pulmonary, and critical care medicine.Dr Baktari joined Reuben Hall to discuss the successes, leadership, and technical challenges of creating e7 Health, eNational Testing, and the US Drug Centers.
Our guest this episode was Dr. Muhammad Mamdani, a Canadian professor, pharmacist and epidemiologist, known for contributions to pharmacoeconomics, drug safety and application of data analytics and artificial intelligence to medical systems. He is the Vice-President of Data Science and Advanced Analytics at Unity Health Toronto, and the founder and Director of the Temerty Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research and Education in Medicine (T-CAIREM). He also is the Director and founder of the Li Ka Shing Centre for Healthcare Analytics Research and Training (LKS-CHART), a healthcare data analytics program based at Unity Health Toronto.Dr Mamdani joined Reuben Hall to discuss his work in digital health, data analytics, and artificial intelligence.
Our guest this episode was Patricia Bradley, CEO of MindMaze. Patricia is an innovative commercial executive leader with over 25 years of healthcare experience. Previously, she held senior leadership positions as a vice president of sales and marketing at Nova Nordisk, where she built a successful clinical education business unit from the ground up with over 300 employees that was recognized as best in class within the industry. Currently at MindMaze, she is leading a team of 50 that are working from all over the world.Patricia joined Reuben Hall to discuss her work in digital therapeutics, neuroscience, and neuro-rehabilitation helping to improve the outcomes of patients with stroke, traumatic brain injury, Parkinson's disease, MS, and more. They also discussed the gamification of rehabilitation, using digital health products.
Our guest this episode was Bill Winkenwerder, M.D.. Dr. Winkenwerder is a nationally known health care strategist with extensive leadership experience in the US Department of Defense and the private health sector. He is Chairman at CitiusTech and Chairman and CEO of Winkenwerder Strategies, LLC, a health care advisory and investment firm. He is an expert in health care finance, health insurance operations, federal health policy, and new technologies.
Dr. Winkenwerder joined Reuben Hall to discuss his experiences and knowledge of the digital healthcare sector, and his perspectives on the future of digital healthcare.
Our guest this week was Derek Ritz, Principal Consultant of ecGroup Inc, discussing his digital health work in low and middle income countries, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific regions. This was a fantastic and eye-opening discussion highlighting how Derek's work overseas has influenced his work in the North American digital health industry, and most recently the hot topic of AI regulation in healthcare.
Our guest this week on Moving Digital Health was Carmen Branje, Director of Product Design for Maple, Canada’s leading online medical care platform, providing virtual access to reputable, Canadian-licensed healthcare providers.
Listen to this podcast episode to hear Carmen discuss with Reuben Hall, CEO of MindSea Development, the challenges of designing for critical digital health services.
Our latest guest on Moving Digital Health was Kyle Kiser, CEO of Arrive Health, discussing how his company is empowering consumers with the information they need to make informed choices about where they purchase medications — and critically — how much they have to pay.
"64% of patients were going to avoid taking their medication or take it differently than prescribed because of cost… it's a massive impact on a patient's ability to fill their meds, take their meds to be compliant with that regimen, and treat their condition." Kyle Kiser
Watch the podcast video now, or download from any of your favourite podcast players.
Mike Lovas (Director of Design & Innovation at Healthcare Human Factors, UHN) appeared on Moving Digital Health to discuss key factors driving the need for innovative cancer care solutions, including:
- The number of cancer patients confined to their homes
- Burden of individual health appointments on both patients and providers
- Understanding the patient’s trajectory and their pain points through the treatment process
Our discussion also explored remote patient monitoring and the unique asynchronous models currently being created by the Human Healthcare Factors team.
MDisrupt’s CEO and Co-Founder Ruby Gadelrab Tudor joined Moving Digital Health to discuss working relationships between digital health companies and clinicians, as well as some of the challenges that digital health startups face such as:
- Creating viable solutions to clinical pain points
- Navigating industry regulations
- Determining who in the market is the appropriate “payer” for these solutions
Our conversation includes identifying the values clinicians bring to healthcare startups, the industry’s push for clinical outcomes, and what digitalization holds for the future of healthcare.
Mohamad Kassem (International Senior Solutions Manager, Altera Digital Health) joined our latest episode of Moving Digital Health to discuss how his clinical background allows him a unique perspective on digital health innovation.
Amy West (Head of U.S. Digital Transformation and Innovation, Novo Nordisk) joins MindSea CEO Rueben Hall to discuss how digital health technology can better serve patients. Listen now to explore the benefits of a patient-centric approach to health innovation, potential barriers that may inhibit change, and more.
Dr. Adrienne Leussa
Currently the Director of Ecosystem Partnerships at 54gene, a health technology platform company, Dr. Leussa holds a PhD in biochemistry from Stellenbosch University. In addition to her roles in the business world, she has served as a university lecturer and managed an academic research laboratory.
Dr. Leussa first encountered 54gene as a client—after leaving academia for the business world. Now, she leverages her academic expertise as she manages partnerships between 54gene and higher learning institutions across the African continent.
Episode Highlights
• The importance of diverse data for precision medicine
• Historically low patient-centricity as a bottleneck in clinical research
• Why 54gene focuses on genomics data to support drug discovery efforts
• How 54gene helps motivate individuals to donate their genetic data
• Advancements in digital health that can help benefit drug development
• How more inclusive data gathering would benefit the global community as a whole
• Major accomplishments 54gene has managed in just three years
• How 54gene leverages AI and machine learning in its data analysis
• Dr. Leussa’s own podcast, Africa Biotech Conversations, and its mission
Links
https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrienne-leussa/
https://54gene.com
African Biotech Conversations podcast on Spotify
Professor of Computer Science and Professor of Medicine at Dalhousie University, Dr. Abidi serves as director of the Health Informatics graduate program and leads the university’s NICHE research group, bringing the benefits of knowledge management technologies to healthcare enterprises. Read Blog Post Here!
Episode Highlights
- The primary driver of digital health progress
- The two sides of AI, and where machine learning falls in this paradigm
- Two key problems Dr. Abidi and his team address using AI and ML for decision support
- How Explainable AI can help build physicians’ confidence in decision support tools
- How an AI decision support system can double as an educational device
- The adoption challenges inherent in black-box models
- Why more data is not necessarily better
- Why Dr. Abidi considers data collection the weak link in data quality
- Distinguishing between biases: which impact a model’s performance and which do not?
- Current NICHE team projects
- How the rise of e-therapeutics grew virtual care, and a crucial clarification of terms
- Barriers to digital health innovation, and countries/entities that are leading the way
Links
https://www.linkedin.com/in/raza-abidi-73b769111/?originalSubdomain=ca
https://niche.cs.dal.ca
https://niche.cs.dal.ca/raza_abidi/
Quotes
- “The onset of digital health was the need to collect all the patient information and then make it available at the point of care.”
- “From a mindset standpoint, we have moved from that data-intensive digital health to more knowledge-and-services-oriented digital health.”
- “I think [the target] is: how can we actually use decision support to impact the operationalization of healthcare services?”
- “The entire reason for Explainable AI is to build trust, and once we build the trust, then the uptake of that decision model will actually be high. Otherwise, it will be used on and off, and there will always be ‘can I have a second opinion?’”
- “Biases come at two different levels, which we need to understand: Is it an ethical bias, or is it a bias that would affect the performance of the model?”
- “There are two sides of research: one is fundamental research, and one is applied research. And it is the fundamental research that is supported by these collaborations, because that is where we are asking the hard questions.”
- “One cannot discount the utility and applicability of artificial intelligence in health. It comes from all sides.”
CEO and founder of My Viva Plan, Loreen has 25 years’ experience as a registered dietitian and holds degrees in nutrition and psychology. Applying her deep understanding of the interaction between physical and mental health, Loreen engages and motivates patients to take ownership of their own health journeys.
Loreen began her career at the University of Alberta Hospital, where her focus was on kidney disease. She started a private clinical practice, Revive Wellness, in 2006, and entered the digital health space in 2013. At My Viva Plan, Loreen is creating an app that will both empower patients’ self-efficacy and facilitate communications with their healthcare providers.
Scarlet Batchelor is a brand strategist and consultant in the wellness industry. After 8 years as a product manager at New Balance, she left to found the app-based fitness platform Coeo. Other prior roles include VP Brand Experience at Hydrow and CMO at Liteboxer, for which she was named a Business Insider CMO to Watch in 2021. These days Scarlett works as a consultant, lending her expertise to wellness products and brands that excite and inspire her.
Episode Highlights
- How Scarlett’s experience growing up as an athlete influenced her professional life
- The most engaging elements of startup work
- How she went from Hydrow beta tester to Vice President of Brand Experience
- Technology as a scale factor rather than a replacement for personal relationships
- Delivering experiences that leverage both the energy of in-person connections and the efficiency of remote models
- Finding the digital equivalent of a “high five”
- How to lead with listening
- Scarlet’s 3 big takeaways from starting her own company
- The entrepreneurial challenge: knowing when to be flexible and when to be steadfast
- The latest sport to capture her heart
- Current industry innovations, and upcoming developments Scarlet’s looking forward to
- Connecting with other female leaders through the Chief network, and the mission behind Scarlet’s new podcast, Brand New Women
Links
https://www.linkedin.com/in/scarlet-batchelor
https://liteboxer.com
https://hydrow.com
https://coeofitness.com
With degrees in art and mechanical engineering coupled with years of experience as a systems engineer, Juhan brings a complex understanding to his role as Creative Director of GoInvo, a healthcare user experience (UX) design firm. At GoInvo, Juhan leads a team designing services that facilitate patient engagement and work to impact health outcomes on all sides: from product design to public policy.
Episode Highlights
- Crucial challenges in integrating both patient and clinician perspectives in design
- The “profit over people” philosophy he’s observed in some systems
- How a “constant review of systems” model could help shift health intervention to be proactive rather than reactive
- Where Juhan sees the future of primary care heading
- How improved primary care benefits society as a whole
- A few of the under-researched areas of health that he sees as top priorities
- How Juhan expects the data-sharing model to evolve over time
- Use cases for a more diversified data pool
- His experience with patients’ willingness to share their data
- How design and UX can help advocate for policy change
- What Juhan thinks customers really want from digital health services
- The All of Us research program from the National Institutes of Health (current GoInvo project)
Links
https://www.linkedin.com/in/juhansonin/
https://goinvo.com
https://allofus.nih.gov
Before founding Halifax VR, and later, MARS VR Lab, Daniel spent years as a project manager in the software development and e-learning fields.
It was through his experience at Halifax VR that Daniel came to realize how far beyond entertainment VR’s applications can go. Now at MARS VR Lab, he combines his experience as a software developer with his thousands of hours of experience guiding others through VR experiences to create a pediatric rehabilitation process patients can actually enjoy.
Episode Highlights
- How Daniel became enamored with developing VR for medical purposes
- Making the most of pandemic-related delays
- Navigating the medical research trial process
- Daniel’s theory about healthcare’s notorious resistance to new tech
- Real-world benefits realized from the process of calibrating a virtual wheelchair
- How VR technology has advanced to an intuitive level of usability
- How MARS VR Lab’s program addresses specific competency criteria
- The emotional investment in the outcome when working with pediatric trainees
- Ethical challenges as a business working with a non-profit
- Instrumental partnership with the IWK Children’s Hospital
- Recommendations for someone who’s never tried VR before
- The charitable institution Mars VR Lab supports
- Exciting ideas he’s come across in his research
Links
https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-baldwin-728929175/?originalSubdomain=ca
https://marsvrlab.com
Founder and chairman of the pioneering motion recognition company Halterix, Dr. David Burns holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering and previously worked in the nuclear industry.
Working with patients in a clinical setting during his surgical training at the University of Toronto, David identified a barrier to recovery that he realized could be mitigated. The technology he developed supports patients through the critical at-home stage of their physical therapy; David founded Halterix to deliver this technology to the patients who can benefit from it.
https://youtu.be/RgmqRxw8F4w
In this episode, David details the clinical observations that prompted him to create the technology from which Halterix was born, and outlines:
- The barriers to recovery Halterix is working to address
- How Halterix products help physicians monitor and learn from patient progress
- The particular challenges of getting a new idea off the ground in a healthcare context
David also describes how he built the team at Halterix:
- The benefits of working with an external team on certain items
- Why he does not regret recruiting friends
- How and why Halterix pivoted to a business-to-business model
Contributes some thought leadership insights:
- The steps involved in taking a technology from the research phase through to implementation in a healthcare system
- Regulatory challenges around AI involvement in decision-making
- The importance of measuring patients according to their own baselines, rather than by a general benchmark
And offers a look ahead:
- The next potential application for Halterix’s technology
- Projects currently in the works
- Several exciting ideas he’s come across in his research
- Potential future applications of technology now in development
Links
https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-burns-b81055aa/?originalSubdomain=ca
https://halterix.com
A computer scientist by trade, Mahshid’s experience as a security software developer informed her co-founding of two companies specializing in healthcare: Evenset in 2015 and Tali.ai in 2019. She holds a Master’s degree in computer science and has a background in cryptography and data security.
With Tali.ai, Mahshid and her team have developed a customizable voice-enabled AI for point of care. This cutting-edge interface solves for major challenges facing physicians, freeing them to spend more time with their patients.
In this episode we’ll discuss the healthcare industry need Tali was created to serve, learn how Mahshid and her co-founder combined their expertise and compiled their team, and hear about the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) challenge that led to the founding of Tali.ai.
We’ll also explore Tali’s unique capabilities, including:
- How unstructured content complicates prompt information retrieval, and how Tali approaches that challenge
- How the COVID-19 pandemic served as a pilot opportunity for Tali
- Why Tali provides two different interfaces for all physician users
And unpack some key applications and challenges:
- Specific patient profiles that can benefit from Tali’s service
- Issues inherent to working in cutting-edge technology
- Potential use cases for technology like Tali’s
Later, Mahshid offers some key thought leadership insights:
- How she believes we can get more women interested in tech careers
- What her workdays look like as CEO compared to her prior work as a computer scientist
- Effective learning processes while transitioning from a technical role to a business ownership role
Lastly, Mahshid shares:
- Her favorite sources for inspiration and learning in the health tech industry
- What she and her team are focusing on over the next year
- What she’s most excited about for the digital health space in the near future
Links
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mahshidyassaei/?originalSubdomain=ca
https://Tali.ai
https://www.womenofinfluence.ca/2021/03/25/how-this-tech-entrepreneur-is-changing-the-healthcare-landscape/
Quotes
- “In healthcare, there's always a gap between people on the technology side and people that are deep into the healthcare system. Every side is somewhat intimidated by the other side's expertise.”
- “Even if you can save an hour, or half an hour, of physician time, that’s of great value.”
- “You see a lot of patients just Googling the question. And they're not always armed with the knowledge on how to how to validate if the resource is evidence-based or trustworthy or not.”
- “Really understanding all these use cases and building a product that fits perfectly for what they're looking for, that is the main point of focus for us. Scaling and selling, distributing, and all that comes after that, when we have the perfect solution.”
- “That's the benefit of being a practitioner growing to a business leader: you understand your business to the deepest level. That is a benefit not all business owners have.”
- “I'm very excited about the shift to a healthcare system where patients have more agency. . . . all the virtual care solutions are basically there to deliver the care to where the patient is, not where the provider is, which is our current healthcare system. I think that leads to a healthier population overall. And for that reason, it is a very exciting revolution in the healthcare system...
Over his more than 20 years as a digital strategist and 15 years in healthcare, Chris has developed a well-rounded perspective that unites marketing, technology, and the user experience. He particularly enjoys working at the intersection of technology and communication.
At RevHealth, Chris brings his unique expertise to bear toward empowering clients to effectively reach and educate physicians and patients exploring therapy options.
Chris outlines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on data usage and nonpersonal communications, describes recent breakthroughs he’s observed in digital therapeutics, and shares what elements of his current RevHealth projects have him most excited.
Moving Digital Health: Chris Cullmann of RevHealth - MindSea: App Design & Dev Agency, focusing on HealthTech
Key takeaways include specific use cases and examples:
- How a single API, with the right add-ons, can provide both non-invasive support for a patient and peace of mind for their caregivers—if the necessary data is accessible
- How data from a wearable device like the Apple Watch can create a shared language and change the parameters of a patient-physician dialogue
- Instances where data creates opportunity for intervention and helps solve for the problem of poor patient self-reporting
Challenges around patient perceptions of data sharing:
- Ethical questions around the ownership of personal health data
- Critical differences between individual data and group data
- “Data philanthropy,” and how physicians can help encourage this modern benevolence among patients
- Viable value propositions for which consumers might be motivated to trade their data
The critical role of storytelling in patient communications:
- Creating a narrative that meets the user in their journey
- Mediums and techniques Chris sees working best for patient communications
- How privacy restrictions have impacted marketers’ ability to reach patient populations
Chris also shares some future-facing insights, such as:
- Usage possibilities and the vast potential value of high-volume data
- Data integrity and ownership questions that must be resolved
- Why he believes data inoperability will be the next major challenge for the U.S. healthcare market, and what he thinks might be necessary to address it
Links
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cullmann/
https://www.revhealth.com
Quotes
- “What's really interesting about the healthcare market is we have an audience, the prescriber, who's not our end user—the patient is the one we're addressing with therapies—but the decision maker, and one that in some cases rate limits what our actual end user, the patient, is seeing. Because they're making the recommendations against their professional experience and the craft and training.”
- “There's still a lot of opportunity for us to intelligently listen, in a respectful way for privacy, to help lend a narrative that's going to have a more meaningful user experience, and one that's going to really help participate in putting the right materials in front of someone who's in a position to make a decision about either their own therapy or a therapy for their patients.
- “We need to discuss culturally and figure out how comfortable we are and what are going to be the guidelines. I don't mean necessarily federal guidelines, although they are important, but what are the cultural agreements we're going to have about anonymized data, and, in particular, being able to help other people who exist inside of the same patient population that we do, and being able to provide something that is really giving back to the community in the true sense of the word.”
- “If you're a patient suffering from a disease, that's content that is really not only valuable, but that you find personally compelling. And you’re going to be drawn to those people like you who are going through the same kind of experiences.”
- “When we talk about people's perception of data and privacy, I think one of the stumbling blocks is people don't have context to their data . . . they don't know what they're exchanging because they don't know where they fit.”
- “There's going to be a value adjustment against that data model. People are going to start to realize they're giving up a lot in exchange for a little. And there's either going to be a rise of privacy and paying for services, or there are going to be a lot more protection mechanics…put in place in order to allow people to have a clear delineation into what they're putting forth versus what they're getting in exchange for their data.”
- “[Storytelling] has got to be specific to the product. And it's got to be specific to where the product is in the marketplace too. Not every brand’s a hero. Sometimes, being able to have information in front of the patient that's really matter-of-fact is everything that patient needs.”
A self-described geek, Alexis is partial to technological applications designed to make life easier or provide healthier choices for the public—an appreciation which may have informed his transition from the nonprofit sector to the pharmaceutical market.
At FCB, Alexis leverages his expertise gleaned from 10 years working with emerging technologies to create deeply engaging user experiences that educate his clients’ patients.
The Moving Digital Health Podcast, Episode 1: Alexis Moses of FCB Health - (mindsea.com)
Episode Highlights:
- Employ conversational design to create guided user experiences that feel natural
- Meet diverse user needs by designing flexibility into conversational UI
- Leverage WebGL in a digital health context
The critical role interactivity plays in patient education, as well as:
- The benefits of a collaborative templating process
- The value of a close connection between engineering teams and patients
- Why Alexis’ team begins prototypes as early as the brainstorming stage
Industry insights responding to the current moment, including:
- Common adoption barriers specific to healthcare organizations
- Engineering effective experiences while remembering that pandemic measures are temporary
- Why brands should contribute to society outside their primary product, and how to go about it (Alexis proposes a possible model)
Looking ahead, Alexis offers his favorite resources for keeping up with emerging tech, and shares:
- Several emerging technologies he expects to prove highly effective
- His top picks from the 2021 Propelify Innovation Festival
- How he finds joy in his work despite the more sobering aspects of the field
Links
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexis-moses-a1256321/
https://www.fcbhealthny.com
Quotes
- “I think that’s what’s so beautiful about the technology: it’s just another avenue. It’s not made to replace a website; it’s not made to replace human agents, either. It’s just another option.”
- “It’s about designing a flow that can really meet everyone’s needs in order for them to find the solutions that they were initially looking for.”
- “The bigger the canvas, the bigger the picture, and I think WebGL is the natural extension of these web experiences.”
- “An old technology might be obsolete in its functionality, but it’s not necessarily obsolete in its cultural relevance.”
- “Don’t shy away from something that seems like it’s obsolete. The opportunity is there to evolve that.”
- “To see that the health market is getting these new imaginative and innovative technologies and really exploring—it’s an exciting time.”
- “In order for something to eventually come true, we have to play in that space.”