Season 3: Episode 2 Meet your digital health twin of the future

Is it too much to expect health care to deliver delightful experiences? Dr. Koen Kas doesn’t think so, and his vision includes digital twins, personal data stores and preventive medicine. He is a health care visionary, digital health and biomarker expert, health-tech entrepreneur, Professor of Molecular Oncology and Digital Health at the University of Ghent, international keynote speaker and author of Sick No More and Your Guide to Delight.

Host Alex Maiersperger and Kas talk about the concept of delight thinking, an approach that requires stakeholders to think outside the box – creating new health care delivery models, never imagined. Delight thinking has the patient at its core, rewarding health care systems for keeping patients healthy. Kas also speaks about the role of a digital twin for the future of health care. The twin is a full representation of the holistic health of a human, combining all health data from different sources into an avatar. Testing preventive or clinical measures on the avatar will enable a visualization of health outcomes, before implementing them on the human. Finally, he emphasizes the key to prevention and personalized medicine is data integration and encourages health care systems to reward providers and citizens for preventing, predicting and reversing diseases.

Season 3: Episode 1 The (Not So) Secret to Making Cancer Care more Equitable and Effective

Dr. Sean Khozin is on a mission to break down silos and improve access to quality cancer care for all. Khozin is a board-certified oncologist, physician scientist, data scientist and the CEO of ASCO’s CancerLinQ®, a non-profit health technology company focused on improving health outcomes for all patients with cancer. On this episode of The Health Pulse, Khozin joins host Alex Maiersperger to talk about how his organization is democratizing access to the best cancer care by bringing real-world evidence (RWE)-based decision support tools to the point of care. As Khozin explains, only about 5 percent of cancer patients have access to clinical trials. This means oncology clinical trial data often lacks external validity because it represents highly selective patient populations. CancerLinQ® is helping to close the gap using real-world data (RWD) to develop algorithmic support tools to inform personalized, multi-modal patient care in near real time. From deriving insights from complex data to tackling treatment artifacts that we need to unlearn, Khozin shares his vision for improving precision and why data convergence at the point of care leaves him optimistic about a major inflection point for cancer treatment in the next 10 years

Season 2: Episode 6 Improving Maternal Health through AI and Biomedical Science

In this episode, Greg speaks with Professor Patricia Maguire, Biomedical Scientist and Director of University College Dublin’s Institute for Discovery. Maguire’s research focuses on platelets, an interest that began 25 years ago when her father suffered his first heart attack and she recognized the need for better diagnostics in the clinic.

Maguire explains that platelets are a ready source of biomarkers. In one project, her team works closely with three large maternity hospitals in Dublin, Ireland, on a study that has found new diagnostic markers for preeclampsia. Their goal on the project is to bring diagnostic data from blood platelets together with all other available data on a mother during pregnancy and apply Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to extract insights. Those insights can be delivered to a clinician to inform critical care decisions, such as when a baby should be born. Maguire says the ultimate dream of the team is to partner with government and industry to bring the preeclampsia diagnostic to every woman who needs it, saving lives. She also shares her thoughts on the importance of democratizing AI and analytics to improve knowledge sharing and collaboration from academia into the real world.

Season 2: Episode 5 Creating a Healthier World with Ethical AI

Greg catches up with colleague Reggie Townsend, Director of the Data Ethics Practice at SAS. Recognizing the increasing need for data ethics, SAS formed the practice to create principles and processes for governing artificial intelligence (AI). It applies a human-centric approach to uphold principles like transparency, accountability and inclusivity in data science.

Townsend challenges his team to consider the impact of technology on the most vulnerable populations. Understanding bias is imperative in AI ethics. For example, Black neighborhoods in the US, like the one where Townsend grew up in Chicago, are more likely to be food deserts. The people in those communities lack access to healthy food and have poorer health outcomes. When evaluating health data, it’s critical to understand facts and historical context to deliver effective decisions and solutions free of bias. Townsend is hopeful that the ethical development of AI-related technology can lead to brighter futures for all.

Season 2: Episode 4 Healthier Living Through Epigenetics Analysis

On this episode, Greg is joined by Dr. Melissa Strong, founder and lead data scientist for IndiOmics. Her background is in molecular biology and epigenetics, or how our environment can affect our gene expression. IndiOmics’ mission is to educate the public about common chemicals that can affect us on a cellular level and what we can do to prevent exposure. Much of its work focuses on endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs).

By completing IndiOmics’ home-based kit, participants get a personalized look at their exposure, it’s effects on a molecular level and simple steps to prevent additional exposure. Strong explains that our gene expression is not set in stone, and our environment and behaviors play a significant role in determining our health. Particularly with EDCs, science has demonstrated the toxicity of even very low levels of chemical exposure. Looking to the future, Strong is encouraged by younger generations’ awareness and believes consumer demands will create action from manufacturers and regulators to reduce harmful chemicals in consumer products.

Season 2: Episode 3 Fighting Cancer with Social Determinants of Health Data

On this episode, Greg Horne talks with Dr. Robert Winn, Director at VCU Massey Cancer Center. Dr. Winn focuses on two goals – eradicating cancer and the disparities in access to quality health care. He believes that people who have access to quality treatment receive it –, it’s that simple –, with trust and affordability playing a critical role.

As Winn explains, to earn people’s trust in science, the scientific and medical community must be trustworthy. That’s why Massey Cancer Center is working on a trustworthiness scale to measure how they are doing with their patients.

Dr. Winn also shares his perspective on the role of health data convergence in improving health outcomes and the importance of using data from the community to improve scientific questions and address social determinants of health. Finally, he leaves us with his sentiments on the power and limitations of science in fighting cancer, the importance of robust palliative care and his vision for the cancer center of the future.

Season 2: Episode 2 The Next Evolution of Decentralized Clinical Trials

On this episode, Greg Horne interviews Craig Lipset, advisor, advocate and educator for decentralized clinical trials and former Head of Clinical Innovation at Pfizer.

At Pfizer, Lipset helped design and lead the first fully remote, decentralized trial more than a decade ago. He explains that methods, investment and regulatory readiness around decentralized clinical trials have long existed in the industry. The pandemic-related disruptions of early 2020 drove meaningful adoption.

Lipset and Greg discuss the potential for decentralized trials to improve patient-centricity by making participation more convenient and inclusive. Lipset also outlines the support needed to achieve this. Finally, he leaves us with his perspective on the role of decentralized trials in helping health care deliver clinical research as a care option..

Season 2: Episode 1 Microsoft’s Dr. David Rhew on the Role of Data and Analytics in Improving Health Equity and Health Outcomes

On this episode, host Greg Horne interviews David Rhew, MD, Global Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Healthcare for Microsoft, on the role of technology in health care. Rhew observed early in his career that evidence-based practices often lead to better health outcomes, but they aren’t adhered to consistently. From there he set out on a digital transformation journey that quickly brought him into health tech and eventually Microsoft. Rhew and Greg discuss the role of technology in delivering the right information at the right time to improve patient experience, health outcomes and health equity. According to Rhew, the next horizon in health care will be around making data more interoperable so that the industry can more effectively and consistently drive actionable insights that improve care. Finally, Rhew leaves us with his parting thoughts on technology’s capacity to improve health equity and access.

Season1: Episode 16 Stacking the Impact of Clinical Research to Address Unmet Needs in Health Care

Jennifer Byrne is CEO of contract research organization Javara Research and helps patient populations through clinical research. On this episode, Byrne shares how learning health systems can improve health care through research with Greg. Javara has many traditional advantages a CRO brings to pharma and health care systems through an integrated research organization.

The organization’s strategy and partnerships center on bringing clinical research opportunities to health care systems. This research helps meet patient needs while partnering with pharma to address data and scientific needs of clinical trials. This approach, combined with technology and analytics, results in more patient-centric clinical trials that create healthier outcomes for everyone.

Season1: Episode 15 Modern Consumers Want to Know: How the Pharmaceutical Industry Is Influencing Supply Chain Traceability

On this episode, Greg is joined by Grainne Lynch, Senior Manager and Traceability Lead for Accenture.

Lynch helps pharmaceutical companies be compliant with supply chain legislation. She explains to Greg that the pharmaceutical industry is at the forefront of a consumer-led trend, demanding end-to-end tracking and tracing of products throughout the supply chain. More than ever, consumers want a product’s entire history: Where it came from, how materials were sourced, where and when it was manufactured, and the process by which it was approved. Consumers expect companies to make good decisions throughout the supply chain. This trend toward greater tracking and tracing is seen in many industries and, as Lynch explains, life sciences is a natural leader because the industry already has GxP requirements in place.

Lynch then leaves us with her thoughts on the importance of pharmaceutical traceability to the future growth of the industry.

Season1: Episode 14 Follow the Money to Predict the Future of Health Care

Jessica DaMassa is the Executive Producer and Host of video series, What’s the Future, Health?, where she interviews key stakeholders in health tech to uncover unique perspectives on where the industry is headed. On this episode of The Health Pulse, Jessica briefly switches from her usual role as interviewer to guest to share her observations on the trends to watch in health care. The health tech space has seen an unprecedented influx of funding since the early months of the pandemic in 2020. So, where is all this new funding going? Jessica identified three key focus areas – mental health; technology that helps navigate patients into and through the health care system (also know as digital front doors); and AI implementation specifically in the areas of clinical trials and automation of health care administration. On this episode Jessica also shares observations on shifts in the delivery of health care and her best advice for health tech start ups.

Season1: Episode 13 Removing Logistical Barriers to Health Care With Uber Health

Caitlin Donovan is the Global Head of Uber Health. She’s responsible for figuring out how to fix logistical issues in health care. Coming from a variety of health care executive roles before joining Uber Health, she observed that too often, what goes wrong in health care isn’t clinical – it’s what happens when patients aren’t in front of their provider. Maybe they don’t have transportation to an appointment. Maybe their prescription didn’t arrive or they don’t have access to the food they need.

At Uber Health, Donovan focuses on connecting the dots through data and predictive analytics to solve these challenges. Greg and Donovan discuss the role of platforms like Uber Health in addressing social determinants and improving population health. Finally, Donovan shares her thoughts on the biggest health care challenges Uber Health will tackle next.

Season1: Episode 12 From basketball to mental health data, Dr. Dawnté Early drives a community-centric approach

Dr. Dawnté Early (she/her) is the Chief of Research and Evaluation for the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission in California. She supports the commission’s mission to transform the mental health system so everyone who needs care in California receives high-quality and culturally competent care. She brings together mental health data at the individual level with data from different agencies, including criminal justice, education, quarterly wage, and death and birth data, to identify social determinants of health and uncover disparities.

Greg asks about overcoming stigma in mental health. Early emphasizes the importance of normalizing conversations and contextualizing mental health needs while humanizing language around mental health. The commission helps ensure that these conversations take place and the community is engaged throughout the process.

Lastly, Early shares her vision for the commission’s role in connecting data to policy, policy to community and community to outcomes for more early intervention and prevention in mental health. These outcomes help individuals, families and communities.

Season1: Episode 11 A Pharma CIO’s Prescription for Building a Data-Driven Culture

On this episode, Greg is joined by Herman De Prins, Global CIO of biopharma company UCB. De Prins describes UCB’s journey into AI, beginning with projects for epilepsy treatment. He shares how UCB promoted data literacy and AI among its global staff of more than 8,000 people. He also describes how the company prioritizes projects brought forward by its team of AI enthusiasts.

De Prins emphasizes that there is value in AI across the pharmaceutical field, particularly in R&D and commercial. Last year UCB used AI to research potential treatments for COVID-19 and reduced the time typically required for that research from six months to three days.

Greg and De Prins conclude by discussing the future of AI and De Prins’ thoughts on the potential opportunities and pitfalls in a world where AI will increasingly be embedded in all technology products.

Season1: Episode 10 Rethinking public health: A new approach fueled by data

On this episode, Greg talks with Dana Bernson, epidemiologist and Director of Special Analytic Projects at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, about her work with data and analytics to guide public health planning and crisis response. She shares insight from the department’s initial effort to link data sources across state government to get more contextual information to address the opioid epidemic.

Not surprisingly, one data set often reveals a piece of the puzzle, but linking multiple data sources tells a bigger story. Data linkage is critical to understanding social determinants of health, which inform effective policy and intervention. This is also true of the COVID-19 pandemic, where Bernson’s team explores the impact of the pandemic on underserved populations.

Finally, Bernson shares an update on what has become known as the Public Health Data Warehouse project: A research tool that enables analysis of public health priorities and trends, including substance abuse and maternal and child health. She hopes following the coronavirus crisis, public health will receive more consistent and sustainable funding for projects like hers supporting a more complete and proactive approach to health.

Season1: Episode 9 In life sciences, change is hard but worthwhile for digital transformation.

On this episode, Greg chats with Jonathan Riches, SAS’ Director of Sales for Life Sciences in Europe, Middle East and Africa, about digital transformation in pharmaceuticals. Riches argues that while buzzword technology like artificial intelligence and machine learning garner attention, culture determines an organization’s digital transformation success. Why? The life sciences industry is highly regulated by necessity, and many pharmaceutical companies have existed for a century or more. So, while change is challenging for any organization, it is especially challenging for pharma.

According to Riches, life sciences organizations must back up their analytics evolution with ample training, empowerment around individual growth, and C-level commitment to data-driven decision making. For more than 20 years, pharma has used analytics and statistics to prove the efficacy and safety of drugs to obtain regulatory approval. We now recognize that analytics can glean much deeper insights. This evolution requires significant change management. Riches advises pharmaceutical companies to design data and analytics platforms for their business challenges.

Season1: Episode 8 What can public and private sector health care learn from military medicine?

On this episode, retired US Army Maj. Gen. Elder Granger, MD, joins Greg to discuss how lessons learned from military health agencies inspire new innovations in public and private health care. For example, how can the private sector adapt the military's proactive screening and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to help employees or patients struggling with trauma related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the opioid crisis or other events.

Granger emphasizes removing mental health stigma and improving access to mental health services. Data and enabling technology like AI will be pivotal in the next big health care innovations. These technologies will help create a future where Granger predicts we’ll be able to address social determinants of health head-on to improve health and health care for all

Season1: Episode 7 Is ‘The customer is always right’ the key to commercial breakthroughs in pharma?

Greg chats with SAS customer intelligence (CI) guru Mike Turner about the use of CI in life sciences. While pharma’s customers may look a bit different, it turns out life sciences has a lot to learn about customer engagement from industries like retail, consumer packaged goods and hospitality. Mike and Greg talk about the road ahead for life sciences companies as they shift their sales and marketing programs toward a more strategic approach to customer insights and engagement. Finally, Mike shares his predictions for the future of CI in pharma.

Season1: Episode 6 Exploring the evolution and future of clinical trial data sharing

Greg sits down with data sharing and disclosure expert Andrew Freeman to discuss his experience at the forefront of the industry initiative to make patient-level data from clinical trials available for research. Andrew shares his views on the availability of results from clinical trials and why it’s important for that data to be available for third-party research. They’ll explore successes of the clinical data transparency movement to date and the challenges and opportunities ahead..

Season1: Episode 5 The race for return on investment in commercial pharma

Greg and guest Patrick Homer, SAS commercial pharma industry consultant, discuss the role of analytics in commercialization of pharmaceutical products. From predictive modeling techniques to identify the best prescribers for sales to target, to engagement analytics to improve the quality of online marketing efforts, there are a wealth of opportunities to employ analytics to drive value during the commercial phase. Patrick and Greg will chat about several examples from Patrick’s work, including how analytics helped a major global pharma company transform its COVID-19 webinar campaign into a big success using insights from engagement analytics.

Season1: Episode 4 A healthy dose of vaccine reality

Host Greg Horne and SAS Medical Director Steve Kearney, PharmD, discuss access, attitudes and equity in the global race to administer COVID-19 vaccines. They’ll examine what the early data is telling us about who is getting vaccines. They’ll also look at whether there are disparities in some communities and, if so, what’s driving those disparities. Are all policy and procedural decisions around vaccination data-driven? We wish, but as with any effort this massive, there are gaps in the data. Steve and Greg will discuss where they are and how they influence who gets vaccinated first.

Season1: Episode 3 AI and Bias in Health Care

Data scientist Hiwot Tesfaye joins Greg Horne for a conversation about the use of algorithms in health care and how models can introduce bias. They’ll discuss current examples of health care bias, who should be held responsible and how we can do better as an industry in the future.

Season1: Episode 2 The Role of Telemedicine in Advancing Whole Person Care

Behavioral care expert and psychologist Josh Morgan, PsyD chats with Greg Horne about the role of virtual care in delivery of more equitable and patient-centric health care. They’ll explore the potential for telemedicine to help break down barriers, maximize resources, advance holistic outcomes and empower patients.

Season1: Episode 1 Welcome to The Health Pulse Podcast

In this first episode, industry experts Mark Lambrecht, PhD and host Greg Horne will dive into some of the most interesting and challenging issues facing the health care and life sciences industries today. They’ll explore the role of data and analytics in driving patient-centricity and innovation in the delivery of health care worldwide.