Over time, it becomes evident that the decisions made in boardrooms carry their greatest weight in those very moments. It would take years to understand it fully, but these moments were not isolated. They were the foundation for something I would later try to give voice to.

The Day the Ordinary Disappeared

In January 1975, I was traveling through Paris on my way to the United States. What should have been a routine journey became something else entirely. Terrorists fired two RPG shells at our plane. They missed us but struck a Yugoslav Airlines JAT aircraft on the tarmac nearby.

The randomness of it all was almost impossible to process. One moment, you are a traveler moving through the world, the next, you are told to hug the floor of the aircraft, confronted with how easily that world can be altered or taken away. I did not have the language for it then; however, I carried the feeling forward. Life is not guaranteed. It is a gift given to us to deploy.

In 1978, I was leading the first Think Tank Peace Mission to Egypt and Israel. There were no direct flights between the two countries. From Cairo, we flew to Cyprus, then to Tel Aviv.

An Air Cyprus flight had landed just before ours. It was overtaken by terrorists. An Egyptian Entebbe-like rescue was attempted. It failed. When we landed hours later, the aftermath was still there — the remains of the Egyptian military C-130 sat on the tarmac, destroyed and covered. It reinforces the adage, “that timing is everything.”

You do not process it fully in the moment. You carry it. An appreciation for what lies beyond our control. A respect for those who act with purpose, regardless of outcome. An understanding that we plan for the future, yet we live in the moment.

Years later, during my military service as a paratrooper and combat medic, that lesson was no longer abstract. It was immediate, urgent and often unfolding before me. I served six frontline combat tours in Lebanon, in places where the noise of conflict was constant and the margin between survival and loss was measured in inches.

I tended to friends and foes under fire. In those moments, there was no room for theory. Care was not a matter of courage or a concept; it was an instinctive action. Communication was not a strategy; it was survival. A word, a look, a clear instruction could steady someone, guide them and save them.

Where Care Is Action, Not Theory

War has a way of stripping away everything except what matters most. You see clearly how dependent we are on one another. You understand that courage is not the absence of fear; it is the determination to act despite it. You learn that presence, simply being there for another person in their most vulnerable moment, is one of the most powerful forms of care.

I thought I understood risk. I thought I had come to terms with uncertainty. Then life reminded me again.

On a flight to visit my parents in the United States, the Tower Air jet I was on caught fire over the Atlantic. Two engines on the left side were burning. We needed to find a place to land quickly or hit the ocean. There is a particular kind of silence that fills a plane in that moment. It is not panic. It is something deeper, more introspective. You feel time stretch. You think about the people you love. You consider what has mattered and what has not.

As we made our emergency landing in Gander, Canada, I remember not relief first, but reflection. Once again, life had placed me in a moment where its fragility was undeniable.

These experiences did not turn me away from the world. They pulled me closer to it. They shaped how I see people, how I listen and how I respond. They taught me that every interaction carries weight, that every conversation can matter more than we realize.

In recent years, I have traveled to Ukraine annually before and during COVID and now during the war, supporting friends and spending time in a small community facing circumstances most of us can only imagine from afar. There, I saw the same truths I had encountered earlier in life. Community becomes everything. Information becomes lifeblood. People look to one another not only for physical support, but for clarity, reassurance and meaning. Even in the darkest conditions, communication is not secondary to care. It is part of care.

Most in the business world know me through my work at FINN Partners as a health communicator, through my writing, speaking and advocacy as a champion of health innovation and a more human-centered health system. They see my professional journey. What they do not always see is the foundation beneath it. Decades of lived experience that have reinforced, time and again, that life is precious, that it can change in an instant and that how we show up for one another in those moments defines us.

At FINN Partners, I have found a community of colleagues who reflect these same values. There is an understanding that our work carries responsibility, and that we are capable of more when we challenge ourselves to rise to it. It is a culture that encourages each of us to think beyond the immediate and contribute to something more enduring.

That understanding became even more personal through my family. My wife and I have walked alongside our child as she navigates the complexities of a rare disease. There are highs and there are lows. There are moments of hope and moments of uncertainty. In those experiences, I have seen health care from another vantage point, not as a cohesive system, but as a series of human interactions that can either comfort or compound the challenge.

When you are a parent in those moments, you listen differently. You look for clarity in every word. You hold on to empathy when it is offered and you feel its absence when it is not. You come to appreciate that communication in health is not an accessory. It is essential. It shapes understanding, trust and the ability to move forward.

The Human Thread Through Every Moment

All of these experiences converge into a single, enduring belief. Communication is not separate from care. It is how care travels along its continuum. There are moments when that truth reveals itself outside the settings we expect.

On a transatlantic flight in 2001, turbulence turned severe. At one point, a call came over the intercom: “Are there any doctors aboard?” No one responded. Minutes later, the request broadened to “any health professionals.”

My wife looked at me and quietly suggested I press the call button.

I was escorted to a passenger, pale and wrapped in a blanket. He had lost and regained consciousness. I introduced myself warmly and began with simple questions to assess his awareness. His name. The President of the United States. The day we had taken off. He answered each one without hesitation. His vitals were stable.

I explained that I was not a physician, but a former military EMT. Given the turbulence and the length of the flight, dehydration and stress were likely contributors. I reassured him and suggested that he follow up with his physician upon landing and, if he needed me, not to hesitate to hit his call button.

As I returned to my seat, a man two rows behind called out, “I’m a neurologist. I would have handled that exactly as you did.”

It was meant as an affirmation. I received it that way. Yet it lingers differently. In that moment, the instinct to act had been replaced by the comfort of waiting. The systems we build, even when grounded in expertise, can condition us to hesitate when action is needed most.

In moments like these, care is not a title or a credential. It is the willingness to engage, communicate, and act.

Across the health ecosystem and in responsible business settings, success is often measured by growth, scale and financial performance. These are necessary markers of progress. They enable innovation, access and reach. However, there is a deeper measure that often goes unspoken. When we understand our role within the continuum of care and recognize the connection between balance-sheet decisions made in boardrooms and people’s experiences felt at the bedside, our work takes on greater meaning. It moves beyond what can be counted to what ultimately counts.

Over time, I came to understand that moments are not separate. They are connected. Each one revealing, in its own way, what happens when people are seen, heard and cared for, and what happens when they are not.

That understanding became Healing the Sick Care System: Why People Matter.

A life of observing, listening, engaging and caring was the kindling. The moments themselves were the spark. Together, they revealed a simple truth: when we lose sight of people, the system falters. When we honor them, it begins to heal.

That truth asks something of us.

It is not simply about words. It is about presence. It is about accountability. It is about the choice to act when action is needed. This is how humanity shows up in systems, and how those systems, in turn, earn the trust of the people they are meant to serve.

The post The Moments That Shape Us: Why Life and People Matter Most appeared first on Medika Life.

Real-world evidence (RWE) captures health data from outside controlled clinical trials, such as wearable devices, patient forums, electronic health records, and symptom tracking apps. It reflects the daily realities of individuals managing chronic conditions, navigating medications, and seeking answers when the system fails to provide clarity.

As Yael Elish, one of the founders of the mega crowdsourcing transportation platform WAZE and now CEO and Founder of the patient RWE platform StuffThatWorks, has said, “Patients will never have a seat at the table until their data is considered part of the navigational guide for new medicines, devices, and indications of use.”

She’s right, but perhaps we must push ourselves to a new level of acknowledging why we are pursuing new approaches to care. This is not just about offering patients a seat at the allegorical table. It’s about acknowledging that the table of discovery and development exists for their benefit. The science, systems, and research all exist to serve their needs. Their voices and their lived experiences must inform the path forward.

A Silent Majority Speaks: The Data We Ignore

A recent survey conducted by StuffThatWorks, which gathered insights from more than 15,000 patients across 145 medical conditions, revealed a staggering disconnect. 92% of patients expressed a willingness to participate in clinical trials. Yet, 84% said they had never been asked, never invited to the table of health innovation.

This isn’t a communications oversight—it’s a justice issue. The system is failing those it claims to serve. Patients are ready to contribute. Some are out of options and want concrete action steps. They are waiting to be seen, heard, and engaged. Their personal care and experiential data they offer doesn’t just enrich our understanding—it recalibrates it.

“The Pharma Industry’s efforts to include patient voices have been a step in the right direction; however, they remain on a very small scale today,” notes Caroline Redeker, chief strategy officer at Advanced Clinical, a leading clinical research organization. “Interacting with a minimal number of patients without scale does not accurately represent the full patient population with the condition.  Using available static data (claims, EMR) detached from the patient covers the ‘what’ of patients – how many, where, with claims or treatments of a condition, and mostly in the US.”  

Redeker adds: “The more important factors in trial design include the ‘why,’ including most bothersome symptoms, effectiveness of treatments, regional differences, comorbidity considerations, and other valuable information to accurately design the right trial.  The ‘why’ information can only come directly from the patients.  The future will bring patients and their organized data to the table and include patient insights from all over the globe.”

Real-World Realities: Lessons from Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

Consider Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a connective tissue disorder with 13 recognized subtypes, ranging from the more common hypermobile form to the rare, life-threatening vascular subtype. Each type carries a distinct constellation of symptoms and risks. Some people face chronic dislocations and mobility challenges, while others live with the daily fear of spontaneous organ rupture.

A single disease name masks and encompasses a spectrum of experiences. Standard clinical trial models often can’t keep up with that complexity. But thousands of patients with EDS are documenting their treatment responses, flares, and management strategies across RWE platforms such as StuffThatWorks—building a picture of this disease that’s as varied, inclusive and individualized as the people living with it.

“The StuffThatWorks survey expands the usual definition of real-world data to include this novel direct patient-inputted database,” says George Sands, MD, FAAN, FAHA, FACC, a former senior director at Pfizer and noted advocate for collaborating with patient communities  “Patients and patient advocacy groups want to partner with sponsors, whether pharma or academia, and to be fully represented in research endeavors. This is very different from sponsors looking to recruit and retain research participants more fully. This is about collaborating.” 

Dr. Sands adds, “Additionally, it is important to have all different patient populations, including people of color, so their data is included in the trials and can be used for clinical care. Otherwise, clinicians have to extrapolate based on those included in the trials; it doesn’t always work exactly.” 

That kind of data, born of day-to-day life, isn’t just complementary to clinical trials. It completes a fuller picture essential for developing effective treatments. Without it, we risk designing therapies that help in theory but fail in practice.

From Inside-Out to Outside-In

Much of medicine’s traditional approach to research is inside-out, starting with what companies aim to prove and working outward through the trial process. That’s not inherently wrong—it is how rigorous science is structured—but that is not enough.

We must also embrace outside-in realities as part of the innovation journey, where patients’ lived experiences inform what we explore, how we measure success, and who we prioritize.

Craig Lipset, founder of Clinical Innovation Partners, and co-chair of the unifying NGO/research industry Decentralized Trials & Research Alliance, and former Head of Clinical Innovation at Pfizer, has long championed a rebalancing of power in clinical trials.

“To earn and maintain trust, research participation must become a symbiotic relationship powered by a bidirectional flow of data and learnings, says Lipset. As patients share insight into study design, bring real-world data into trials, and share experience that shapes new endpoints, sponsors must commit to ensuring that study data and results are flowing back.”

That vision is becoming increasingly possible. With technologies that enable decentralized trials, remote monitoring, and electronic patient-reported outcomes, we can now collect real-world data at scale. However, that only matters if we respect what the data tells us and are willing to let patient experiences guide the research agenda. We give lip service to the importance of patient voice in biopharma research and marketing, but do we see them as “customers” of innovation?

The Science of Listening

Real-world evidence is the patient’s language—a narrative built not in labs but in lived experience. It’s not peripheral to science—it is science when equity is the goal. When patients share their stories, whether on online platforms, through wearables, or in digital symptom trackers, they are offering far more than an anecdote. They are offering insight. They contribute to the science of what works, for whom, and under what conditions.

And when we listen, we don’t just become better researchers. We become better healers.

We stand at a pivotal moment. Innovation can either deepen the divide between patients and science or bridge it. Real-world evidence is the support structure for that bridge. It offers us the opportunity to democratize discovery and reimagine research collectively.

Reflects StuffThatWorks Elish, “The current methods of involving patients in the clinical and health spaces are doomed to failure.  Patients’ voice will be heard ONLY when turned into organized data, at scale.  Because no one can argue or ignore organized data at scale. Once that’s accomplished, the integration of patient voice will proliferate and become easily accessible to everyone in multiple forms, including a simple AI-based chat question.  We are doing that at StuffThatWorks; it’s core to our mission and vision.” 

Ultimately, the patient wants to be invited to the table—but not as a token guest. Without them, there is no table worth setting. The patient is not a peripheral player in this system—they are the system’s purpose. They are not guests in the system. They may not be the core customer of the health system, a universe that centers around its economic viability. Still, in the world of health system kinetics, where we examine the relationship and priority of the sector pieces, they are the reason we unite to invent solutions to confront disease, despair and death.  And the future of medicine depends on how well we recognize that truth.

The future of medicine hinges on one choice—do we continue treating patients as passive subjects, or as co-creators of the care that might save their lives? That’s not philosophy. That’s leadership.

Interested in this topic – here is more to explore:

Aman Gupta: Patient Inclusivity: The Missing Piece In Pharma’s Global Innovation Strategy

The Need for High Quality, Reliable Information that is Data-Driven – A Conversation with Yael Elish

Gil Bashe: Real-World Evidence Unlocks Consumer Voice to Improve Care

The post How Real-World Evidence Proves the Power of Patient Engagement appeared first on Medika Life.

I stepped outside, tea still warming my throat, and began walking past the hedge that always rustles without wind, past the tree that leans like it’s listening.

I do this twice a day, sometimes more.

Not because I’m chasing steps or closing rings, but because walking calms the static inside me.

It’s a quiet ritual stitched into my hours.

And lately, I’ve learned it may be doing more than soothing my mind — it might be rewriting the rhythm of my heart.

Heart Arrhythmias

Your heart beats in a steady, coordinated rhythm — about 60–100 times per minute at rest — thanks to an internal electrical system that keeps everything in sync.

What is the heart’s natural pacemaker?

www.medicalnewstoday.com

In an arrhythmia, the electrical system misfires, and the heart can:

• Beat too quickly (tachycardia)
• Beat too slowly (bradycardia)
• Beat irregularly (like a flutter or with pauses)

Common types

Here are the most common types of arrhythmia:

• Atrial fibrillation (AFib) is the most common type, where the upper heart chambers (atria) quiver instead of beating properly.
• Ventricular tachycardia is a dangerously fast rhythm from the lower chambers.
• Premature beats are usually harmless and feel like a skipped beat or a flutter.
• Heart block is a condition in which electrical signals are delayed or blocked.

Why It Matters

Some arrhythmias are harmless and cause no symptoms.

Others can lead to stroke, heart failure, or sudden cardiac arrest.

Symptoms may include:

• Palpitations (fluttering or pounding)
• Dizziness or fainting
• Shortness of breath
• Chest discomfort

Fortunately, a healthy lifestyle can reduce our risk, including a heart-healthy diet, physical activity, maintaining a healthy weight, not smoking, and managing stress.

A New Study

A new study led by researchers at the University of Glasgow (United Kingdom) reports this:

Walking briskly (more than 4 miles per hour) can reduce the risk of heart rhythm abnormalities or atrial fibrillation by as much as 43%.

The study, published in Heart, suggests that brisk walking could be a safe and effective way to reduce heart rhythm abnormalities, particularly in those at higher risk of developing them.

Study Details

Researchers analyzed data from the UK Biobank, focusing on 420,925 adults with an average age of 56 years.

Among them, 80,773 participants wore accelerometers (such as smartwatches) to track their walking time and speed.

Walking pace was self-reported and grouped into three categories:

• Slow: Less than three mph
• Average: 3 to 4 mph
• Brisk: Over four mph

Of the participants, 7% identified as slow walkers, 53% as average, and 41% as brisk walkers.

Results in Detail

Over a median follow-up of 13.7 years, 9 percent developed some form of cardiac arrhythmia, including atrial fibrillation, bradyarrhythmias (abnormally slow or irregular heartbeats), and ventricular arrhythmias.

After adjusting for factors like age, sex, alcohol intake, ethnicity, existing health conditions, and socioeconomic status, the results were striking:

• Average pace. Compared to slow walkers, those who walked at an average pace had a 35% lower risk of developing arrhythmias.
• Brisk walking. Brisk walkers had an even greater benefit, with a 43% lower risk.

My Take

This study is the largest to show that physical activity can lower the risk of arrhythmias, including atrial fibrillation.

The article also highlights this:

Exercise quality — not just quantity — matters. The faster the pace, the greater the benefit.

Of course, the study does not prove a causal relationship exists between brisk walking and reduced AFib risk.

Nevertheless, these findings provide stronger evidence to guide my conversations with patients, encouraging them to exercise regularly and with enough intensity to protect their hearts.

The post This 5-Minute Habit Could Help Prevent a Dangerous Heart Condition. appeared first on Medika Life.

Trauma-informed design constructs an environment that promotes healing and evokes psychological and physical safety, connectivity, empowerment, self-worth and happiness. The VA takes trauma-informed design to heart, incorporating patient-centered technology and features throughout its facilities and patient rooms.

Each year, the VA serves more than 27,000 veterans with spinal cord injuries (SCI), making it the world’s largest health system providing lifelong SCI care. In many cases, veterans with spinal cord injuries are long-term residents. These veterans may stay in an SCI unit for months or even years. Their daily living and care environment must be conducive to promoting each veteran’s independence and quality of life.

To provide this personalized experience, VA hospitals are intentional about the design of the SCI unit and patient rooms. This commitment includes the use of eVideon’s Vibe Health Engage, Digital Signage and Digital Whiteboard solutions with four specific goals in mind.

Key Considerations for Trauma-Informed Design in Smart Patient Rooms

The team at eVideon understands the basic components of creating an exceptional experience for veterans and their families. In working with the VA to design and implement smart room technology, we considered critical traits that adhere to the principles of trauma-informed design.

Flexibility
It is imperative that the design of patient rooms is flexible to support specialized experiences for patients and their families. Specifically for SCI patients who often require ongoing assistance and dedicated care, smart patient rooms should give veterans much-desired autonomy and empowerment to control their environment. Here are two examples.

Interactive TVs with autonomous control units allow veterans to control their room environment, watch TV, engage with educational videos, order meals, and more. The system is also integrated with assistive devices such as sip-and-puff, eye gaze, and voice controls.

Our Clinical Solutions Director spoke on a recent webinar, saying, “Spinal cord injury patients lose a lot of control in their lives… they usually have to call a staff member to control the TV. The ability to manage something as simple as changing a TV station was an awesome experience for these patients and their families.”

Consistency
Messaging, communication and education for VA patients should be consistent and relevant. For example, educational training in the SCI unit includes topics such as healthy eating, addiction, mental health and suicide prevention. Furthermore, the clinical team is equipped with a workflow process to follow up training units with in-person patient conversations.

Engagement
Veterans depend on their families as crucial members of their extended care team. Connectivity, a tenet of trauma-informed design, helps patients feel supported throughout their care journey. The VA equips family members to support ongoing care, whether long-term in an SCI unit or in post-acute healthcare environments.

Vibe Health Engage TV promotes activities that both patients and their families can participate in. This includes learning and educational videos to help families provide ongoing care and support for their loved ones.

Recognition
Showing appreciation and gratitude for veterans is extremely powerful in their extended well-being and overall care. In trauma-informed design, this directly impacts psychological safety and a sense of self-worth. At the VA, consistent messages of recognition are purposefully built into the design of the patient room environment.

Using Vibe Health Engage TV and Insight digital whiteboards, patient rooms and living spaces include the veterans’ branches of service and messages of gratefulness. One particular VA facility uses Vibe Health Banner digital signage to display custom videos of staff expressing their personal appreciation for veterans’ service during Veterans Week.

These four traits – flexibility, consistency, engagement and recognition – lay the groundwork for safer and more patient-centered care environments for our Veterans, their families, clinicians and staff. One that supports their ongoing care, empowerment and healing. We are proud to serve these patients who selflessly have served our nation.

The post Designing Smart Rooms for Veterans: Embracing the Principles of Trauma-Informed Design appeared first on Medika Life.

Medika Life was given an opportunity to interview four HIMSS leaders – to hear more about plans for the Orlando global meeting and the priorities staff embrace year-round. It was clear that HIMSS staff see their roles as a professional responsibility and largely a public health mission.

Here are the #HIMSS24 Content Highlights:

• HIMSS Connect
• Keynotes
• Policy Issues
• Nursing and Informatics
• Start-Ups & Entrepreneurs

Gil Bashe, Editor-in-Chief, Medika Life: The health industry has many essential trade associations of different types that we know of.  PhRMA and BIO, and to some extent, HIMSS, could be seen that way, but it has grassroots membership. There are certainly very senior people in our industry who are HIMSS members. You could say HIMSS has grassroots and grasstops affiliations.

HIMSS – NOW 125,000 Strong

Christine Buck, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, HIMSS:  Yes.  That’s right.  Let me offer context for Medika Life readers about HIMSS.  HIMSS is a 60-year-old organization and a global society that has evolved and changed.  It’s inspiring to see our community working to find solutions, thinking together as opposed to thinking in silos. And that’s what we need. We need to be the bridge. We need to be a transparent provider of democratized information.

Our membership has grown to more than 125,000 members. We landed on “Creating Tomorrow’s Health” because we are about the future, about bringing together individuals who care about generative AI and the patient. This is the difference between where we think about solutions not for the sake of an organization but the ultimate audience we all serve – patients. So that’s an exciting responsibility.

Bashe: I would very much appreciate knowing a bit about the fact that when we get together in two weeks in Orlando, some of the policy conversations will occur, from modernizing HIPAA to cyber security aspects. HIMSS is at the forefront of community building. It also tries to create a safe environment so that information can be used to improve the human condition. Could you share a little bit about that?

Tom Leary, SVP, Head of Government Relations, HIMSS:  Our policy initiatives are set by the board of directors and society members.  We are focusing on health equity. Everything needs to be pointed toward health equity so that we can leverage technology and data science to improve the human condition you’re talking about.

Specifically, concerning global conferences, we’re anticipating a lot of conversations in several key areas.

Artificial intelligence has just overtaken all the discussions around public policy. Several camps are starting to form. Some think AI is the panacea for the patient’s condition, provider burden, or any other categories we might want to discuss or that stakeholders might want to discuss.  The other camp is the fearful individuals- whether AI is taking their jobs or AI is making decisions where providers are not in the middle. It’s those kinds of conversations around artificial intelligence that we anticipate having.

Cyber security and data privacy.  The more that health care remains in the top five targeted sectors, we would fully anticipate a lot of conversation around how to maintain a high degree of vigilance and preparedness, and, quite frankly, both policymakers and our members want to talk about it, such as  “What do you know that I need to know so that I can better prepare my organization against a cyber-attack?”

Data modernization is a third key area for us that we anticipate a lot of dialogue on, particularly from the US perspective. What we saw from the global pandemic was a borderless global issue. Much investment in some areas, particularly in the clinical setting around technology advancements, resulted in excellent preparedness. However, we are still dealing with many paper-based approaches in the realm of public health and population health. So, how do you modernize the public health community?  We are facilitating ideas and conversations to address global public health priorities.

We’re very excited. A critical development in the last 48 hours is that the CDC Director, Dr. Mandy Cohen, will be the first CDC Director and, in close to 15 years, the only Director to address any HIMSS audience. More specifically, the top session that she’ll be sharing with the office of the National Coordinator is on the whole issue of data monetization. Those are three key areas that we’re looking at, particularly from a conference perspective. We can also get into some other year-round topics.

Challenges of Technology Linked to Patient Care

Bashe: I will want someone to address year-round topics because I see the annual meeting as the beginning or culmination of the year. I do have a question regarding innovation because we often talk about information. Still, I often find that many people from the digital health innovation sector attend HIMSS annually and at the national meeting.

Some of them come from chief technology offices or chief information offices or people involved in information services, or they’re people developing systems in terms of augmented intelligence or Chat GPT, the application of higher technologies to synthesize information.

Other people are looking at the integration of tools. Smart wearables, all these intelligent applications. I would very much appreciate your perspective as HIMSS leaders in talking a little bit about the role that HIMSS plays in supporting digital health innovation that collects and shares information.

Toni Laracuente, Senior Vice President & Global Head of Analytics, HIMSS:  My background in the clinical space is as a thoracic ICU nurse, which was my specialty for many years, and then I moved into quality improvements and Hospital Administration.

In the early days of electronic medical records, what you just described with nurses saying, “Oh, I don’t have time to look at that,” those were kind of the dark days of digital health, when systems were designed primarily as billing systems or departmental systems that were very focused on billing but had limited functionality and workflow process for the clinician, for the nurses, the doctors, physical therapists, and any other kind of ancillary professional service the patient may encounter.

Our practice within HIMSS analytics is genuinely focused on digital transformation. When I say digital transformation, I’m talking about the innovative, intentional, and clinically designed use of data and technology systems.

But people first, tech last. We look at people, processing data, and then technology because our approach is for digital transformation to be successful; it has to be person-centric and focused on the needs of the people who will be using and experiencing that technology.

It’s not a “one size fits all”.  The work we do with our digital maturity adoption models – you may have heard of the MRAM and ERAM adoption models. That’s the most well-known. But we have digital maturity models that span the entire care continuum. Suppose you consider any care delivery environment where a person may seek and access health care. In that case, our maturity models can assist and provide guidance and strategy for the digital transformation of those care delivery environments. The focus is on the person-centric or the patient-centric digital health ecosystem.

That is one of the presentations I’ll give at the global conference. It’s the use of digital maturity and digital transformation to build a person-centric digital health ecosystem. It needs to be a seamless process from the first encounter to the end of the encounter, from Pre-Natal right through to the End of Life.

Most importantly, it has to work seamlessly for everybody coming into contact with the system. So, that means using innovative technology. But the technology needs to work in the background. Then, the people using that technology can focus on their jobs. And we don’t have those situations where the nurses say, “Well, I don’t have time to read a digital health record.”

The response should be: “That is a tool that enables me to do my job so much better because I have access to the information that I need when and where I need it.” And the same is true for anybody, whether that’s the patient, the patient’s family, the physician, or any other healthcare provider.

Our maturity models are the focus of our work. All our maturity models have eight stages, and in the very beginning, at that stage of 0, 1, 2, which is pretty much where 95% of US and global healthcare systems sit in that early stage of digital maturity.

We often encounter process automation in some ways, but not digital transformation. Our tools and methodologies are designed to guide organizations from that piecemeal, fragmented use of technology and healthcare delivery to digital transformation, where you start at Pre-Natal and go through End of Life.

Leary: Regarding innovation, we’re very excited to have the ARAPH, the new Advanced Research Program Agency for Health (ARPA-H), which is a bipartisan development. They have about $2.5 billion that they want to spend on innovation, and they have a mandate to get the word out. Their deputy director is coming to the global conference to educate the healthcare community, from startups to large organizations, and to work with them.

Innovation can be stretched; what’s the next version of innovation in healthcare? They must find those innovative thoughts and voices and adequately fund them in a tight budgetary environment. Here in the US, they have $2.5 billion. And it’s a bipartisan belief that we need to continue to invest in that kind of approach.

It’s very similar to what happened with the 21st Century Cures Act. ARPA-H is new, and we’re very excited to have their senior officials there with us in the meeting with the startups and large organizations.

Global Meeting Hosting Government Leaders

Buck: I want to add that we have the South Korean Minister of Health is expected to attend, and representatives from Samsung Medical Center, which you’re going to be hearing a lot more about in terms of the innovation that they’re driving as a Stage 7 hospital system, but the message and the outcomes that they are going is a great touchpoint for all organizations around the world.

Bashe: To your point about the South Korean Minister of Health coming. It’s truly a global meeting, although it’s hosted in the United States.  

Hong Kong spends about 6 to 7% of its GDP on Health. They live about 15 years longer than we do in the United States. One of the things I find hopeful is that when I’m visiting and speaking to colleagues in other nations, most health information is digitized, consumers have their health records, and they are moveable.

Christine, to your point: when you and the senior staff are dealing with members of other governments worldwide, I imagine you’re serving an unofficial diplomatic role for the US health system with other people interested in sharing best practices. Could you give a glimmer about your global insights of not just dealing with the membership of HIMSS? I think you said there are 125,000 members now.

Buck: Toni, when you were speaking, the individuals in HIMSS come from a technology background; I have a FinTech background, and Toni is an actual patient care advocate. Everyone is invested in some way.  Hal Wolf, our CEO and President, is a person who works toward democratizing information between countries, dignitaries, and organizations, and that, to me, is a profound shift where we’re not keeping the information in for our benefit or someone else.

Our senior team comprises practitioners and developers of these new ideas, drawing ideas from the entire HIMSS staff and community. They’re leading panels like Toni or developing products.

Leary: The excellent collaboration between our organization and your experience has been so helpful to my growth—the beauty of what’s happening at global conferences. Perhaps we’ll get as high as 80 countries this year. They’re all searching for that digital health transformation approach, and sharing what they’ve learned and lessons they could learn from others is the key to the conference conversation and throughout the year.

The world looks at the 10-year investment that the United States made in digital health transformation, from 2010 through 2021, in the Medicaid/Medicare providers and all the providers that updated their systems. When the pandemic hit the United States, for all its politics around vaccination and immunization, aside from that, the United States was technologically ready to layer on telehealth services and various capabilities such as data and analytics because they’ve invested.

What we’re seeing in different parts of the world is curiosity about how the US did it, what kind of investment is needed, and what you would avoid if you were to do it again.

The Germans, for example, last year held a very impactful conversation with several members of the US Government on “If you had to do meaningful use over again, what would you do differently?” and struggling with the issue of not only provider burden but providers and patients “opt-in opt-out” of a program, whether it’s somewhere in Europe or Asia, or Central and South America.

They all want to get to that transformation—part of this conversation we’ll be having at our second Ministerial summit. Several years ago, we experienced the Minister of Tajikistan in one room, and the Columbian Minister of Health was in the next room, and they didn’t interact.

What we designed last year and again this year is a Ministerial Summit to talk about health equity, technology, and some of the capabilities we can all embrace as a community.

We’re expecting senior leaders from between 15 and 20 countries to sit around a table for two hours on Wednesday afternoon and continue the conversation into the evening at the international reception. They have those leaders together, talking about the vision for the future.

Bashe: The NGO element of HIMSS comes across. It’s a membership-based NGO. You are trying to advance collaboration and standards around how information can improve people’s lives and be somewhat universal. A nation’s borders do not trap information, and information shared can accelerate our understanding of how to deal with everything, from social determinants of health to the cost of health to the efficient use of health personnel, all that is driven by information. HIMSS is a depository of how processes impact performance in terms of health information. Would that be accurate?

Preparing for the Next Pandemic

Leary: That’s absolutely part of what we’ve seen over the last couple of years, which is that information sharing helps to advance not only individual countries but regional and global initiatives. The conversation that we had around the European health data spaces they developed for the EU was a big piece of legislation. There was concern that individual countries would be able to lock down their data.

If that is the case, what happened with the pandemic? What was the response to the pandemic, where data on COVID-19 from the early days of Asia would not have made their way to Europe, the United States, the Americas, and Africa? Researchers were able to work together because the data flowed from place to place, turning it into actionable information and vaccination and policies.

Suppose we don’t have those global dialogues around the power of the data and turning it into actionable information. In that case, you don’t have that kind of rapid response in a global pandemic.

Bashe:  As the HIMSS C-suite team, you’re part of a bigger puzzle. Your pieces have to align together, and I appreciate that. But regarding your mandate responsibility to the HIMSS community, could you share an expectation or hope you’d like to see come out of the upcoming meeting?

Buck:  My expectation and hope are that we create the energy for people to not just convene at one moment in time for a few days, but that it carries on 365 days a year and that we also create a stronger connection to the value that HIMSS bring to members, to organizational affiliates, to providers and patients. My goal is to get the human message out there and have all the passion and hard work come out from the team you see here and everyone who attends and creates that community.

Jim Burnett, Vice President, Engagement Strategies, HIMSS: HIMSS is an entire constellation involving research, analytics, government relations, professional development, and our chapter community. What we have is this community, which offers a wealth of engagement opportunities. In going through the study of all our different member communities, what I’m finding most clear is we need to draw people into that community from this important event. They need to come into the government relations group from the government; they need to go into the analytic tool sets to roadmap their digital transformation.

At the event, I hope our broader community is getting a lot more exposure and that we are helping people understand that it’s not this point in time. It’s not this individual session that you’re sitting in. It starts there and then crawls through that spider web through all these other supportive products and services that come out with the association.

Bashe: I notice that HIMSS members are deeply committed to the organization. It’s not like I’m sending in my annual check; they feel that by being a member of HIMSS, they are part of that conversation, part of the process of the evolution of the system, of how the information will be used.

Jim Burnett, how much of your role is spent in terms of looking at member retention and member acquisition, but also making sure that people understand the culture, the inherent values of HIMSS, and the responsibility that HIMSS feels in terms of how the information will be used to improve the health system?

Burnett: It’s about the overall value driven by the community and the collaboration. Most hospital systems aren’t in competition with one another. It’s the rising tide lifting all boats. To ensure that all these voices are heard, that their case studies are involved in our research, that their voices are indeed heard in the community, and that they can share their best practices.

That is the actual value of that community piece. It’s not necessarily the most prominent voices. You need to be able to pull from the corners of the room, draw people out, and get their perspectives on the conversation. I think that’s a critical point.

Professional Development to Initiatives on the Hill

Bashe: It’s not about digitally emailing your membership that their dues are up. Tom, how big is your policy team?

Leary: Our policy team is seven people. We deputize everyone on this screen, the rest of the organization, and the membership, so our policy team is 125,000 people. We’re seven staff. It’s a good thing.

Bashe: Is there a piece of legislation or conversation you and the team are hyper-focused on right now? What do you feel concerns the American health system here in the US?

Leary: We’re very focused on proper Office of National Coordinator funding.  They haven’t had a reasonable budget since their first year. They’re the little agency that can. 

There are two other pieces of legislation that we’re pounding on for this year. One is the telehealth provisions from the pandemic, which were extended through December of this year. And we’re working across the coalition to make that policy permanent. We’ve seen the benefit of telehealth. We’ve all benefited from it. The greater access and better healthcare outcomes. Those were set to go back to March 12, 2020, in terms of policy structure if we don’t make that policy permanent.

Laracuente: From an analytics product perspective, we are launching our newest digital maturity model, the infrastructure adoption model, and that launch is happening at our booth at 4 pm on Tuesday.

We’ve invested heavily in completely rewriting and modernizing this model. Throughout this session, we discussed using artificial intelligence, cyber security, and technology infrastructure. Overarching the in-frame model enables an organization to manage the risk of having technology. Financial risk, data, security, and privacy risk. And the risk that comes with user adoption and getting the greatest return on investment.

We’re launching that. But from an all-encompassing digital health ecosystem view. I love that you started this conversation by discussing the connections between patients with health problems. Jim mentioned that hospitals work together to try to lift each other in healthcare. When we look at health outcomes, all of the work we do in digital transformation is focused on improving the health of populations everywhere.

Part of what I’m touching on in my presentation on Tuesday is – are you familiar with the quintuple-

aim of health from public health improvement? Everything we do is focused on improving population health outcomes. Still, worldwide health care is focused on that overarching premise of the quintuple aim – improving access to care, improving patient experience, workforce experience, health, equity, reducing costs, and enhancing value for money.

We’re positioning our work in digital transformation and the maturity models in alignment with that. We’re very focused on how the digital security models deliver health outcomes and how those outcomes contribute to our provider organizations achieving success across those five domains of the quintuple.

You mentioned innovation earlier, and one thing that I wanted to touch on is when it comes to artificial intelligence, there’s a lot of discussion and hype around it, i.e., AI will take our jobs in healthcare. That couldn’t be further from the truth. AI will help us do our jobs much better, the jobs we’re all here to do, and why we get out of bed every day.

AI Will Unleash Waves of Practical Applications that Improve Patient Care

Bashe: There was a recent trending piece in Medika Life about pathologists and AI that reduces their attention when they feel they have more specificity and improve accuracy.

Laracuente: AI is perfectly positioned to do that when we look at the HIMSS mission around equity and health outcomes. I always start any conversation about AI and the workforce with the premise that AI will not replace healthcare providers or physicians. However, the physicians who use AI to do their jobs better and more efficiently will replace those who don’t.

Bashe:  The technology of the horseless carriage replaced blacksmiths through time. Technology has replaced professionals. I know that that’s very true. Humanity wins, hands down. It is unleashing as Innovation Theorist John Nosta proclaims, “the cognitive age.” Open-minded people who can hone their curiosity and ask the right questions will be valuable. Those who can’t put two words together will be in trouble.

Buck: That’s what I love about HIMSS – we’re substantive. We’re the real deal. We’re not fly by night. I love that about this whole conversation, but the entire organization and our community worldwide are the substantive providers of the suitable types of information people seek.

Bashe:  Everything is rooted in information. How we respect information, access it, and democratize it is essential. HIMSS is in incredible hands thanks to your collaborative leadership.  Thank you for sharing these thoughts and essential priorities for improved healthcare access and delivery to Medika Life readers.  I’m looking forward to continuing this conversation in Orlando.

Here is a special preview of the “Health Unabashed” interview with HIMSS CEO and President Hal Wolf on Healthcare NOW Radio from Monday, March 11th to Sunday evening, March 24th.

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Special thanks to Albe Zakes, HIMSS Director, Corporate Communications for facilitating this conversation with HIMSS leadership.

The post Exclusive Medika Conversation with HIMSS Top Leadership – Inside Scoop on Key 2024 Priorities appeared first on Medika Life.

In the first three days of this Los Angeles gathering, I’ve had the chance to pop in on countless sessions, swing by exhibits that occupy large and small footprints and chat with C-Suite voices from some of the nation’s most prominent health players and most promising start-ups.  But as Sheba Medical Center’s Chief Innovation Officer, Eyal Zimlichman, MD, MSc, thoughtfully reminded a filled-to-capacity room during one session: “Sometimes the challenge is not the technology or innovative approach.  It can be in the implementation.”

Several companies caught my attention during three days at ViVE.  Unexpectedly, the most impressive are enterprises that aren’t swinging for the bleachers of change but those who make incremental improvements in the health ecosystem, leading to better patient care and putting a lid on spiraling costs. More and more, there is a need for meaningful changes now.  What happens tomorrow is theoretical. Keeping the health system chugging ahead translates into keeping doors open to patients who might not have access to care.

What should readers do with this information?  Follow these companies.  Listen to what their senior executives say about how their approaches impact the health industry. Use their information to benchmark the “right now” that lays the groundwork for successful technologies that too often capture the buzz and have yet to show. As the adage goes, the “proof is in the pudding.”  These are companies that have a presence within the sector and demonstrate momentum.

Companies at the Forefront of Health Information and Innovation

Several companies invited Medika to swing by their exhibits or attend panel sessions.  These companies are working hard to help health systems improve workflow – recognizing that repetitive tasks can and should be automated. Highways have moved from coin-taking toll attendants to EzPass transponders. The benefits are clear – reduced traffic and smog. Give thought to eliminating hospital bureaucracy that burdens providers and consumers. 

The companies on the ViVE exhibit floor acknowledge that physician time – a precious resource – can be better used in patient care.  Others realize that the changes in technology and information systems are happening so fast that hospital systems must embed outsourced staff to keep current with transitions.  Innovation is only meaningful if used – otherwise, it’s merely conversational and conceptual.

ViVE is doing something needed and practical. It’s bringing together prominent players in health, companies that can make information valuable, and start-ups looking not to disrupt but positively evolve time-test but worn approaches. Here are some companies that caught my eye:

• The consumer appliance giant Best Buy presence at a health industry conference may seem out of place. They don’t have in-store clinics – they have gadgets and wearables. They have a Geek Squad ready to set up your home entertainment studio.  But they’re the perfect partner for hospital systems looking to discharge patients to heal at home and remain connected to their providers.  They are experts in helping seniors overcome the challenges of setting up and using remote monitoring technologies that incorporate blood pressure monitoring or ECGs.  They are pros in addressing tech questions virtually.  If aging and home care are to become a standard of care, Best Buy is ahead of the curve in helping health systems make it a possible leap.

• Technology should reduce workflow – not add to the headaches chief technology and information officers manage. Health systems must streamline repetitive operations and care processes. CereCore is a leading provider of IT services that help hospitals and health systems chart a course through the operational IT labyrinth. The company works with hospital systems to prioritize patient care and information streamline processes. Its “get it done approach” includes IT staffing, application support, technical professional and managed services, IT advisory services, and EHR consulting.  With more than 700 employees across the US, its workforce includes clinical and technical experts supporting 450 hospitals and implementing IT solutions across 4,000 care settings.

• Corti is a startup specializing in AI-enabled decision support tools for clinic and first responder environments. Corti develops solutions to improve efficiency and experience by analyzing emergency conversations using ambient clinical voice and real-time clinical discussions. Like large language models (LLMs), Corti trains on thousands of actual patient calls and clinical consultations, listens alongside professionals, and converts this learning into insights and suggestions using proprietary speech recognition and natural-language processing. Published data show that AI outperforms human call-takers in sensitivity and predictive accuracy. This advancement augments call-takers ability to triage and ensures faster and more precise emergency response.

• DigiCARE is an early company addressing a long-targeted goal of improving brain disease care.  Based on Indiana University research, a machine-learning algorithm powers its promising AI platform with an 80% performance accuracy and a one-year prediction horizon to detect all forms of unrecognized dementia. The platform mines already-collected data from electronic patient health records and sorts through structured and unstructured data, including patient demographics, diagnosis, medication history, and vast medical notes. The company is already working with health systems to deliver routine brain care for a growing aging population. Early detection of diseases such as Alzheimer’s treatments will accelerate new approaches to drug discovery and development.

• e4health fills expertise gaps in IT, HIM, coding, and CDI. When provider organizations face management issues and bandwidth concerns, the company provides expert resources to complete projects and achieve departmental goals on time and within budget. From legacy data conversion for new EHR implementations to staffing vacancies, e4Health delivers the highest levels of healthcare expertise alongside a relentless commitment to integrity and data accuracy. Their teams ensure consistent quality, accuracy, and productivity for the customers served.

• Like the “smart home,” eVideon is championing hospital smart room technology and digital workflow. The company’s flagship product, Vibe Health, automates clinical workflow, facilitates enhanced communication, and transforms care environments into personalized and interactive spaces. The solutions include an in-room Smart TV, digital whiteboard, digital door sign, and bedside tablet, redefining traditional care settings. These technologies integrate with the hospital’s Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system and other technologies, making real-time information accessible to patients, families, and the care team. Medika Life readers can access their Smart Room Technology Playbook— to understand how technology saves nurses time and improves the care experience.
• HCTec provides IT services to over 1,500 academic medical centers, health systems, community hospitals, critical access hospitals, and other healthcare provider organizations nationwide. HCTec teams offer health information technology expertise across clinical and business applications, data, security, and other technical services. With some 500 team members and decades of combined health experience, HCTec is highly KLAS-rated, providing healthcare IT staffing, managed services solutions, and EHR services.

America has a significant obesity challenge – a public health epidemic that is a tipping point to heart disease, diabetes and stroke. New medications called GLP-1 are a new class of medications and a partial solution – they address weight-key symptoms of the problem. They do not address the underlying diseases or modify the patient’s mindset long-term. Some other pathway is needed! Enter Intellihealth, a startup software solution that effectively scales obesity management and tackles weight management, risk management, comorbidities, diabetes, cancer, and heart and respiratory disease impact. The American Medical Association classifies obesity as a disease, but the US health system is no match for its prevalence.

• The “value-based care” buzzword continues to enter the health economics conversation.  Interwell Health, a kidney care management company, has impressive roots – formed from the merger of the value-based care division of Fresenius Medical Care North America with Cricket Health – and may be among the better examples demonstrating how information can guide physicians and staff to prioritize care decisions for people with chronic kidney disease care to end-stage kidney disease.  So far, the company has proven its ability to improve outcomes and deliver better quality of life for people while reducing the cost of care for payer partners and providing the resources physicians need to navigate a value-based world – all at scale.

• We need more information. TED Founder Richard “Saul” Wurman describes data dilemma perfectly in his bestselling book titled “Information Anxiety.”  The US healthcare system places tremendous weight on the shoulders of health providers to obtain, manage, and share clinical data. If health professionals need a remedy for their anxiety, MRO understands data exchange challenges between providers and payers.  MRO has been a key clinical data exchange player for some 20 years, modernizing health information analog and manual processes. The company is lightening the load for customers, and the proof is that it connects more than 200 EHRs, 200,000 providers, 35,000 practices, and 900 hospitals, drawing data from more than 1.3 billion clinical records.

NourishedRx is a purpose-centered digital health and nutrition company that has become a public health voice working to improve outcomes, lower medical costs and advance health-equity goals. Diet-related chronic conditions account for almost 20% of all US health care costs—particularly for people facing food insecurity and diet-related health conditions that can be tracked through blood pressure and HbA1c, NICU admissions and LBW births, pre-term births, depression, and more. Mission-centered NourishedRx is not a food bank! Its highly personalized model structures service through the lens of “food as medicine.” Its operating system is also a call to action—health and health equity—one meal, one individual, and one community at a time. Its customers are surprising—savvy payers who recognize that without access to healthy nutrition, vulnerable people at risk for non-communicable diseases are almost certain to tip into the abyss of illness.

Lauren Driscoll is the founder and CEO of NourishedRx and a Medicare Advantage expert. She founded NourishedRx in 2019 to support health plans’ efforts to address their members’ most actionable and critical non-clinical needs — nutrition and social isolation. Information can be linked to life-saving interventions. NourishedRx demonstrates that possibility.

There’s no clear consensus on whether ADHD is over- or under-diagnosed. However, it is universally understood that timely and accurate assessment can prevent emotional and academic struggles among children and teens.  Getting it right is hindered by a lack of standardized diagnostic tests. Qbtech is transforming objective ADHD care through a technology-first approach that augments professional care. Like many ViVE attendees in the busy hallways and crowded exhibit halls, Qbtech takes a practical solutions approach to health-sector challenges.  Its Food and Drug Administration cleared for marketing computer-based tasks monitoring system brings new perspectives to evaluation and treatment, and decision-makers welcome the 15-20 approach to initial assessment.  The system has been adopted across 43 US states and by organizations such as the NHS in the United Kingdom. Outcomes data appears in over 35 independent studies.

• Sendero is a management consulting firm that guides strategic planning, digital transformation, and organizational effectiveness. Sendero healthcare practice was developed to help clients navigate the industry’s complex and frequently changing operations, experience, and technology enablement challenges. The consulting group brings objective thought combined with years of experience to clients from project ideation through implementation so that health systems can maintain their focus on essential high standards and adapt to deliver solid patient experience, support employees, and engage in evolving waves of innovation. Objectivity and knowledge are precious resources.

• Prof. Eyal Zimlichman, the Chief Transformation Officer and Chief Innovation Officer at Sheba Medical Center, was on hand during VIVE.  Sheba is Israel’s largest medical center and a top-ranked Newsweek hospital. Dr. Zimlichman is the founder and director of the Sheba ARC (Accelerate, Redesign, Collaborate) Innovation Hub. This global innovation ecosystem aims to redesign the health system through digital health innovation. Here, Sheba was wearing a different health system hat. ARC is creating innovation communities worldwide and in locations where, beyond transformation, innovation can address social determinants of health, such as economics, education, and life experience. 

Sheba is also a “paperless-wide” health system: no faxes or massive file systems.  The health system can impact more than physical health. They can inspire young people to pursue careers in technology and reduce the carbon impact of hospitals to improve the environment.

• Tegria is a global healthcare consulting and services company partnering with provider and payer organizations to unleash their potential to contribute to a healthier future collaboratively. Like others, it delivers end-to-end solutions to help clients avoid economic strife that is too common among health systems and secure growth. But here, they are not wishes or empty words.  Tegria has over 1,500 professionals with technology expertise working alongside 500 clients in North America and Europe.

“When we invest in technology, we invest in partnerships and define our priorities,” said Ray Gensigner, MD, Tegria chief medical officer, responding to Medika Life. “Technologies must demonstrate a clear potential to benefit patients and healthcare providers simultaneously. To be on my investment radar, technologies should have credible validation and promise to make a tangible difference,” he added.

• The financial reports of the hospital system reflect the growing number of struggling care systems. Information is the lifeblood of patient care – but it’s also the navigational tool for hospital executives to build sustainable systems. ViVe was the setting for breaking news.  TruBridge is a new player on the scene with a heritage that spans four decades.  Numerous companies joining legacy company CPSI as acquisitions have united under this new brand identity.

While the name is new, the company continues to offer highly regarded revenue cycle management (RCM) solutions that enhance productivity and integrate financial operations across acute to post-acute and ambulatory settings. But rallying all its companies under one corporate identity clarifies for customers how TruBridge services, products and talent weave together and project the scale and strength of a mega sector player.

• On the go? 98point6 Technologies. has refocused its talent and time, making its AI-powered technology and software available to providers to expand access to care and improve patient engagement since the sale of its Care Delivery Division a year ago to Transcarent. In many ways, this renewed business focus secures 98point6 place as one of the nation’s leading virtual care platforms for patients and their physicians to connect when on the move. Its flagship 98point6 Technology Platform provides cloud-based software combining augmented intelligence with automated practice standards and EHR integration.  

At a time when primary care services are needed more than ever to stem the tide of non-communicable illnesses, 98point6 Technologies are a needed bridge between brick-and-mortar physicians’ services and consumers who now think hybrid and expect the world to respond to their flexible needs.

• Viz.ai harnesses the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to improve patient outcomes. Its FDA-cleared algorithms analyze medical imaging data, including CT scans, EKGs, and echocardiograms, and have the potential to provide real-time insights that accelerate diagnosis and treatment. The Viz Platform autodetects possible disease presence across therapeutic areas, including neurovascular, cardiovascular, trauma care, and radiology. Diagnosis sits at the heart of treatment – do that faster and more accurately, and physicians can do their best work with greater confidence and less stress.  This is not a “success is just around the corner technology.”  Already, Viz.ai has been adopted by more than 1,500 US hospitals – perhaps on its way to becoming a sector standard.

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The concept of the future is always inviting and exciting. Futurists are rarely wrong.  It isn’t easy to judge what remains intangible. The difference between invention and innovation is scaled customer application.  AI, ChatGPT, and GenAI applied play to the strengths of the curious and bold. Using these technologies democratizes information for humanity’s benefit. The tools can improve care, increase workflow efficiency, and lower spiraling health costs.  This is all happening right now. 

The companies included in this ViVE summary are helping the health system and their customers deliver transformational health technology today. That may seem less “edgy” than tomorrow’s shiny object, but all ideas are judged by their impact and sales. Follow these companies who are paving the way for improved care delivery.

The post Is Innovation an Overused Idea? ViVE is Home to Real-World Health-System Evolution! appeared first on Medika Life.

Viktor Frankl, a renowned psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor and author, draws from experiences in Nazi concentration camps to develop a profound understanding of the importance of hope called logotherapy. This psychotherapeutic approach describes the search for a life’s meaning as the central human motivational force. Frankel observed that people in Nazi extermination camps who found a shred of hope, even in the bleakest circumstances, were more likely to endure and survive.

Frankl later wrote in his book Man’s Search for Meaning that “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

News reports of the Hamas attacks on Israel cover the unconscionable devastation of Israeli villages along the Southern border. An inhumane action directly almost entirely toward civilians, documented and shared on social media by terrorists not “caught in the act” but proudly sharing visuals online of their murder spree.  The media focuses primarily on geopolitical chaos and military response.  The human stories center around families searching for information about loved ones missing or the more than 100 civilians taken hostage to hostile territory – their destiny unknown.

The Biblical reading for Simchat Torah, the holiday marking the annual cycle of the conclusion of Torah readings, with which Hamas timed its well-coordinated attack, ends with a prophetic call from the Book of Joshua:  “Only be strong and resolute!”

The bigger story is to explore Israeli’s unwavering resilience in the face of so much horror.  Israel is built on “hope,” nurtured by hope, and resilient because hope is embedded in the people’s mental health psyche. Once the anguish and outrage are expressed, its citizens will turn to what they do best – rebuilding.  What of their neighbors? Will this successful blood-letting act be a catalyst for nation-building inspiration?

The Psychological Benefits of Hope

Psychologists have long recognized the vital role hope plays in people’s resilience. American psychologist Professor Charles Snyder defined hope as “a positive motivational state that is based on an interactively derived sense of successful agency (goal-directed energy) and pathways (planning to meet goals).” Snyder’s definition highlights the two critical components of hope: agency and pathways.

Agency is the belief that someone can initiate actions and make a difference. In desperate situations, this belief can be a lifeline. It fuels determination and empowers individuals to take control of their situation, no matter how hopeless and disappointing.

Pathways represent strategies and plans that can be developed to achieve those goals. Hope provides the internal flame framework for problem-solving and finding a way out of dire situations. Researchers emphasize that hope is intricately linked to a person’s problem-solving abilities, making it an essential psychological – even people-building – resource.

When Hate Defines Purpose

Hope is not just an abstract concept; it can be nurtured and cultivated. This is one of Israel’s and its people’s most significant resources – not oil, diamonds, or other precious natural resources.  Hope is a national treasure that can be mined and replenished. It is the micro-processor of the “Start-Up Nation” credited with countless innovations that are used in medicine, technology and auto GPS systems.

Right now, Israel must secure its borders and prevent nearby nations from taking advantage of the current instability.  That “hopefully” is in its neighbors – Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and even Saudi Arabia’s – best geopolitical interests.  Then, it must address painful steps to determine how low-tech terrorist planning overwhelmed the hi-tech intelligence system of one of the world’s greatest innovation engines. But those steps will not deter the nation’s simultaneous focus on healing and hope.

This national soul-searching is another painful chapter in the bigger saga – how will this mega terrorist war-level attack change its approach to the relationship with the Palestinians and influence Palestinian’s strategy to build a nation not based on hate?  Historically, Hamas celebratory events have not been rooted in establishing statehood-level institutions in Gaza that support culture, education, finance, health, and infrastructure. 

No one can account for the billions in regional and global aid directed to Hamas for infrastructure and refugee support. Where has it been spent? For tunnels or teachers?  For medical supplies or missiles?  Just the aid provided by Saudi Arabia alone to the Palestinian people during the last 17 years exceeded $6 billion. That does not include other United Nations members and institutions. But where is the ROI for these billions, and how does that massive investment kindle hope on the part of the Palestinian people when the fruits of the spending are invisible to the people?

As we’ve seen in the media during the past few days, Hamas invested mightily in this attack against Israel. An attack that is certain to be answered with a military response further setting back Palestinian citizens trapped in this hostile maze.  Finding hope through the possibilities of peace is almost impossible when encouraged public expression for success is in killing “the other.”

Hope is a Catalyst

Hope empowers individuals and acts as a catalyst for positive societal change. When people collectively hold onto hope for a better future, they mobilize their efforts to bring about that change: the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had “a dream” driven by the hope for racial equality and justice. This hope – still burning in a nation’s heart – galvanizes millions of people to take action and continues to lead urgent changes.

The global response to climate change is fueled by hope for a sustainable and healthy planet. Swedish environmental and climate activist Greta Thunberg embodies the transformative power of hope. Her unwavering belief that change is possible has inspired millions of young people worldwide to demand action from their governments and advocate for a greener future. Her hope drives her to eyeball global leaders and demand urgent action. 

Thunberg scolded the world’s leaders in her speech at the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit by exclaiming, “How dare you” about their perceived indifference and inaction to the climate crisis. Her actions are a catalyst for young people worldwide to step forward and work toward a sustainable planet.

Israel and Palestine – Hope and Hate

What has happened during the past few days in Israel – brutal attacks against women, children, and aged citizens- is horrifying.  The visuals – well documented by the terrorists themselves and proudly shared – reinforce the energy that drives Hamas – a thirst for Jewish blood that seems impossible to quench.  

But what of the Palestinian people?  Is that their destiny? Their national desire? To endure endless retaliations that rekindle hate?  To change their future, they must find – or demand – capable, trustworthy leaders who inspire nation-building hope and abandon hatred as a preferred political path!  As Professor Snyder suggested, they must have people at the helm who offer agency and a pathway – a goal–oriented agency matched by plans to achieve that goal. 

And of Israel? For the rest of their lives, like countless generations, the memories of loved ones slaughtered helplessly will haunt family, friends, and the nation.  But that tormented energy and “how and why” questions will elevate the country toward agency and a pathway, as Snyder suggested:  “Now what and to where?”

Golda Meir, the Israeli Prime Minister, who shepherded a wounded nation through the surprise Yom Kippur War – another incredibly devastating, unexpected war that started 50 years almost to the day of this October 2023 Hamas attack – offered insight paralleling Professor Snyder’s insight. “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”  Hate is a disease that must be overcome emotionally.

For all its generational waves of suffering, the Jewish people and the nation of Israel continue to draw upon the endless resource that will guide its collective next steps – faith and purpose standing on a foundation of enduring hope. That is the inspiring story of a people – as the Biblical Prophet Isaiah proclaimed, as “A light unto the nations” – with renewable positive energy to sustain itself and contribute to the world.

The post In the Face of Horror, Hope is a Vital Mental Health Resource appeared first on Medika Life.

Covid vaccines are 98% percent effective at preventing infection and transmission.

Remember that statement? It was drummed into us as we were locked away. Later, as the efficacy percentages dropped, month to month, our livelihoods and access to basics like foodstuffs and accommodation became dependent on accepting a treatment that many were beginning to suspect wasn’t “as described” on the package insert. If one could be found anywhere.

Now, in 2023, in what can loosely be described as a post-pandemic phase, the lies continue. Despite glaring warnings from people in the know that mRNA can indeed transcribe itself into our DNA, thanks to DNA contamination (intentional or otherwise) of the vaccines that exceeds recognized safety levels by a number of factors, we still persist in the lie. That Covid vaccines are safe.

The world, or at least those who care to research the issue properly, know otherwise, and yet, the entire medical and scientific complex continues to promote mRNA vaccines, encouraging parents to vaccinate children as young as six months.

Can we trust science?

That’s the million dollar question and science seems hell bent on convincing us to the contrary. Little wonder then, that climate change skepticism is on the rise. Why would we trust the same community that propagated a half-truth for the duration of the pandemic and still, pathetically clings to it, even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary?

I tend to look at evidence and data when evaluating a claim, and I must admit that in the past I placed a lot of faith in the medical community and science itself. What benefit, to the community, I asked myself, to propagate a lie? It turns out, my base assumption was both flawed and naïve, and for one simple reason. Science no longer exists solely for the purposes of advancing knowledge.

Clinical studies, long seen as the hallmark of evidence-based medicine, can be corrupted and data coerced to produce the desired results. No medical journal or publication escapes this insidious coercion of science. While I do not subscribe to conspiracy theories, it’s when science and politics converge, it’s challenging to determine who is believable. Science must return promptly to its historic mission to explore and publish untainted data.

Disinformation is blamed for increased climate skepticism, but in truth, the root of the blame lies squarely at the door of science. They have misled us, been caught in the lie, and despite this, still persist. It is therefore little wonder that the continuous deluge of news relating to climate change and our impending doom is greeted with growing skepticism.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Science must recognize that its absolute trust has been shattered. How do we believe in the urgencies of public health when we question the source of the information? Science and its advocates must revisit how to regain public confidence.

So is Climate Change real?

Undoubtedly. Our planet is warming. We know the earth is subject to cycles of hot and cold, and we’re headed into a hot one What role we play, if any, in accelerating this process is still largely debatable, and given the length of records we have access to, we can hardly make accurate predictions. 300 years pales in comparison to the planet’s billion year old history. Its been around awhile and undoubtedly will be here after our demise.

Science would you have you believe you are completely responsible for this natural cycle. Our role in speeding up the process is unknown and anyone who can claim to know otherwise is simply selling you snake oil.

What is true however is that we are polluting our natural resources. Plastics are contaminating every corner of the earth and we are endangering our access to clean drinking water. Unlike the occasional heat wave, potable drinking water is key to human survival, so in the end, the argument may be moot.

We won’t be around to see the poles covered in tropical vegetation.

The post Covid’s Impact on Climate Change and Health appeared first on Medika Life.

It wasn’t just about the money, but about data, or rather the harvesting of data, which, if you want to be a stickler about it, is really also just all about making more money. In an industry that relies on data for much of its product development, digital, pharmaceutical, technical or otherwise, he who holds the most data, calls the shots.

Nowhere is this more true than in the field of genomics. The strides we’ve made in the last 10 years alone have revolutionized our ability to analyze and sequence genetic information, or DNA. DNA is the code to the life that flows through your body and your DNA is unique to you. It is your genetic fingerprint and holds the key to diseases, inherited or otherwise, that you may or still will, suffer from.

With each advance in our ability to decode DNA we move closer and closer to identifying key genes responsible for, well, just about everything that occurs in our bodies. We’ve also discovered that having certain genes misfire can predispose us to certain medical conditions and it is not unlikely that, in the near future, this information will allow us, with a fair degree of accuracy, to determine a person’s life span, and more importantly, invent pathways to intervene around suffering and disease.

So why now and why Covid?

Well, we’re now post pandemic, things have moved on, and Covid tests are now available that can be run at home. All good and well, but what happened to the billions of laboratory run PCR swabs we submitted to earlier in the pandemic? While companies undertook to destroy these, at no point did any testing laboratory issue a clear undertaking to not harvest your DNA from said swab.

During the pandemic, almost every American was subjected to a PCR test, sometimes on multiple occasions. Your details, along with your swab, were sent off to a laboratory for testing. I wrote an article on this topic way back in 2020, warning the public of the potential abuse of their data. You can read that piece here.

To think that an opportunity like this, literally a once in a lifetime present for data harvesting, would have been overlooked, is so preposterously naïve as to be laughable.

Which then raises the following questions;

• Who orchestrated the collection of this data? Was it government based, industry based, or a combined effort.
• Your DNA profile would now reside alongside your personal profile (remember, your details were attached to that swab). Who legally owns this DNA profile?
• Are the companies/government willing to issue an assurance as to the ethical use of this data, thereby ensuring you are not discriminated against, based on your DNA profile?
• As the data would have been illicitly harvested without your informed consent, are these questions simply moot, as no one will publicly acknowledge this?

Make no mistake, this was the DNA jackpot and companies may utilize this data to sell you products, refuse you products, refuse you work, refuse you insurance, withdraw your driving license, confiscate any guns you own (as soon as genes are identified that predispose an individual to violence or mental instability), the list is endless and the data worth an untold fortune.

It is, from a financial standpoint, potentially the biggest haul of the pandemic, a gift that will continue to offer returns to companies and governments until you close your eyes one day for the final time, probably on a predetermined day.

So the issue here isn’t really about “IF” your DNA was harvested from the swab you provided, but rather “WHO” now holds that DNA profile. If you’re considering committing a crime, I’d think twice about it, as that single hair you leave behind at the scene will result in the police knocking on your door. Remember, they don’t have to explain how they found you.

Isn’t this a good thing for our health?

It absolutely should be, if the powers that be could be trusted to act ethically with the data. We could identify individuals who are prone to certain diseases and conditions and intervene at an early stage, potentially saving billions of dollars in healthcare. Sadly, trust and ethics, particularly in the case of healthcare and government, were early victims of the pandemic, as the public was lied to, manipulated and then coerced on multiple levels.

Lets take an example. A gene is identified that can predict with 90% accuracy the onset of Disease X in people over the age of 40. Based on the DNA profiles now on record, filters show that 42 million Americans will contract Disease X in the next ten years. A quick calculation shows that treating, rather than preventing the disease will generate 30 times the profit, versus developing a cure.

Sadly, our healthcare systems are not designed for ethics and philanthropy. For the most part, they are FIAT driven systems that pursue profit as their ultimate goal. Only a naïve, well intentioned simpleton would suggest the above example has anything other than one inevitable outcome and it certainly isn’t cure.

The fact that the data has been harvested without your consent is of course, the ultimate red flag. If the public would have stood to only benefit health wise from the sharing of genetic data, don’t you think we would already have volunteered it? No. Deep down inside, we know we can no longer trust the institutions tasked with our wellbeing. They know that we know.

The post Was Covid Testing Used to Harvest Your DNA? appeared first on Medika Life.

The deaths of small children do not move us beyond tears and platitudes to policy action. What will? We are lost if we don’t demand a significant change in gun access policy after reading how a two-year-old wandered lost and frightened after both parents were shot and killed. After people going food shopping in Buffalo were slain. After people going to relax at a club in Colorado Springs were brutally murdered. How about the deaths at Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia? Empathy drained. Courageous political action is tossed aside for preferred partisan politics.

Past policies passed in the bi-partisan Senate move are weak compromises.  They are face-saving actions for both major parties, not life-sparing policy moves that will reduce the death toll from gun violence. We need to make a move that will save lives, requiring a complete ban on automatic weapons. The Senate’s bipartisan gun deal includes additional mental health funding, increased school safety, more crisis intervention programs, and incentives for states to align juvenile records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. But automatic, high-powered velocity weapons – weapons of war – continue to be accessible.

High-Powered Weapon Purchases Are Climbing

In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed an assault-weapons ban, which resulted in the reduction of the AR-15 and similar semiautomatic rifles sales. The Ban only covered a 10-year window, in which mass shootings were down dramatically. When the assault-weapons ban expired 10 years later, gun manufacturers filled the production pipeline and sales rose. Recently – and tragically – the AR-15 has been at the scene of almost every mass shooting to hit the headlines in recent years. It’s design – the spin of the bullet – and firepower make killing as easy as pressing the trigger again and again until its 30-bullet magazine is spent.

The United States is witnessing a record year of gun violence – more than 600 mass shootings in 2022. The pressure is on lawmakers to enact meaningful reforms. But, little action is expected to curb this continued slaughter of the innocent.

Weapons of War are Designed for One Purpose – to Kill

For six years as a military paratrooper and combat medic, I carried an M-4, the preferred weapon of war for infantry entering combat.  The M-4 is a smaller, more convenient version of the M-16.  These are the weapons of war used in past mass shootings.  Some express misguided comfort that the A-15 is semi-auto only, and the M16 is fully automatic. But in combat situations, soldiers rarely fire on automatic. Few do, for every bullet counts.  Let’s stop calling these rifles “automatic.”  They are weapons created for war – weapons of war to wound and kill others.

Civilians are the Victims of this Gun-Epidemic War

We must heed the words of the onsite physician first responder in Highland Park, Dr. David Baum: 

“The people who were (killed) were blown up by that gunfire … blown up. The horrific scene of some bodies is unspeakable for the average person. I’ve never served, but those are wartime injuries. Those are what are seen in victims of war, not victims at a parade.”

Dr. Roy Guerrero, a healer of children who rushed to Uvalde Memorial Hospital after the massacre of 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Texas, testified during a congressional hearing on gun violence:

“I chose to be a pediatrician. I chose to take care of children. “Keeping them safe from preventable diseases I can do. Keeping them safe from bacteria and brittle bones, I can do. But making sure our children are safe from guns, that’s the job of our politicians and leaders.”

The words of Drs Baum and Guerrero echo a simple truth: our politicians are too removed from the steady death toll and its horror to fulfill their responsibilities in protecting the nation. America is at war within itself. Our political leaders decline to call for a ceasefire despite rising body count.  Let’s call these weapons what they are – weapons of war. 

The AR-15-styled weapon was used in the Sandy Hook massacre, the Aurora theater massacre, the San Bernardino massacre, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, mass murder in Buffalo, NY, Uvalde, Texas, Highland Park, IL and the most recent shootings. What’s the difference between the AR-15 and its military counterpart, the M16?  They are assault weapons that hold a 30-bullet magazine and offer users the same firepower. Their killing capacity, like their power, is equal.

Congress must hold some responsibility for the murders around the nation. If its members cannot agree to protect the nation’s youngest citizens who sit in classrooms eager to learn to read, count, and play team sports, then they can either sharpen their empathy skills and feel people’s pain or consider their time in public office as a failure.

Congress Must See the Wounds of the Dead and Suffering

How can Congress show a higher degree of responsibility – a heightened connection to people’s enduring pain – physical and psychological?  Look and remember!  Each day, they should begin their sessions looking at the actual photos of those shot – the wounded and killed.  They should learn about their injuries, urgent care, and rehabilitation.  Also, each purchase of an AR-15 should require liability insurance.  Where there is no economic impact, death becomes cheap. For almost certain, once insurance companies are paying out claims, something is likely to change.

With less than 5 percent of the world’s population, the US has almost 50 percent of the world’s civilian-owned guns. The US ranks number one in firearms per capita. Our nation also has the highest homicide-by-firearm rate among the world’s most developed nations. Forget the reasons used to explain-away mass shootings; at the scene of each of these horrific acts are often weapons of war.

Americans need patriotic public service advocates in Washington, DC, who place the survival of its citizens at the forefront of their efforts.  Weapons of war, such as AR-15s, have no place in people’s home arsenals. Its bullet’s caliber rips its target apart – going in small and exiting the size of a fist. Members of Congress and their staff must be required – regardless of their political party affiliation– to see the destructive path of an AR-15 caliber bullet after every mass shooting – see the faces and hear the screams of the families impacted until those cries echo in their heads.  They must identify with the continued horror the first responders will likely experience for years.

Years after my military service, I remember the faces of the wounded and dead. I remember stemming blood from their gunshot wounds.  I hear their voices calling for distant mothers or asking if they will die. What was training and instinct – the ability to separate from the swirl around me and perform under fire – now is a movie reel that plays in my head. 

I cherish life, my role as a healer, and now, my responsibilities as a health communicator. But each moment in harm’s way was never about policy; it was about survival. Now, we are all in harm’s way wherever we go. Congress, you must transcend your political differences and imagine the cries of children murdered, calling hopelessly beforehand for their parents unable to reach out. Ban assault weapons. Ban weapons of war.

[This post was originally published on July 22nd and has now been updated to reflect the recent shootings the continued lack of Federal government action to guard its citizens’ safety.]

The post If Deaths of Small Children Do Not Move Us to Action What Will? appeared first on Medika Life.