A rapid-fire segment highlighting positive developments in digital health. Janae and Megan share insights on recent innovations, successful implementations, and emerging trends that are driving progress in healthcare technology.
Janae Sharp, Founder, The Sharp Index
Megan Antonelli, Chief Executive Officer, HealthIMPACT Live
00:00:00 Intro: Welcome to Digital Health talks. Each week we meet with healthcare leaders making an immeasurable difference in equity, access and quality. Hear about what tech is worth investing in and what isn't as we focus on the innovations that deliver. Join Megan Antonelli, Jenny Sharp and Shahid Shah for a weekly no BS deep dive on what's really making an impact in healthcare.
00:00:30 Megan Antonelli: A saliva test that could cut an endometriosis diagnosis from nine years to a few days. A presidential decree that has just opened every public hospital in Mexico to one hundred and twenty million people, and a phishing test that promised health workers a day off and taught an entire health system a very public lesson about trust. This is Megan Antonelli, CEO of Health Impact Live, and I'm here with my co-host Jenny Sharp, founder of the Sharp Index. And this is Five Good Things, where we take a break from the Doomscroll and talk about what's actually going right in healthcare. Janae we have a good list of things this week. How are you?
00:01:06 Janae Sharp: I'm doing great. How are you?
00:01:08 Megan Antonelli: I'm good. You know.
00:01:10 Janae Sharp: I'm I'm looking forward to talking about good things and not just summer and snacks.
00:01:15 Megan Antonelli: Yes. And the kids being home and not doing their schoolwork. Oh, that's not a good thing. That's not a good thing.
00:01:23 Janae Sharp: I just think maybe we should bring back the eighties summer where we're all riding in the back of our bikes and eating otter pops from our neighbors freezer.
00:01:30 Megan Antonelli: Well, you know what I heard this week? That Chula Vista here in Southern California has all year school.
00:01:37 Janae Sharp: Oh.
00:01:38 Megan Antonelli: Uh. Huh. So I've been looking at houses.
00:01:41 Janae Sharp: I don't hate it.
00:01:43 Megan Antonelli: It's a brilliant idea. But here we are in mid-July. Um, hopefully this will air sometime towards the end of July, but we are recording a little early because we're going to take a little summer vacation. But the amazing thing is we were actually able to find almost five good things that happened in July. One is.
00:02:03 Janae Sharp: Yes.
00:02:03 Megan Antonelli: But that's okay because we got the news this month. So what are you going to do?
00:02:08 Janae Sharp: Right. And let's start with women's health because we always have something about women's health.
00:02:13 Megan Antonelli: Yes. Well, and the good news is quite a few of them this month.
00:02:16 Janae Sharp: And it's from our friends at Sharp Healthcare. And we know that I love Sharp healthcare.
00:02:21 Megan Antonelli: Yes. Well, I got to spend time with quite a few of them this week, actually. I saw Terry Coutts. I saw, uh, Laura Marquez who's over there now. So, um, they're doing great things, but this one, uh, certainly an innovative technology, but outside of their IT department per se, doctor Nolan Barry, who is a breast surgeon with the sharp, steely, uh, hospital or health system as part of Sharp Women's Health, she did the first robotic mastectomy that preserves the nipple sparing mastectomy, uh, in Southern California, which is amazing. The I guess the approach was actually pioneered in, um, at UT southwestern, uh, about beginning of last year and now, um, using the da Vinci SP system through a single armpit incision, they have, um, you know, been able to teach it and get it going elsewhere. Um, I know, I think it was also Atlanticare, uh, has, has done, been able to do them, I'm sure a number of other health systems that didn't fall in my, uh, research and search on this have, but we did see the, the sharp healthcare announcement come out, uh, this month that they did it. So congratulations to them at being the forefront, at the forefront of this.
00:03:38 Janae Sharp: Yes. And I really think I love seeing this, you know, breast cancer surgery has asked women for a long time. Trade your body for your life. And I, I know some people have been sharing their journey with that. And it's great to see these doctors do that. Um, in southwestern, Doctor Nicholas Haddock and Deborah Farr use the da Vinci SP system and with a single armpit incision. Did that care? And there is a bigger story here. You know, when we move this from just a few centers to more, is this going to be like the standard of care? And you know, what would that look like? Is everyone going to have a giant robot?
00:04:21 Megan Antonelli: Yeah. Well, you know, if it's worth it then and it works. And for sure, you know, and I think certainly from a differentiating standpoint, that would be something that people will want. Um, so picking one hospital over another because they have it makes sense to me for sure.
00:04:37 Janae Sharp: Yeah. Better, less invasive care. That's what patients want. And you know, because it we are going to talk about more things with women's care. Right?
00:04:48 Megan Antonelli: Yeah. Well another thing we had this month come out was the non-invasive endometriosis tests. Uh, saliva test I think is, you know, um, came out of, uh, Yuki, uh, UK nice issued the draft guidance on two non-invasive test. The endo test and endo shore around, you know, being able to identify that. And that's something that affects millions of women. Long diagnosis. We hear about that often.
00:05:17 Janae Sharp: It's crazy right? So the average endometriosis diagnosis takes nine years and four months in the UK. And if you're from a diverse background that that is even longer to eleven years. Yeah. So most people, when they get their diagnosis, they have suffered for years. And it's amazing that they have a test like this.
00:05:40 Megan Antonelli: And diagnosis is, you know, is actually completely is invasive. And they have to go inside. They have, you know, they, they basically do a full biopsy to figure it out. Right? So, um, this is an amazing development, uh, to be studying and to making sure that this, this works for sure.
00:05:58 Janae Sharp: Right. And doctor Gail Buzbee. Buzbee I don't know say her name, but I like what she says like too many patients, are spending too many years being told that just being in horrible pain is normal and it's not normal. Also, threads and Twitter are going insane because they're like, oh, we're doing this because men get it, you know? We won't talk about that as a good thing. We're just going to focus on the fact that they're doing this. Like finally.
00:06:30 Megan Antonelli: Well, you know, I mean, the good news to hear is that it was actually in people magazine. So this is, you know, getting publicity and getting attention across the board. I know, um, our longevity man, Brian Johnson just got his a diagnosis, you know, of a long time stomach issue that he's had. And I believe just days or weeks later he announced that his wife actually was diagnosed with endometriosis. And I know he's sort of at the cutting edge of diagnosis and tests. I don't know the details, but I do wonder, um, if she was able to, to kind of take advantage of any of these things, um, in that.
00:07:05 Janae Sharp: Um, yeah, maybe we'll hear more about that story. Just like more attention from people towards like getting care and getting better. Diagnosis is good, even if they're weird.
00:07:15 Megan Antonelli: Because attention leads to other good things like funding, which is our third good thing.
00:07:21 Janae Sharp: Let's talk about it.
00:07:23 Megan Antonelli: Which is that, uh, Claire Health raised eleven point six million dollars for their continuous hormone monitoring. I think it's a wristband, uh, type, uh, uh, device. And, uh, so exciting to see that come through. Can't, can't wait to get one. Um, and that is.
00:07:43 Janae Sharp: Are you going to do it? You're going to get one. This is a wrist wearable for tracking estrogen, progesterone, LH, FSH, and PDG in real time.
00:07:53 Megan Antonelli: Yeah.
00:07:53 Janae Sharp: And Anne Wojcicki is involved.
00:07:55 Megan Antonelli: I would slap it on right now, although my husband would probably tell me I don't need a device to tell me when my when I'm having problems. But anyway, uh.
00:08:04 Janae Sharp: They can know. You can know now what flavor of problems. It is. So next time you're feeling emotional and someone wants to make some dumb comment, you can be like, actually, it's not from that, right?
00:08:16 Megan Antonelli: Maybe we need a sign above the head that it can go on my wrist, but if it actually were to just walk around with that, that might. That's the next, the next level of device, the hat, maybe with some red lights underneath it to help us.
00:08:28 Janae Sharp: I don't know necessarily if that's like what I would do with it. But you know, I think I think it's great news, you know.
00:08:38 Megan Antonelli: So I guess it's are we, are we developing it for women or are we developing it for men? That said, it's great news. Congratulations to Claire Health. And, uh, you know, uh, Vinod Khosla led the LED that round. So that's a, you know, the great, uh, VC firm for them to be involved with. So excited to, uh, maybe interview them and get them on the show sometime soon because that's.
00:09:05 Janae Sharp: Yeah. So, and just let us know when you have time for sure. All right. Let's talk about the next good thing.
00:09:12 Megan Antonelli: So number four, which actually announced around April, but it came in my feed in July. So I don't know mine too.
00:09:21 Janae Sharp: Like, so literally, it just happened guys.
00:09:24 Megan Antonelli: Yep. So we're just going to pretend it happened in July because we didn't talk about it. But Mexico has decreed universal health care access. Um, their president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has signed in April the sort of overarching, uh, path to, to that, which is a, you know, it's a phased program as it would be, you know, because it's complicated. But phase one comes into play January twenty twenty seven, prioritizing kind of emergencies and high risk pregnancy and heart attacks and strokes. Um, and then it kind of, you know, every six months goes into another level. So that's, um, you know, ending in universal health care. So it's interesting and exciting to see, uh, a Country kind of willing to sort of take that.
00:10:11 Janae Sharp: Yeah, willing to go that direction. And there are so many challenges.
00:10:15 Break: You're listening to digital health talks. When we return, we'll continue our discussion on how technology is revolutionizing healthcare delivery. Stay with us to hear more insights on creating sustainable, patient centered digital health solutions.
00:10:33 Janae Sharp: I do think we look at this tiered system, you know, with employer led health insurance and who pays for things. There are so many debates out there about who should be paying. And I think some of these the stories changed with the pandemic, when so many people qualified or so many jobs kind of turned over. Like every country had to look at it differently. And I see that in the US. But also that's great like that people have health care, you know, outcomes and feasibility. That's a future problem, right? But right now, let's celebrate.
00:11:15 Megan Antonelli: Yes. Well, and I just, you know, I just interviewed, uh, Scott Raymond, an old friend, good friend from, you know, he was here at Memorial. He's been at Centura most recently in Nebraska, which he informed me isn't as rural as I think, but sure, I'll take his word for it. But it is flyover country and that level of care and what can happen, you know, and he mentions like the example of someone has an acute appendicitis and has to travel two and a half hours to get to, you know, any kind of care, you know, our technology, you know, technology, digital health isn't going to help that they're not, you know, I mean, short of having a da Vinci robot in every town, you know, we're not going to be able to, you know, manage that. And I think the, you know, and the only and the reason that those it's financially not feasible to provide that access because of the, the way the payment models work, right? And it's just the math doesn't math. And until we fix that, all of these rural health care initiatives and programs, they might fix some things, but they're not going to fix the core problem of acute care that happens, you know, when you have so much distance between providers. And I think that's something in Mexico that is all too prevalent. And, uh, you know, she decided to take it head on. So it'll be really, you know, it'll be.
00:12:38 Janae Sharp: There has been some criticism about feasibility in rural care. That's, that's going to be a challenge. And I'm really looking forward to maybe next month. And for our audience, we are looking for more good things in rural care. We want to be able to share like what's actually working because there are people facing real problems of access, um, huge issues. So what, what's working and what's good news there. Let's talk about our last good thing that was hiding inside a bad email. It's an interesting story.
00:13:11 Megan Antonelli: This is a bad thing. Coach is a good thing.
00:13:13 Janae Sharp: This could be. This could be on the Pitt next season.
00:13:16 Megan Antonelli: Okay. Well speaking of that so we you know, no shock there. I had a conversation about the Pitt this week, but it was at um the Penn conference, which was the first time I've been able to go to one of their shows. They, they launched here about three years ago, came over from London, uh, and, and launched in Miami. They've held it in San Diego twice. And, uh, I got to go to it this week. And one of the sessions was about security. Our friend Mike mosquito was the moderator and Sharp Health, their CISO, Chase, get his last name. Chase, uh, was on there along with Rachel Hill from Mississippi and, um, a gentleman from Philips. And I think the thing is, is that it was about security. It was about all the big themes that we kind of talk about. Uh, they talked a lot about kind of what's what's happening with the phishing tests and how those are evolving because, you know, as Mike said, they don't there's no typos in their in their emails anymore. The tails aren't there anymore.
00:14:20 Janae Sharp: They can actually now write an email. Let's talk about what happened with this test because it's amazing. This is an amazing story.
00:14:28 Megan Antonelli: The reality is that now they just they use their LMS and they can write these, these, uh, emails and they're just as good. But spotting them is becoming harder and harder. So this health system over in Newfoundland.
00:14:43 Janae Sharp: Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services, they sent them the the meanest email. They said.
00:14:50 Megan Antonelli: They did. I mean, what a I mean, rough. They sent an email telling them that they were going to get a day off for good work.
00:14:59 Janae Sharp: And there's your phishing test. And most people were like, there is no way this is real. But some people, and we'll call them the optimists. We're like, nice.
00:15:12 Megan Antonelli: Right.
00:15:13 Speaker 4: I'll take it.
00:15:14 Megan Antonelli: So in terms of the fallout, while they may have also exposed a bunch of very optimistic employees who.
00:15:24 Janae Sharp: Yeah. Give those people a raise because they believed in you. Right.
00:15:29 Megan Antonelli: I mean, the organizational behavior where, where some thought they should have known it was fake because their employer should never do, would never do that to the other way of saying this kind of like fake kindness in a, in the context of a terrible, you know, in a world where decisions are burnt out and there's.
00:15:48 Janae Sharp: And keep in mind that these are people who are also. They just worked on a six hundred, six hundred million dollar EHR implementation. They're like, let's test their cybersecurity knowledge. And this is how they did it. And you know what, I'm not saying that technologists need to talk to people more, but they probably do.
00:16:06 Speaker 5: It was a little.
00:16:07 Megan Antonelli: Tone deaf, I would say. Uh, so in that.
00:16:10 Janae Sharp: Like, oops.
00:16:10 Megan Antonelli: My.
00:16:10 Janae Sharp: Bad.
00:16:11 Megan Antonelli: Their interim CEO, Ron Johnson. I don't know whether he's going to make.
00:16:15 Janae Sharp: Is that even a real name? This this whole story is a sitcom.
00:16:22 Megan Antonelli: He, uh, he had to write a letter of apology because, uh.
00:16:26 Janae Sharp: No, he should have given them a day off. That's my apology I want. So, I mean, it's good news that, like.
00:16:35 Megan Antonelli: You know.
00:16:36 Janae Sharp: I'm glad he apologized. That's the good news in my mind that I'm taking away, you know.
00:16:40 Megan Antonelli: Like, yes, the good news.
00:16:42 Janae Sharp: Is notice.
00:16:43 Megan Antonelli: The the good news is it wasn't okay that that that was a lesson learned in that testing doing. The other good news is that some of those.
00:16:52 Janae Sharp: People, some of those people really believed in them. That's good news. You just found a new way to identify employees that like you, you crush their dreams in the process. So maybe work on it, but you know, yeah, yeah.
00:17:08 Megan Antonelli: So, you know, and that, that, that was the lesson. But, but, you know, it really, uh, it, the conversation in general at HP around the security conversation, you know, conversation was, you know, the security discussion is getting really interesting now because of the agents sort of fighting the agents. And I think, you know what the CEO, the c I c I c o c I o CISO what?
00:17:34 Janae Sharp: All of them? Yeah. Right.
00:17:35 Speaker 5: What the CISO of.
00:17:37 Megan Antonelli: Sharp said was, you know, we are in a place where, you know, you want to believe that the, the AI and the tech is going to outperform the bad actors. But unfortunately, the bad actors are very motivated and well funded.
00:17:57 Janae Sharp: So, right.
00:17:59 Megan Antonelli: There's no end to how much vigilance and how much work still needs to be done on the security side. Uh, so it was, but it was a really, it was a really good conversation. And also to have kind of sharp, which is San Diego juxtaposed with Mississippi in terms of the, you know, kind of how culturally and how you educate your employees. And all of that was, um, was a really great, great conversation because there was a lot of lines of similarity, but also, um, you know, some differences there. But yeah.
00:18:31 Janae Sharp: And I think some of those conversations that, that raised, that's, that's our good thing. That's our, our takeaway that we need to have more conversations for sure.
00:18:40 Megan Antonelli: Well, it was quite a diverse good things for July. Um, and I hope you're all having a wonderful summer and we're excited to, you know, take a couple days off ourselves and, uh, hopefully do some good things.
00:18:55 Janae Sharp: Yes. And make sure to, to share with us, tag us in your posts with five good things.
00:19:00 Megan Antonelli: Yes. This is Megan Antonelli and I'm here with Jenny Sharp. And let's keep fixing health care one conversation at a time.
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