www.mirrorreview.com November 2018
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Unveiling The Business Stories
The 10 Transformational LEADERS of The Healthcare Industry, 2018
Public Health
Future medical technologies that will change the medical era for better
Leadership Startegies How Leaders could lead an Effective Team
Co-founder, Chairman, CEO & President Sanovas, Inc.
Lawrence Gerrans On A Nobel Life Quest To Obtain Breakthrough Cure For Cancer
EDITOR’S LETTER Cost-effective patient care is on top of the priority in the healthcare industry. With quality, outcomes, and value being the watchwords for healthcare in the 21st century, healthcare providers around the globe are looking for innovative and cost-effective ways to deliver patient-centered, technology-enabled “smart” healthcare, both inside and outside hospital walls. Keeping the cost-effective healthcare service providers in mind, the team of Mirror Review welcomes you to the brand new edition of our magazine,“The 10 Transformational Leaders Of The Healthcare Industry, 2018 (Vol II).” We have featured the most vibrant personalities who are offering the advanced healthcare services powered by latest innovations. On the cover, we have idealistic, fascinating, and highly experienced Founder, President, and CEO of Sanovas, Lawrence Gerrans. Lawrence began his medical journey as a Total Joint Replacement Specialist for Depuy Orthopedics. Today, as a Founder of Sanovas, Gerrans is leading the next generation of interventional pulmonary science. Effectively serving on the advisory board for the Advanced Medical Technology Association’s (AdvaMed) Emerging Growth Companies Council, Lawrence shares numerous phases of his life with Mirror Review, comprising his choice of the career in the healthcare industry, roles and responsibilities, his journey in the healthcare sector with Sanovas and much more. Swiping the next pages, we have covered exciting offerings from pioneering leaders of the healthcare industry, comprising Ricky Caplin (CEO of The HCI Group), Richard Low (Founder and CEO of Praxis EMR), Christopher Molaro (CEO of NeuroFlow), Bernard Khomenko (Vice President of DataSmart Health Solutions), and Mark Boyce (President, CEO, and Director of Scribe Technology Solutions). We are pleased to share the valuable information from Don Woodlock (Vice President of Intersystems’ Healthshare Business Unit) concerning “Bimodal IT” and Tania Mercado (President and CEO of Phronetik) elaborating the essence of “Genetic Engineering”. Mirror Review feels fortunate to present these prominent healthcare industry leaders and their groundbreaking technological advancements, helping the industry to touch new peak points of success. In each magazine, Mirror Review provides great articles for our precious readers, we have presented an article covering future medical technologies that will change the medical era for better and explained leadership strategies for leaders to lead an effective team. We hope our reader will love this latest magazine, uncovering the great stories of dynamic leaders. Happy reading! Mayur Shewale Assistant Editor
CREDIT PAGE Publisher : Archana Ghule Editor-in-Chief : Vikram Suryawanshi Managing Editor : Anuja Mulmule Assistant Editor : Mayur Shewale Project Manager : Roger Johnson Rohan Yadav Rahul Vishwakarma Art Director : Mark Davis Graphic Designer : Poonam Magdum Sumit Bonage Head of Distribution Aakash Mahajan & Production: Head of Operations: Robert Smith Research Analysts: James Adams Maria Smith David Thomas Advertising: Jacob Eddy
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COVER STORY 08
Lawrence Gerrans:
On A Nobel Life Quest To Obtain Breakthrough Cure For Cancer
EXPERT OPINIONS
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Genetic Engineering: Not Too Far from Science Fiction
Bimodal IT Innovation in the Age of EMRs
ARTICLES
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Leadership Strategies
How Leaders could lead an Effective Team
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Public Health
Future medical technologies that will change the medical era for better
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Bernard Khomenko:
Optimizing Employers’ Healthcare Investment While Giving Employees The Best Coverage Possible
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Christopher Molaro: Spreading Mental Health Awareness with Cloud-based Real-time Solutions
26 Mark D. Boyce: Simplifying Work-Flows and Increasing Physician Productivity Using Scribe's Cloud-Enabled Platform
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Richard Low:
Reducing Medical Charting Time with AI-Powered Praxis EMR
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Ricky Caplin:
Leading the Way in the Digital Transformation of Healthcare Industry
COVER
STORY
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The 10 Transformational LEADERS of The Healthcare Industry, 2018
Lawrence Gerrans Co-founder, Chairman, CEO & President / Sanovas, Inc.
Lawrence Gerrans:
On A Nobel Life Quest To Obtain Breakthrough Cure For Cancer
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awrence Gerrans, Co-founder, Chairman, CEO & President of Sanovas, Inc., is a multi-faceted personality, who began his medical device career as a Total Joint Replacement Specialist for Depuy Orthopaedics (Johnson & Johnson) and further went on to play an active role in the innovation and deployment of MIS techniques, devices and implants for the burgeoning endoscopic market. Lawrence also pioneered the Endo-Suite and Digital Operating Room technologies for Stryker and Smith & Nephew, respectively, and architected one of the first electronic operative notes systems; leading to the rise of electronic medical records. As Cofounder of Sanovas, Lawrence is currently leading the next generation of interventional pulmonary science. To know more about his perspective on the existing healthcare scenario, personal journey, offerings of Sanovas Inc. and his source of inspiration, Mirror Review chats with Lawrence ‘Larry’ Gerrans.
What is the present day scenario of the healthcare industry? To what extent, does the healthcare sector define a nation’s progress and economy? We are witnessing the greatest advances in innovation and in the delivery of care in healthcare in the history of mankind. This is evidenced by the emergence of communications, computing, information technology, the internet, cellular communications and social media in bringing our world together over the past 30 years. In 2000, advanced medical technologies catered to a limited global population of about 750 milllion upper and middle class workers, largely comprised of Americans, Europeans, Canadians, and Japanese. Essentially, Western democracies who understood the correlation between health, wealth and taxation. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), by 2020, the global middle and upper class populations will have mushroomed to more than 3.1 billion people. By 2030, the global middle & upper class will equate to more than 4.9 billion people. Emerging democracies and markets are seeing extraordinary growth in the number of people who can go on the internet, find a “Symptom Checker”, diagnose their disease state, get educated about their health or that of a loved one and find a doctor who can treat them at a price they can afford. Never in the history of mankind has this been possible. As to how we define a nation’s progress or economy? Health is Wealth. There is, without question, a direct correlation between the wealth of a society and the health of its citizens. Healthy citizens are working citizens. Working citizens are tax payers and consumers. This directly translates to the gross domestic product (GDP) of a country, to the
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intelligence and education of its citizens and to the wealth of its society, in general. Tell us about your company and its unique range of services. In the modern era of technology, how Sanovas has adapted to those changes in its working ecosystem? Sanovas is advancing the next generation of minimally invasive medical devices and Interventional Drug Delivery and Precison Medicine therapies to cure cancers and to treat acute and chronic diseases. Sanovas has focused its inspiration on being a company of cures not pills. We are working on definitive solutions that can treat cancers and diseases in one or more treatments over the short term. This is the right approach to both the cost and care paradigms in healthcare. We are developing advanced interventional tools and technologies which are affordable and portable. We believe this is the best approach to reducing the cost burden of acute and chronic diseases on the GDP of nations and to delivering care to these emerging markets and the burgeoning global middle class. It is a disruptive approach that flies in the face of Big Pharma and Big Money. However, it is the right thing for our citizens globally and to the economies of nations. Nobody and no country should carry the cost burden of expensive, long-term medical treatments and the perpetual utilization of drugs and pharmaceuticals that create secondary disease states and that can lead to chronic, degenerative and debilitating health. Our readers would love to know about your personal journey. What attracted you to start a venture in the healthcare sector?
M I love solving problems and helping people. One of the greatest forms of giving is to help someone you do not know and who does not know you. I take great pride in knowing that many of the technologies and surgical procedures I have developed, helped develop and am currently developing are curing people. I have seen the impact of how medicine can change people’s lives. I have personally experienced the impact that a strong knowledge in medicine can have on saving a loved one’s life. I saved my father’s life and am proud that he is still here for us. Nothing is more gratifying in life than to make a vital contribution to the life of another. It takes three miracles to become a saint, not that I am one. However, the aspiration to do saintly things is a higher calling that all should aspire to in life. I am grateful, thankful and feel truly blessed to be able to live my religion in my profession and to know that I serve our God and my fellow man every waking day of my life. This is my humble journey. As a prolific leader of a prominent healthcare company, what role do you play in its operations and growth? The role that I try to play is that of an innovator and problem solver. First, I try to contribute meaningful solutions that lower the cost of care and that expand access to care to more people, globally. Our global population is growing extraordinarily fast. Existing and emerging markets require affordable, portable solutions to treats their citizens efficiently and effectively and to keep them producing for their families and countries. I view my role, primarily, is to create ‘Technologies for the Masses’. Toward that end, we have been extraordinarily tenacious, perseverant and creative. We started Sanovas in the worst economy in modern history. Consequently, I had to create entirely new methods to drive capital formation. The U.S. financial sector has largely abandoned investment in innovation. It is also losing its pioneering leadership in medical innovation because our government and capital markets have grown averse to ‘Development Risk’. Moreover, our regulatory systems have become bloated and expensive. The cost of FDA clearance has exploded by more than 700% on average. The public/private sector partnerships that stimulate capital formation in emerging growth companies has gone missing since the end of the dotcom boom. R&D tax credits and capital gains tax concessions on investment capital have been rolled back. Today, there is no stimulus or reward for innovation capital in America anymore.
The 10 Transformational LEADERS of The Healthcare Industry, 2018
Corporations and high networth individuals no longer support medical innovation in America, which is a real loss, considering how fast the global medical market is growing. As a result, I have had to write legislation, ‘The IPO Pipeline Act of 2018’ and lobby congress for focused stimulus in innovation capital before China completes its takeover of the healthcare sector and the profit potentials ahead. We have a real crisis in government and leadership in this matter. As a result, we have funded Sanovas through the investment support of my personal network of friends and family. We have pioneered ‘Social Finance’ and the use of ’Self Directed IRA Investing’ to build a global company by the people for the people! On one hand, it has been very gratifying to know that we have created great potential to help build and grow my friends and families retirement savings. This has been a pioneering feat and a very important pursuit to restore the ‘Democratization of Capital’. When you stop and realize that the average amount of savings in the U.S. is approximately $13,000 per person, we have a real crisis on our hands with respect to retirement in America. We are walking ourselves into a social welfare state. People should be able to retire with their financial security and dignity intact. That is not the case, or the reality, for Americans right now. Nonetheless, I am excited to be stewarding the promise and the example of the model for how America can invest in medical innovation and save for their retirement. Though, I strongly feel that more stimulus and incentive is needed. We need to bring the Micro and Small Cap market sectors back if we are going to create long term growth, diversity and security in our economy. On the other hand, pioneering this model has been expensive and time consuming to the growth of our business. We have had to run two parallel organizations, concurrently. We have had to run a development operation in parallel to a fundraising operation. This is an uncommon organizational structure. It has required incredible situational awareness and situational agility in management. Moreover, it is tough on both employees and investors. UC Berkeley’s Fung Institute has done a case study on us. Sanovas ‘Social Finance’ model is highly disruptive to the current financial ecosystem. In time, I think we can integrate it constructively. For now, however, we are being seen and treated as a disruptive force to the status quo in institutional finance.
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M How do you tackle professional crisis? My career in Life Science and in the pursuit of a cure for cancer has taught me that cancer is much more than just a physiologic phenomenon. Cancer is an ethereal force. In the Sanovas experience, we have seen it infect shareholders and employees, literally and figuratively. We are just recovering from the loss of one of our best employees due to recurrent breast cancer. She was only 52. It was just tragic to live through her journey. We have seen employees crack under the pressure, and who could not bear the uncertainty, of the ebbs and flows of our fundraising cycles. Professionally, I fight cancer on both plains, daily. I never know what cancer is going to throw at me or my people from one day to the next. Professional and personal adversity is a constant in this life. It has become a life quest. The crisis I face require a resolve and a spirituality that is uncommon to most. I remain positive. Nothing is ever as bad as you think and nothing is ever as great as you think. I never get too high or too low emotionally. Science and medicine require objective, evidence based thoughts and actions. My existence has taught me to be situationally aware and situationally agile. Hindsight is 20/20. I try to be foresighted and to understand the impact of what’s happening now on the future. I also measure everything because if you do not measure, you cannot manage.
The 10 Transformational LEADERS of The Healthcare Industry, 2018
emerged from and survived the economic recession. We have done it through shear determination. You cannot fail, if you do not quit! At our core and in the purest sense, Sanovas is competitively differentiated in that we imagine and we re-invent entire procedures to make them safer and more efficacious and, as related, to be able to make those procedures affordable and portable. The future of medicine is office and field based. That is central to our focus. My future milestones would be regulatory achievement, commercialization and globalization. More importantly, the cure for cancer is our highest priority! On a personal note, who was your source of inspiration during the start of your professional career? Whom would you like to dedicate your success? My High School Algebra Teacher – ‘Super’ Joe Orth. Super Joe was a Jesuit Priest. He lives in a Bird sanctuary and is an American Poet Laureate. He understood life and people in their simplest terms. He mentored and taught me the essence of life’s journey. I dedicate my success to my family and to my friends who believe in me and who care for me in the same way I care for them. The reciprocity of love and devotion is the purest of emotions and I enjoy being in that place.
How does your company stand apart from its competitors? And what are your future milestones for Sanovas? Sanovas is a one-of-a-kind, once in a lifetime, trailblazing company. We have innovated our existence at every turn. Right from intellectual property, to engineering, to finance, to organizational structure, to shareholder value, Sanovas has and is among one of the only company’s that has
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“Only so often in life does the opportunity to leave a footprint on the legacy of mankind come along”
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+1 (850) 564-8517 info@mirrorreview.com www.mirrorreview.com
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The 10 Transformational LEADERS of The Healthcare Industry, 2018
Company Name
Company Info
DataSmart Health Solutions Bernard Khomenko Vice President
DataSmart Health Solutions gives companies a smarter way to provide healthcare coverage through technology and coordinated delivery solutions, providing a clear game plan with managerial oversight. www.datasmarthealthsolutions.com
NeuroFlow Christopher Molaro CEO
NeuroFlow’s suite of tools enables remote monitoring and behavioral health integration across the continuum of care, including psychology, primary care, and pain management settings. www.neuroflowsolution.com
AdviNow Medical James Bates CEO
AdviNow Medical (ANM) is improving the profitability of existing clinics through artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR) enabled automation. www.advinow.com
Sanovas, Inc. Lawrence Gerrans Co-founder, Chairman, CEO & President
Sanovas is redefining intervention with access, imaging, and measurement technologies that enable physicians to perform MORE interventional procedures, in MORE places, MORE affordably. www.sanovas.com
Scribe Technology Solutions Mark Boyce President & CEO
Scribe Technology Solutions is simplifying the medical records with its cloud-based platform, which offers flexibility, control, and productivity to healthcare providers. www.scribe.com
CalmApp Michael Acton Smith OBE and Alex Tew Co-Founders
Calm is the #1 app for mindfulness and meditation – and was recently named Apple’s 2017 App of the Since ancient times, spiritual leaders and monks have been practicing the art of meditation, to attain concentration, a sense of clarity, tranquility and heightened perception. www.calm.com
WorldCare International IncNasser Menhall Founder and CEO
WorldCare International, Inc. (WorldCare) is an e-health services and solutions provider headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts with additional office locations in 30 countries including Canada. www.worldcare.com
RAM Mounts Jeff Carnevali Founder & CEO
RAM® Mounts is a leading manufacturer company, producing rugged and versatile mounting solutions for nearly any application and device – including phones, tablets, cameras, GPS systems, laptops, marine electronics, printers, radios, and much more. www.rammount.com
Praxis Electronic Medical Records Richard Low Founder and CEO
Praxis Electronic Medical Records offers electronic medical record (EMR) software for physicians in the United States, Canada, and globally through resellers.www. praxisemr.com
The HCI Group Ricky Caplin CEO
The HCI Group, recognized as a world leader in healthcare IT consulting is developing a smarter approach to the healthcare IT industry. www.thehcigroup.com
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“We transform the power of big data into superbly-delivered, individualized healthcare.”
Bernard Khomenko CEO / DataSmart Health Solutions
Optimizing Employers’ Healthcare Investment While Giving Employees The Best Coverage Possible.
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mployers currently spend about $1.2 trillion on health benefits across 155 million workers. According to The National Business Group of Health’s annual study, employers rank the cost of specialty pharmaceuticals as the top driver of costincrease. Much of this high cost is due to poor plan management and inefficient resource utilization. Reaching real improvement in health goals, financial and otherwise, has become extremely challenging for fully-insured and self-funded plans. DataSmart Health Solutions gives companies a smarter way to provide healthcare coverage through technology and coordinated delivery solutions, providing a clear game plan with managerial oversight. They have connected analytics with interventions and achieved significant progress in lowering healthcare costs and enhancing medical care. In a special chat with Bernard Khomenko, CEO of DataSmart Health Solutions, Mirror Review asks Bernard about his opinions regarding the present-day healthcare industry scenario. Bernard also opens up
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about the best-in-class services provided by DataSmart Health Solutions. Here are the excerpts. What is the present day scenario of the healthcare industry? Healthcare in America is under scrutiny at every level to squeeze out waste, unnecessary treatments, misdiagnoses, and inefficiency. Quality, outcomes, and value are the buzzwords describing the industry’s direction. As outlays in the U.S.A. for healthcare approach 1/5th of Gross Domestic Product, pressures are mounting to deliver better care at lower cost, and signs of progress are starting to appear. While the total cost is still enormous by global standards, the rate of cost increases is starting to fall. To what extent does the healthcare sector define a nation’s progress and economy? Please elaborate. Economic data shows that healthcare costs have risen
M much faster than disposable income. This means that Americans are literally losing ground as more of their money is withheld to pay for the cost of their healthcare. Some data shows that as the amount of public spending allocated to healthcare increases, the funds available for other purposes, such as education, are squeezed. Mounting costs are most-easily afforded by affluent companies and affluent employees, placing the unemployed and others at risk of not getting top quality, or even essential, care. As long as health costs continue to grow faster than the overall economy, those costs will remain among the highest priorities for the public sector as well as for private businesses. Tell us about your company and its unique range of services. In the modern era of technology, how has DataSmart Health Solutions adapted to those changes in its working ecosystem? Our methodology for delivering affordable, quality healthcare consists of a three-pronged approach: assembling best-in-class providers, incorporating predictive analytics, and instituting individualized professional care. At DataSmart Health Solutions, we start with coordination in mind by orchestrating our carefully-selected platform partners, including CoreSource (TPA), Magellan Rx, and our proprietary technology and analytics. Our analytical platform is driven by the Johns Hopkins Medical School’s ACG system. We have assembled our own benefit platform with national reach, and the solution is efficient for employer plans of all sizes. Once onboard, the plan’s members at greatest risk of emerging health concerns are identified. They are then contacted first by qualified clinical care coordinators who have been authorized to access aggregated claims and non-claims data. What attracted you to start a venture in the healthcare sector? The biggest personal attraction to participate in the creation of DataSmart Health Solutions was a desire to help employers with the rising cost of their health plans. In the recent past, most employers were merely a chorus of healthcare market participants without a strong voice. We observed the prevalent problems in US healthcare and reached the conclusion that there was too much waste and too little coordination. We saw the need and responded. Today, we continue to help employers obtain the best available health coverage for their workforce.
The 10 Transformational LEADERS of The Healthcare Industry, 2018
As a Leader of a prominent healthcare company, what role do you play in its operations and growth? How do you tackle professional crisis? Working long hours is a given in our industry especially when one starts a company. I have the responsibility of ensuring overall enterprise success in a rapidly-changing market. We define success in terms of fulfilling our mission of delivering superior healthcare at lower cost and helping plans achieve their financial goals. Balancing the demands of work, family, and ourselves requires constant attention. I believe in the fact that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Owing to this, in my personal level, I relax through physical exercise, travel, and spend time with family, which helps me to make good decisions for our company. How does your company stand apart from its competitors? What are your future milestones for DataSmart Health Solutions? DataSmart Health Solutions delivers customized health plans to self-funded groups through benefit consultants who are dedicated to bringing true valuebased healthcare to their clients. Our distinctive advantage consists of how we use data, and this advantage visibly manifests itself over time, after a plan is brought onboard. Our team constantly monitors claims and non-claims data. We use our analytics to spot major health problems in advance and make sure that appropriate interventions are initiated at a very early stage. We believe the best way to treat a costly, life-threatening problem is to prevent it in the first place, and our passion is to see that no one does a better job at this than we do. Who was your source of inspiration during the start of your professional career? Whom would you like to dedicate your success? I would like to dedicate my success to my parents and my role model, Atul Gawande, for his role in applying analytics in healthcare. My parents worked to deliver medical care for 30 years in one of the poorest financed health care systems in the world, modern Russia and the old days’ Soviet Union. My parents thought of their work as a service to society first and as a source of income second. Personally, I feel proud to share my success mantra for youngsters, which follows, “Big journeys start with small steps.”
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EXPERT OPINION
Bimodal IT Innovation in the Age of EMRs
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e have reached an important plateau now with the digitization of healthcare. We have adopted EMRs in nearly all hospitals, most clinics and doctor’s offices in most countries around the world. There are some debates as to how much this has impacted patient care. But it has no doubt been a giant stepping stone to better information and workflows in the clinical care process. We are clearly standing on that next stone and ready to move forward. But as EMRs really become the bedrock IT system in the operation of a health system, it has introduced a problem: How do you ensure the reliability, scalability, performance, dependability of your EMR and innovate at the same time? The goals of reliability call for less change ideally – infrequent upgrades, long queues for new interfaces, reluctance to touch the platform with experiments, etc. But this can be a barrier to innovation for an organization that is trying to, for example, push new care models, build out a genomics program, build SMART on FHIR mobile apps and connect them to the EMR, enable big data analytics and machine learning, and engage patients in new high-tech ways. These are areas where we don’t have all the answers to yet, so experimentation is needed. But how and where?
and risk of innovation to a capable side platform. And when workflows need to be impacted, the two platforms can have well-defined interoperability points: an integrated viewer, a pipe into the care giver’s inbox, a view in the patient portal, a notification on a case manager’s mobile device. The danger of not putting in place an innovation platform is we have a risk of drifting into best of breed again – a data warehouse here, an artificial intelligence stack there, a research database over there, a FHIR gateway and app gallery somewhere else. Investing in an innovation platform can empower these innovation teams with clean data, tools, and infrastructure and ultimately speed up innovation.M
Gartner has coined the term “bimodal” as an IT strategy across many industries to balance production with innovation. And nowhere is that needed more than in Health IT today. As EMRs become more central and more important to the today’s success of a health system, we must ensure that they don’t limit tomorrow’s success. The Bimodal IT approach allows our health systems to simultaneously meet the needs of reliability and gradual change with the need for disruption, for new care models, and for applying new technology to take patient care and organization performance to that next stepping stone. I see many health systems adopting a Bimodal IT strategy. They have the EMR, which is the production system, optimized for reliability, well-defined processes, uptime and performance — all hugely important responsibilities. And then, separately, they put in place a system for innovation, one that delivers aggregated patient information for FHIR access, analytics access, extensibility for new kinds of data and care models, machine learning capabilities, etc. This Innovation Platform can supplement the EMR by moving the load
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Don Woodlock Vice President of HealthShare, InterSystems
Christopher Molaro CEO / NeuroFlow
Christopher Molaro:
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Spreading Mental Health Awareness with Cloud-based Real-time Solutions
ental health has been hidden behind a curtain of stigma and discrimination for too long. In fact, mental disorders are very common and widespread. Every year, an estimated 450 million people suffer from some form of mental disorder. A mental illness causes mild to severe disturbances in thoughts or overall behavior, resulting in an inability to cope with life’s ordinary demands and routines. Headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, NeuroFlow is giving hope to the patients having mental health disorder. NeuroFlow’s HIPAAcompliant, cloud-based platform engages patients using evidence-based practices to support their mental health. In an exclusive talk with NeuroFlow CEO, Christopher Molaro, Mirror Review asks him about NeuroFlow’s contribution to the healthcare industry. Christopher also shares his personal journey and experiences that inspired him to establish NeuroFlow. Here are the excerpts. What is the present day scenario of the healthcare industry? To what extent, does the healthcare sector
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define a nation’s progress and economy? We’re seeing signs that the healthcare industry is on the right path. Sure, we hear so much about dysfunction and lack of integration with technology, but many health systems are willing to listen to innovative ideas. That’s really all we can ask. As our technology enhances its capabilities and scales, we will work with some of the industry’s big providers to solve problems related to mental health and the delivery of care. As for the nation’s progress, it’s not solely continent on healthcare. From our vantage point, we see the issues clearly and how to improve the industry. The nation is filled with leaders who are dedicated to “cracking the code” on affordable, technology-enabled solutions. As long as the national budget prioritizes healthcare and allocates money to the right focus areas, the countries will make the necessary improvements. Tell us about your company and its unique range of services. In the modern era of technology, how NeuroFlow has adapted to those changes in its
M working ecosystem? We’re on a mission to build a better standard of care for mental illness. Healthcare professionals are our heroes, and we’re just providing the right tools to make better, more data-driven decisions. NeuroFlow’s platform allows clinical professionals to track, measure, and treat patients suffering from problems like PTSD, stress, and anxiety. With real-time biometric feedback, patients are also able to understand the root cause of behavioral patterns, as they offer up key insights by journaling and recording “homework” assignments beyond a weekly session. Clinical professionals have called it the “more comprehensive technology” in this space to date. We’ve been able to make their jobs more efficient, saving their time and allowing them to see more patients and address issues more accurately. Our readers would like to know about your personal journey. What attracted you to start a venture in the healthcare sector? Serving others and being a part of something bigger than you have always been my motive. That’s what drove me to West Point to earn a degree and fight in the U.S. Army. With a deployment in Iraq, I was able to gain incredible experience leading 40 men and women in battle on foreign soil. It’s something that will always live with me. I was also awakened by the debilitating impact of depression and mental illness. I witnessed soldiers face serious challenges at home, and I knew I had to act. I would earn an MBA from The Wharton School, where NeuroFlow was born through research at the institution’s Neuroscience Department. As a Leader of a prominent healthcare company, what role do you play in its operations and growth? How do you tackle professional crisis? For the first 18 months of the company’s existence, Co-Founder, Adam Pardes and I were the sales team. Along with key angel investor Wayne Tamarelli, we made up the governing body. It was never been easier to get to more than 100 clinics and make a perfect product by improving and evolving it several times. Now, we have reached a point where we have dedicated team members overseeing customer relations and a sales team bringing in new business. As for a professional crisis, we take them very seriously. In the military, you have contingency plans. That’s true in the startup world as well. If we don’t make sales goals, there is criticism. If the product
The 10 Transformational LEADERS of The Healthcare Industry, 2018
doesn’t do what we say it will do, that’s a potential reputational issue. By acting professionally and quickly, Neuroflow has been able to mitigate risk and “swerve” away from major problems. How does your company stand apart from its competitors? What are your future milestones for NeuroFlow? We have been decisive with the product’s initial market-fit, finding the right “champions” and users deploy with. The technology is capable of real-time data profiling, it’s responsive for clinicians, and it serves as a baseline for treatment. Our target is clinical settings, and this is not only an untapped market, but an unmet need for healthcare professionals. Additionally, after participating in the Smart Health Innovation Lab at Penn Medicine Lancaster General, we are compatible with a major health system, integrating with EHRs and working toward reimbursement. Nobody else -- to this point -- has been able to put all of these variables together. We are currently focusing on our next capital raise and rolling out a new product before the end of 2018. Who was your source of inspiration during the start of your professional career? Whom would you like to dedicate your success? Attributing my source of inspiration and whom I owe my success to is an impossible task. In a lot of ways, I have been incredibly lucky to have had those sets of people from my early age and throughout my life. Everyone from teachers to sports coaches, to administrators were truly invested in my success. Of course, my parents and other family members were always key guideposts, but my father was an extraordinary role model for my work ethic and the ability to have grit, patience, and empathy all tied into one effort to successfully achieve goals. I am a huge fan of Louis Pasteur’s quote when he said: “fortune favors the prepared mind.” I think success is a combination of hard work and a component of luck so that hard work can come to fruition. All that said, there is still an incredible amount of work to do before our mission is accomplished, and while I am confident that we are on the right path, I would not define it as successful yet.
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EXPERT OPINION
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enetic engineering is the manipulation of DNA to alter an organisms phenotype in a specific manner. It is also referred to as genetic modification. We are seeing more evidence of genetic engineering across a number of industries; from genetic modification in agriculture to altering cells in order to better fight disease. While there are strong opinions on either side of ethics of genetic engineering, there is no denying the increase in its research and application. In the field of genetic research, it is wise to keep a close eye on CRISPR technology. CRISPR, or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, is considered a key player for editing genomes. CRISPR refers to an enzyme that is capable of cutting strands of DNA, and forms the basis for CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology. The term CRISPR is often used to indicate the systems that can be programmed to manipulate and edit specific genetic code at precise locations, allowing researchers to permanently modify genes in living cells and organisms. CRISPR genome editing allows scientists and researchers to accelerate disease study, including cancer and mental illness. The technology comes from organisms that use CRISPR-RNA and Cas proteins, including Cas9, to fight attacks by viruses and foreign actors. These organisms fight by destroying the DNA of the foreign invader. When these components are moved to other organisms it allows for gene editing.
The 10 Transformational LEADERS of The Healthcare Industry, 2018
embryo, reducing time to modify genes. The widespread use of CRISPR has not come without concerns surrounding the ethics and safety of genetic experimentation. When news erupted about scientists that used CRISPR to engineer human embryos, a heated debate arose over how CRISPR should be used. Concerns range from edited organisms that could potentially disrupt ecosystems, to risky genome editing. The majority of ethical debate relates to genome editing in humans, since changes made would be passed down to future generations. CRISPR is so easy to use the human genome editing no longer requires millions of dollars or years and years of training. As of 2014 about 40 countries discouraged or banned research on germline editing due to ethical and safety concerns. Issues surrounding side effects due to edits in the wrong place, and mosaicism (when some cells carry the edit while others do not) further fuel concerns over safety. While debates continue surrounding the ethical and safety ramifications of genome editing, there is no denying the positive outcomes related to disease elimination and diagnostic possibilities. The ease of gene modification will have life changing implications now and in generations to come.
According to a recent article in Forbes magazine, CRISPR gene editing is revolutionizing medicine by driving nearly all cutting-edge discoveries in biotechnology today. “With CRISPR, the power to edit a living genome like an author edits a book has moved from science fiction to reality,” states Dr. Robert Glatter, emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. CRISPR affordable, quick and easy to use, resulting in its widespread adoption in laboratories around the world. Researchers are using CRISPR to eliminate pathogens, create plants that can withstand harsh environments, and wipe out disease. CRISPR can also be applied directly in
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“We employ technology to simplify the business of medicine, ultimately allowing healthcare organizations to improve productivity, profitability, and patient care.” Mark D. Boyce CEO, President / Scribe
Simplifying Work-Flows and Increasing Physician Productivity Using Scribe’s Cloud-Enabled Platform
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he healthcare industry has seen much disruption over the recent decades. Many external forces are impacting the industry such as governmental requirements, including HIPAA and Meaningful Use, complex requirements from health insurers, rapid and significant changes in technology, and the extensive implementation of EHR/EMRs. Furthermore, the most expensive and highly trained personnel in healthcare institutes are spending far more time performing mundane tasks such as data entry and paperwork, which results in having less time for a faceto-face interaction with their patients, and personal lives. Headquartered in Naples, Florida, Scribe Technology Solutions is simplifying the medical records with its cloud-based platform, which offers flexibility, control, and productivity to healthcare providers. Mirror Review chats with Mark D. Boyce, the President and CEO, of Scribe Technology Solutions. Mark shares his contribution and views towards the healthcare industry. Likewise, Mark points out Scribe’s
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unique range of solutions and how his company stands apart from its counterparts. Here are the excerpts. Tell us about your company and its unique range of services. In the modern era of technology, how has Scribe Technology Solutions adapted to those changes in its working ecosystem? Scribe Technology Solutions is a back-office solutions provider that focuses on the three “Ps” – productivity, profitability, and patient care. Scribe’s innovative cloud-based tools enable providers to simplify their back office, get out from behind computers, dramatically improve productivity and profitability, and quickly and easily analyze both clinical and financial results. Scribe’s cloud-platform allows providers to capture, create, monetize, analyze, communicate, and collaborate on clinical documentation. Our tools are always up to date and accessible from any device, anywhere, anytime. These solutions provide tools to assist providers with patient encounter documentation and cloud-based transcription, billing and denial management, and analytics reports and dashboards. As
M Scribe’s solutions are cloud-based, the tools are always current – health systems and providers do not need to engage IT to help update software. In addition, the solutions work with any EMR/EHR, which is already in use by a practitioner, making it both easier and less costly to implement. Furthermore, Scribe makes use of cloud-based workflow solutions to capture unstructured data. This unstructured data is then broken down into structured discrete information with Scribe’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) system. Once approved by providers, this information is easily translated to the provider’s clinical documentation system. Scribe’s innovative voice recognition technology allows patient encounters to be recorded in a more conversational, detailed way than any other speech recognition technologies. With significant adaptation to the traditional working ecosystem, Scribe has become a fully virtual company. Our entire workforce works remotely, which allows for the opportunity to hire the brightest and best; no matter where they are in the world. What attracted you to start a venture in the healthcare sector? I knew that it was all about the growing data and its effective handling. As the healthcare environment expanded with a greater amount of data being collected but not utilized, it became evident that there was an opportunity to become a change agent. So I decided to use all this data in a positive way to make changes for the better and founded Scribe with this innovative approach. Scribe utilizes this data by incorporating Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing and has the tools to help healthcare providers to have a clearer understanding of their financial well-being and to do a quicker analysis of what is working and what’s not.
The 10 Transformational LEADERS of The Healthcare Industry, 2018
programming for “fun” and remain the strategic product manager driving the product and technical vision for the company. Similarly, it helps me to stay motivated in hard times to tackle challenges more effectively. How does your company stand apart from its competitors? What are your future milestones for Scribe Technology Solutions? Scribe’s size allows for agility and flexibility in adapting to new technologies, ever-changing requirements, and the healthcare environment. Using Scribe, it is easy to personalize the solution as per the client necessities. Scribe’s technical tools provide the ability to work with different IT systems. Interoperability is Scribe’s bread and butter – something that is difficult or impossible for most healthcare solution providers. Scribe’s future milestones are focused on its products and the reach. New products and enhancements include continued improvement for Data Portability and Collaboration and Actionable Data Analytics. Our company is significantly expanding in the United States and has strategic partners around the world. Who was your source of inspiration during the start of your professional career? Whom would you like to dedicate your success? My earliest school teachers are the one to whom I would like to dedicate my success because they always inspired me, helped me develop a love of reading and logical thinking, and skills that have supported me for my entire life. This solid foundation created by them helped me to develop some good skills like agility in problem-solving and curiosity to see what else “might be.”
As a Leader of a prominent healthcare company, what role do you play in its operations and growth? How do you tackle professional crisis? As Scribe has grown and evolved, my focus has shifted from more operational duties to growing the staff to take on those duties. Currently, I spend much time working with potential partners and investors, exploring new opportunities where Scribe could expand with its unique tools, solutions, and employee skills could be utilized in new areas or types of businesses. As a leader of Scribe, I continuously stay involved in occasional technical problem solving, including
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“We envision a healthcare system where doctors are free to practice medicine their own way, the best way they know how, and enable physicians to harness their own experience, education, and intuition, free from restrictive and often medically dangerous template-based systems” Richard Low
CEO & Founder / Praxis Electronic Medical Records
Reducing Medical Charting Time with AI-Powered Praxis EMR
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eatured as the top-ranked organization in a survey of 140 Electronic Health Records systems, Praxis Electronic Medical Records is a California, US-based organization, which offers electronic medical record (EMR) software for physicians in the United States, Canada, and globally through resellers. The experienced Founder and CEO of Praxis EMR, Richard Low has consistently provided unique and essential services to healthcare providers through the Praxis EMR software. Richard pursued degrees in Molecular Biology and History from the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1972, he moved to the Yale University School of Medicine to become a Doctor of Medicine (MD). Richard began his professional life in 1977 by entering the field of Emergency Medicine. He became a member of the American College of Emergency Physicians and
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thereafter directed the Emergency Departments of Valley West Hospital, Hazel Hawkins Hospital, and Santa Cruz Community Hospital in California. In that role, he was in charge of twenty emergency physicians. Richard, through his dedication and passion for Emergency Medicine, started the first Emergency Medicine Locum Tenens in California and worked in many different practices. Meanwhile, he realized the importance of medical charting due to the essence of medical records between physicians and their temporary substitute doctors. However, the charting process was bulky, time-consuming and became a burden for physicians. Consequently, in 1989 Richard established Praxis Electronic Medical Records with the ultimate goal of creating a medical tool to help physicians save valuable time when charting. Praxis developed a unique technology called Concept Processing which learns the
M physician’s personal style of medicine to help them chart instantly. Currently, with over 25 years of development, Praxis has become an award-winning Electronic Healthcare Record (EHR), serving thousands of physicians worldwide. Praxis EMR has implemented an advanced artificial intelligence (AI) engine that has self-learning capabilities and gets smarter and faster as the physician charts in free text. Praxis has no templates, which means practitioners practice medicine in their own way using their own unique style and the way they feel most comfortable. Praxis EMR has been ranked number one in physician user satisfaction surveys due to their focus on clinical usability. Furthermore, the American Academy of Family Physicians’ (AAFP) Family Practice Management Journal (FPM) ranked Praxis EMR the number one EHR by physicians in the last five user satisfaction surveys. The ONC-ATCB certified system, Praxis EMR, is the only software that can automate Meaningful Use to meet quality reporting thresholds. Mirror Review spoke with the Founder and CEO of Praxis EMR, Richard Low to learn more about the current situation facing the healthcare industry and the role Praxis EMR is taking. What is the present-day scenario of the healthcare industry? To what extent, does the healthcare sector define a nation’s progress and economy? The healthcare industry is in crisis because the third parties, who are not directly involved in patients’ care, are positioning themselves in the healthcare field without truly understanding what they are doing. This was done often with the best intentions but has resulted in a dramatic increase in medical costs without a concomitant improvement in the quality of care. Tell us about your company and its range of services. In the modern era of technology, how has Praxis EMR adapted to those changes in its working ecosystem?
The 10 Transformational LEADERS of The Healthcare Industry, 2018
What attracted you to start a venture in the healthcare sector? I am a physician who practiced medicine for 20 years. I saw the documentation problem firsthand and decided to dedicate my life to helping fellow clinicians and their patients. This is what Praxis EMR is all about. As a leader of a prominent healthcare company, what role do you play in its operations and growth? I am the CEO of the company. From the beginning, our team has remained focused on assisting healthcare providers and their staff, which in turn made Praxis EMR a leading EHR service provider in the healthcare industry. How does your company stand apart from its competitors? About 90% of a physician’s time is spent wasted on charting, and Praxis EMR is the only EMR which saves doctors time. Per day, we save doctors around two and half hours and improve the quality of medicine that is rendered. Our unique approach helps us to reduce professional stress and physician burnout caused by other electronic healthcare systems. Who was your source of inspiration during the start of your professional career? Whom would you like to dedicate your success? My source of inspiration is my high school teacher, Arístides Chierico, who later became principal of my high school and Robert Wohl, my college history professor at UCLA, who made me understand that the education is just partly science but mostly humanities. The foundation and the success of Praxis EMR would not have been possible without them.
Praxis EMR was established in 1989 with the goal of saving physicians time when charting. Our templatefree EMR technology based on artificial intelligence and self-learning capabilities enables practitioners to create patient notes in their own words in seconds. We are defining the care of patients from a doctor-centric perspective, which is the only one that makes sense.
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Leadership Strategies
How Leaders could lead an Effective Team
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f you are a team leader, are you aware when was the last time you have one on one conversation with your team members? When you keep lines of communication open, you have more of chance to notice warning signs and opportunities to remedy issues before they come to a head. A leader doesn’t mean that she/he should only lead the team. A good leader will always look in favor of their team and handles the entire situation in an ease way. There are a lot of reasons a person can put himself in a leadership position. A person can be a successful leader not by personal experience. 1. Know yourself and your organization – A successful leader is one that gets other people to do things well, and to enjoy while doing them. They have the ability to positively influence others to action. Great leaders can sense of self strengths and weaknesses, an awareness of their limitations, and a good sense of how to react with others. A good leaders not only lead the team they also work with the team to achieve the target. Employees should feel that the boss or manager is taking their side so that the leader could know their employees well and defined way. The leader and employee engage help the employee as well as leader to better understand each other. 2. Encourage and motivate – Talented employees are a terrible thing to waste. As a leader or boss or manager it may seem like you’re keeping your talented employees engaged with a bunch tasks and responsibilities, but no you are just burdening them with works. A leader should make the working environment encourage and
Appreciate
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M motivated, not just work employees should share and gain knowledge. There are different ways you can keep your employees:Recognition and reward system – Effective recognition always involves verbal or written acknowledgment from the employee’s manager in addition to any physical reward. Frequent feedback – Effective performance feedback should take place every week and there should be interaction with the employee’s manager. Effective feedback focuses on what the employee is doing well and what needs improvement. It is clear and specific and reinforces the actions that the manager wants to see the employee regularly perform. Shared values and guiding principles – Engaged employees succeed in an environment that reinforces their most deeply held values and beliefs. Employees are successful in an organization where his values are given importance. 3. Brainstorm activities – A great leader should keep the moral high of their employees and the environment too. A passionate employee will help in making innovating in the company and driving the company to success. A leader should allow the employees to participate, while taking some important decision. They should keep their unique ideas in front of their leader. It may happen that the unique thought can make a large change in the company. Other than that these employees should be communicated time to time so that their problem can be known to the leader. 4. Mentorship – Mentoring in the workplace also encourages goal setting. Every employees should be mentored doesn’t matter how much experiences he or she has.
The 10 Transformational LEADERS of The Healthcare Industry, 2018
5. Transparency – One of the most crucial factors in building the trust required to lead a team to success is transparency. Sharing the crucial information needed to achieve maximum output is nearly impossible in a siloed, opaque organizational structure. Leaders should be transparent about what their goals are, what their organization’s goals are, and how a leader plan to achieve them. It’s vital that your team knows why their contributions matter, and why they’re doing what they’re doing. Transparency isn’t only going to help your team understand why they’re working for you -- it also provides a tactical element of “how” you’re trying to get the work done. 6. Appreciate – Everyone deserves to be recognized for their contributions. One of the most critical goals a leader should set as a new leader is to recognize and reward great work wherever it happens across the team. Many company leaders are still completely unaware of the importance of employee appreciation is nothing short of mind-boggling. Despite the proven benefits of showing gratitude for your team’s hard work, far too many employees are treated like replaceable robots and exploited for needing a well paying job. Rest assured, these employees spend every day contemplating two things: How much longer they will put up with their bosses How much more work they would get done if their bosses actually gave them the respect they deserve. Grabbing the leadership position can be an extraordinarily challenging, but equally rewarding experience. By giving importance to some key points in mind and developing a few skills, one can dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to gain the trust and esteem of their colleagues as an extraordinary leader. M
Every great leader does something unique in their field, or even in the world. Maybe it’s something big, like inventing a new piece of technology - or maybe it’s something that seems small, like offering flex time to your employees in an industry where that’s difficult. They have qualities like accept the fault, give feedback and are confident. Great leaders know very well how to mentor their employees.
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Ricky Caplin CEO / HCI Group
Ricky Caplin:
A
Leading the Way in the Digital Transformation of Healthcare Industry
ccording to a recent report related to Healthcare IT Consulting Market by Type, the global healthcare IT consulting market is estimated to generate revenue around $67.7 billion by the end of 2024, which was valued at approximately $18.6 billion in 2017 and is growing at a CAGR of around 19.6% between 2018 and 2024. The trends of electronic record maintenance and digital platforms in healthcare industry which allows easy accessibility of data from different platforms in real-time is estimated to accelerate the growth of the healthcare IT consulting market over the estimated time. The increasing utilization of electronic healthcare information exchange in the global market is becoming the prominent driver of the market. The large patient pool across the world is growing at a constant pace and it will be impossible to maintain the handwritten records. On the other hand, lack of trained professionals and quality services is acting as a drawback for the market and affecting the advancement in the long term. However, the exceptional organization, The HCI Group is developing a smarter
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approach to the healthcare IT industry. Founded by the highly experienced entrepreneur, and CEO Ricky Caplin, The HCI Group is recognized as a world leader in healthcare IT consulting. After completing the Masters in Accounting from the University of Florida, Ricky started his career working for a Big 4 accounting firm before making his way into the healthcare IT market. In 2009, Ricky co-founded The HCI Group in Jacksonville, Florida. The CEO of the HCI Group, Ricky shares his views in exclusive communication with Mirror Review. Ricky explains the global healthcare scenario and its impact on the nation’s progress and economy. Along with his views, he also shares the company’s unique range of services which are contributing to the growth of healthcare IT consulting industry. Following are the excerpts by Ricky. What is the present day scenario of the healthcare industry? To what extent, does the healthcare sector define a nation’s progress and economy?
M This question has two drastically different answers when considered on a global and domestic scale. Domestically, the healthcare industry, generally speaking, has reached a point of functionality under meaningful use. In its current state, the United States is well beyond many nation-states around the world, but from an IT implementation/maturity perspective, this industry overall is behind others like banking and telecommunication industry that stand as part of our critical infrastructure as a nation. Globally, the healthcare industry has made leaps and bounds with improvements in clinical practices, technology and pharmaceuticals in the last decade. In the present-day scenario, the healthcare industry continues to grow, sharing best practices beyond borders. The maturity of a nation’s healthcare sector is most definitely a key development indicator. “Progress” and the health of the economy of a nation are implicitly related to the state of the healthcare sector, making it a foundational piece of critical infrastructure for any nation. Tell us about your company and its unique range of services. In the modern era of technology, how The HCI Group has adapted to those changes in its working ecosystem? The HCI Group is a global leader in healthcare technology solutions and consulting. At its inception, HCI found its footing in EHR services and staff augmentation. The HCI Group’s services expanded to include enterprise-wide advisory services, infrastructure management, application development, IT system implementation and training, as well as specialty service lines in integration, testing, go-live, clinical adoption, optimization, clinical transformation, HIMSS EMRAM consulting and cybersecurity. In today’s ever-changing technological landscape, we are always looking for opportunities to stay ahead of the curve. The HCI Group joined forces with a global technology firm, Tech Mahindra in 2017. This has expanded the functional capabilities and bandwidth of our organization to attack the modern era of technology in healthcare and beyond.
The 10 Transformational LEADERS of The Healthcare Industry, 2018
As a Leader of a prominent healthcare company, what role do you play in its operations and growth? How do you tackle the professional crisis? As CEO of the HCI Group, my goal is to provide the most opportunities for our team to improve healthcare through technology. HCI is very entrepreneurial because we hire people who think outside the box. I firmly believe in the idea of surrounding yourself with people who are the best at what they do. This is what we’ve done at HCI and it’s definitely been a huge factor in our growth. Our organization as a whole does our best to adjust to the emergence of crises in the professional world by forecasting these challenges. I press my organization at all levels to think 5-10 years down the road in terms of where we are going, what the advances are, and most importantly, what the challenges or complexities are that those advances or regulatory effects will bring to life. This strategy of looking ahead gives us time to be proactive versus reactive. We continually have a dialogue with our client leaders across the world to understand their views and pain points. How does your company stand apart from its competitors? What are your future milestones for The HCI Group? We are always looking 3, 5, and even 10 years down the road for opportunities to leverage technology to improve care and patient experience. This proactive vision mentality affords us the ability to get ahead while other firms are reacting to change. We’ve also been able to deliver solutions that have the same level of competency as our competitors, but at a lower cost. This allows our clients to shift their focus from simply maintaining their technology, to being truly innovative in their approach. With our continually evolving technologies, we aim to dominate the global healthcare technology solutions and consulting industry.
What attracted you to start a venture in the healthcare sector? I was particularly drawn to the technology sector of healthcare because it has the ability to impact such a large number of lives, especially since technology is easily translated on a global scale to patient care and patient safety. Applying technology in the healthcare sector has the potential to impact people’s lives in a big way, which is something I am very passionate about.
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Public Health
Future medical technologies that will change the medical era for better
F
or hundreds of years, the specialty of medicine has been overwhelmed by symptoms, wounds, or different side effects, felt by the patients or found by the doctors. With inventions such as the magnifying lens, the x-beam, and MRI, the problem-solving strategy in medical has become easier, but with such useful machinery, the procedure to diagnose the disease remained the same. For example, to discover an ailment, physicians initially need to search for the various symptoms, side effects and runnumerous tests on patients. However, these tests are lengthy and timeconsuming, making the entire process troublesome and gruelling. The traditional procedure to deal with the disease might soon come to an end as the medication is becoming a data-based science. Bestowed by fast increments in computer processing and the affiliation of test tubes with microchips, medication is changing the manner of analyzing, and treating a significant number of diseases. New medications, as of now are precisely focused to the molecular fingerprints of particular illnesses. A portion of these medications is even focused on a patient’s exclusive DNA profile. Medication is moving from the instilled presumption that medications and illnesses work the same with the entire human race to the individual human being. This new perspective is opening new paths to healing the similar diseases differently, customized for every single patient. This will result in early diagnostics and better treatment of each and every patient in their early stage of a disease. Following are some of the future medical advancements, which will change the traditional way of medical treatments. 36
I
Cognitive Computing:
n the era of data and information, cognitive computing synthesizes data from various sources, rejects the incompatible data and suggests the best possible answers. Cognitive computing is closely associated with IBM’s cognitive computer system, Watson. Cognitive computers like IBM Watson can examine the 23 million medical papers, medical textbooks to coordinate with the patient’s therapeutic history and recommend the most suitable answer for the specialists to consider. This is a self-learning technology that uses data mining, pattern recognition, and natural language processing to think the way a human brain works. Augmented (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR): The augmented reality devices enable physicians to visualize data while doing diagnostics and treatment procedures to improve safety, work efficiency and to enhance surgical training. The AR system consists of computer processed image data in real-time via dedicated hardware and software. The projections are obtained by using cameras, trackers or projectors. For extra complicated surgeries, the surgical team can take CT, ultrasound and MRI scans to create a super detailed highresolution virtual model of the bodies to identify potential pitfalls and plan how these would be avoided during the surgery. Through the 3D glasses, a physician can walk through the structure. They can peel the parts apart so they can take a closer look at the organs from any viewing angle. Genomics: The principle intention of Genomics is to comprehend the human DNA. Genomics uses the gene interaction (DNA) with a patient’s health. Although greater than 99% of the DNA, sequence are similar from person to person and only the last 1% makes the difference. The investigation of the complex biological details of an individual makes a tailor-made treatment for that particular patient. This customized treatment, specially designed for a single patient will accelerate the rate of recovery for the same. For instance, if there is a family history of serious genetic disorders, then Genomics can tell whether the parents are the carriers or not. It can also signify if someone’s more likely to develop the abnormal condition in later life, even
M if the victim doesn’t have any symptoms today. Robot Assistants: With the expansion of AI and Robotics, Robotics is a progressively growing industry. Researchers suggest that the market for healthcare robots will increase up to $2.8 billion by 2021. Ÿ
Biorobotics: Biologically-inspired robots have greater flexibility and they also possess sensory abilities. They are used to provide assistance related to the state of disease, and progress tracking. Biorobotics include tissue engineering, neural engineering, biomimetics and, BioMEMS.
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Telepresence Robots: Telepresence robots are remote-controlled devices which use a gyroscope and accelerometer for mobility. The robot has a tablet for audio and video communication with a magnetic wide angle lens for a 360o view.
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Surgical Robots: These robots are deployed for complete & complex medical surgeries. The surgical robot system consists of the Vision System, which includes a highdefinition 3D endoscope and a large viewing monitor, the Patientside Cart that contains robotic arms which carry out the surgeon’s commands, and the Surgeon Console, where the surgeon utilizes 3D imagery from the endoscope, as well as hand manipulators with Endowrist which provides 7 degrees of motion unlike 3 degrees of motion of a normal human wrist.
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UV Disinfection Robots: These robots utilize the UV-C light system, with which only 10 minute exposure time can kill 99% of bacteria. They have a built-in collision avoidance system with AMR and sensors for easy movements. They also store relevant data during cleaning, which can be accessed easily from a tablet or touchscreen panel attached to the robot.
The 10 Transformational LEADERS of The Healthcare Industry, 2018
potential that if it succeeds, it can revolutionize the way to detect and cure almost all type of diseases to a huge extent. The particles are engineered so that they get attracted to the infected cells and enable the direct treatment of those cells. This technology reduces damage to the healthy cells, allowing earlier detection of disease. Imagine the HIV virus connected to the cells, removed with the help of nano-robots. Researchers at Georgia State University are currently using nanoparticles that directly target a portion of the influenza virus. Health Scanners: Health scanner is an all-purpose medical device which can identify 13 health conditions (12 diseases, and the absence of disease) in 90 minutes to 24 hours without any additional help from medical professionals. It gauges temperature, heart bea rate, and hemoglobin levels with 99% accuracy. The data can be accessed on the scanner as well as on a smartphone device. With built-in AI, it uses non-invasive sensors to get a baseline health report on the patient, simultaneously comparing information with a medical encyclopedia.
Nanotechnology: Nanotechnology is the application of nanoparticles with size in the range of 0.1nm to 100nm. Nanotechnology in medicine (Nanomedicine), which is under the testing phase, involves the use of manufactured nano-robots to make repairs at the cellular level. This area in medicine possesses a vast
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M Regenerative medicine: From skin replacement to the development of an entirely new organ, regenerative medicine is evolving rapidly. Hassan, a nine-year-old boy is a live example of this evolution. Hassan was born with a rare genetic skin disorder, Epidermolysis bullosa, which causes blistering skin. An Italian scientist, Mechele de Luca found a remarkable breakthrough which could cure Hassan’s disease. Luca and his team grew an entire replacement skin for Hassan in the lab by correcting the defect in his gene called as LAMB3. Bandaged from head to toe, Hassan effectively cured of his severe illness and two years later, like a normal human being, he was able to play football and needed no medication. Anti-aging therapies: Typically, human cells are perishable and can’t everlastingly recreate themselves, as their division has a limit. The maximum number of cell divisions, a cell can undergo is called as the Hayflick limit. With each cell replication, Telomeres, a ribonucleoprotein complex shrink in size, and as a result body gets older. Scientist discovered the mechanism known as Telomerase which is helpful to maintain the telomere structure constant for a longer period of time. Telomerase can be used to immortalize human cells, thereby slowing the shrinking process of Telomeres, which can ultimately slow down the aging process. However, this method is still in the researching phase, and there are other factors also involved, such as glycation, oxidative stress in the aging process. Dr. Rechard Cawthon from the University of Utah stated that if all processes of aging could be eliminated and oxidative stress damage could be repaired, one estimate is people could live 1,000 years. The universal translator: According to a WHO’s report, about 2 billion people worldwide have no access to surgical care. This survey shows the need for physicians worldwide as well as the proper training for each physician. The doctors speak different languages and it’s a difficult task to train when the two doctors cannot understand each other. Dr. Steven Schwaitzberg, MD, Chief of Surgery at the Cambridge Health Alliance has found the solution to this problem, the universal translator. He is working with the IBM Human Ability and Accessibility Center to build a universal translator for surgery. The translator can be used to teach surgeons around the world to perform laparoscopic surgery.
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The 10 Transformational LEADERS of The Healthcare Industry, 2018
Interactive Gaming in healthcare: Interactive Health Games (IHG) are designed in such a way that the users find it more attractive, enjoyable, experimental and challenging, which will further lead to change the patient’s attitude and behavior to improve their health. IHG involves certain goals to be achieved by patients. There is a specialized environment provided for each patient according to their disease. Studies have shown that using interactive health games positively affects the patient and increase their cognitive, physical and social activity. Plenty of puzzles related to human’s mental and physical conditions are yet to be revealed, and the human mind has that potential to discover it. All these technologies in medicine are the examples of exceptional ideas from the human brain itself that came and got implemented in real life. They are utilized somewhere or in a testing phase, and soon they will be evolved as new researches surface the medical world. There will be the long-lasting political, economic, and social consequences due to these technologies, but the right approach and careful handling can make a drastic change in the way medical system works and benefits human life in a positive manner. M
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