Empowered Patient Podcast

Dr. Ping Cao, Co-Founder and CEO of BridGene Biosciences, has developed IMTAC, a platform that can identify molecule ligands for hard-to-drug targets. This platform allows for proteome-wide screening for drug candidates from a small molecule library and has identified over 4,000 protein targets providing numerous opportunities for drug development. The lead candidate, BGI-9004, is a TEAD inhibitor of multiple cancers. BridGene is also in partnership with Takeda to focus on neurodegenerative disorders.

Ping explains, "For small molecule discovery, the major challenge right now is the limited druggable space. Human proteome consists of over 20,000 proteins, and approximately 12,000 of them have been confirmed to play a role in human diseases and may become targets for precision therapy."

"However, statistics analysis shows drugs so far approved by the FDA only target less than 10% of proteins. In other words, most potential drug targets within human proteome do not have associated drugs. Those targets are called hard-to-drug targets due to their biological or structural characteristics. Also, there is less understanding of their mechanism, making them undruggable using traditional methods."

"The significance of proteome-wide screening is that it addresses two kinds of major challenges of drug discovery. One is that some protein drugs contain shadow-binding pockets. The second one is some protein drugs only form transient and temporary binding pockets in live cell environments. For these two types of drugs, by using the chemical proteome approach, we can identify ligands. The process is basically like BridGene's process called IMTAC. They consist of three main components."

#BridGeneBio #UndruggableTargets #SmallMolecules #Takeda

BridGenebio.com

Listen to the podcast here

Dr. Ping Cao, Co-Founder and CEO of BridGene Biosciences, has developed IMTAC, a platform that can identify molecule ligands for hard-to-drug targets. This platform allows for proteome-wide screening for drug candidates from a small molecule library and has identified over 4,000 protein targets providing numerous opportunities for drug development. The lead candidate, BGI-9004, is a TEAD inhibitor of multiple cancers. BridGene is also in partnership with Takeda to focus on neurodegenerative disorders.

Ping explains, "For small molecule discovery, the major challenge right now is the limited druggable space. Human proteome consists of over 20,000 proteins, and approximately 12,000 of them have been confirmed to play a role in human diseases and may become targets for precision therapy."

"However, statistics analysis shows drugs so far approved by the FDA only target less than 10% of proteins. In other words, most potential drug targets within human proteome do not have associated drugs. Those targets are called hard-to-drug targets due to their biological or structural characteristics. Also, there is less understanding of their mechanism, making them undruggable using traditional methods."

"The significance of proteome-wide screening is that it addresses two kinds of major challenges of drug discovery. One is that some protein drugs contain shadow-binding pockets. The second one is some protein drugs only form transient and temporary binding pockets in live cell environments. For these two types of drugs, by using the chemical proteome approach, we can identify ligands. The process is basically like BridGene's process called IMTAC. They consist of three main components."

#BridGeneBio #UndruggableTargets #SmallMolecules #Takeda

BridGenebio.com

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Bronwyn Spira, Co-Founder, and CEO at Force Therapeutics, provides a comprehensive digital platform connecting patients to their rehab and recovery care team for musculoskeletal therapy. The platform includes personalized treatment plans and allows continuous monitoring and real-time intervention to help reduce readmissions and complications. While patients have come to expect a digital alternative, providers have become more comfortable with digital tools, recognizing their ability to engage with more patients and reduce burnout by automating repetitive tasks.

Bronwyn explains, "Force is a comprehensive tool that patients access during their recovery to get all their personalized treatment plans, which might include exercises, education, videos, outcome forms, and anything they need when they're not in the presence of their providers. The platform is almost like an extension of the patient's care team, allowing patients to provide feedback that enables real-time intervention. We've seen that this feedback loop helps reduce readmissions, lowers the cost of care, and reduces complications."

"We partner very closely with hospitals, health systems, ASCs, and large private practices to support their internal care teams of orthopedic surgeons, nurses, physical therapists, and navigators around that musculoskeletal patient's journey."

"Patients not only embrace the experience but are starting to expect it. So this is certainly a sea change and a commentary on where we are in the world today. When we started Force Therapeutics, patients started to do their travel planning, banking, and even dating online. And now it's become the norm that everything you do should have a digital component. And so patients are very engaged. Funnily enough, the stakeholder that has made the biggest turnaround in accepting digital tools is the provider side of the house. Originally, a lot of providers were very resistant and said, "Patients won't do this. We want as much care as possible to be in person."

#ForceTherapeutics #MSK #PhysicalTherapy #DigitalHealth #DigitalTherapy

forcetherapeutics.com

Listen to the podcast here

Bronwyn Spira, Co-Founder, and CEO at Force Therapeutics, provides a comprehensive digital platform connecting patients to their rehab and recovery care team for musculoskeletal therapy. The platform includes personalized treatment plans and allows continuous monitoring and real-time intervention to help reduce readmissions and complications. While patients have come to expect a digital alternative, providers have become more comfortable with digital tools, recognizing their ability to engage with more patients and reduce burnout by automating repetitive tasks.

Bronwyn explains, "Force is a comprehensive tool that patients access during their recovery to get all their personalized treatment plans, which might include exercises, education, videos, outcome forms, and anything they need when they're not in the presence of their providers. The platform is almost like an extension of the patient's care team, allowing patients to provide feedback that enables real-time intervention. We've seen that this feedback loop helps reduce readmissions, lowers the cost of care, and reduces complications."

"We partner very closely with hospitals, health systems, ASCs, and large private practices to support their internal care teams of orthopedic surgeons, nurses, physical therapists, and navigators around that musculoskeletal patient's journey."

"Patients not only embrace the experience but are starting to expect it. So this is certainly a sea change and a commentary on where we are in the world today. When we started Force Therapeutics, patients started to do their travel planning, banking, and even dating online. And now it's become the norm that everything you do should have a digital component. And so patients are very engaged. Funnily enough, the stakeholder that has made the biggest turnaround in accepting digital tools is the provider side of the house. Originally, a lot of providers were very resistant and said, "Patients won't do this. We want as much care as possible to be in person."

#ForceTherapeutics #MSK #PhysicalTherapy #DigitalHealth #DigitalTherapy

forcetherapeutics.com

Download the transcript here

Dr. Michael Gao, Co-Founder and CEO of SmarterDx, discusses the challenges hospitals face in getting paid for their services. He explains that the revenue cycle, which involves generating accurate receipts for patient care, is a complex process that requires manual work from healthcare professionals. SmarterDx is streamlining the process by using AI to scan and analyze medical data, allowing professionals to focus on making judgments based on clinically validated data to report and bill more accurately for actions taken.

Michael explains, "One of the biggest challenges in the healthcare environment today is that hospitals have a hard time getting paid to provide the services they do for sick patients. And we've all seen through COVID, and certainly, in modern-day, these organizations are operating off of 1% operating margins or even losing money year over year. I think, very fundamentally, the problem that we're trying to solve is how do we make sure that the hospital can tell a complete patient story and represent all the care they provided so that they can be paid fairly for the care they provided."

"Revenue cycle is very complicated, but at the end of the day, it's just about generating a receipt for what happened during that patient's visit to the hospital. And that receipt, we think of it as a bill, is used by insurance companies to sort of size the payment. It's also used by CMS, US News and World Report, and other organizations to figure out what happens so they can grade the quality of the care provided. From our vantage point of the revenue cycle, there are a lot of different names for different steps of the revenue cycle, but at the end of the day, it's just about generating an accurate receipt. Our company's North Star is to help revenue cycle leaders ensure that the items on that receipt are as accurate and complete as possible."

"If I were to outline a bunch of steps within the revenue cycle, there are two steps today that people do in the middle. One is clinical documentation improvement, and the other is medical coding. And for your listeners on the call who maybe haven't been a documentation improvement nurse themselves, it's an incredibly difficult job. What they're doing is opening up charts, looking through thousands of labs, medications, vital signs, notes, radiology reports, pathology reports, and they're looking for the absence of something."

#SmarterDx #HealthcareAI #RCM #ClinicalAI #Hospitals #RevenueCycle

smarterdx.com

Listen to the podcast here

Dr. Michael Gao, Co-Founder and CEO of SmarterDx, discusses the challenges hospitals face in getting paid for their services. He explains that the revenue cycle, which involves generating accurate receipts for patient care, is a complex process that requires manual work from healthcare professionals. SmarterDx is streamlining the process by using AI to scan and analyze medical data, allowing professionals to focus on making judgments based on clinically validated data to report and bill more accurately for actions taken.

Michael explains, "One of the biggest challenges in the healthcare environment today is that hospitals have a hard time getting paid to provide the services they do for sick patients. And we've all seen through COVID, and certainly, in modern-day, these organizations are operating off of 1% operating margins or even losing money year over year. I think, very fundamentally, the problem that we're trying to solve is how do we make sure that the hospital can tell a complete patient story and represent all the care they provided so that they can be paid fairly for the care they provided."

"Revenue cycle is very complicated, but at the end of the day, it's just about generating a receipt for what happened during that patient's visit to the hospital. And that receipt, we think of it as a bill, is used by insurance companies to sort of size the payment. It's also used by CMS, US News and World Report, and other organizations to figure out what happens so they can grade the quality of the care provided. From our vantage point of the revenue cycle, there are a lot of different names for different steps of the revenue cycle, but at the end of the day, it's just about generating an accurate receipt. Our company's North Star is to help revenue cycle leaders ensure that the items on that receipt are as accurate and complete as possible."

"If I were to outline a bunch of steps within the revenue cycle, there are two steps today that people do in the middle. One is clinical documentation improvement, and the other is medical coding. And for your listeners on the call who maybe haven't been a documentation improvement nurse themselves, it's an incredibly difficult job. What they're doing is opening up charts, looking through thousands of labs, medications, vital signs, notes, radiology reports, pathology reports, and they're looking for the absence of something."

#SmarterDx #HealthcareAI #RCM #ClinicalAI #Hospitals #RevenueCycle

smarterdx.com

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Karen Schatten, the Associate Director of the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons, is encouraging consideration of alternative paths for continuous certification for board-certified physicians and surgeons. Since 2000, a bureaucratic process has been mandated for this ongoing education. NSPAS aims to modernize and disrupt this process by offering an alternative path for continuing education that addresses physician burnout and provides relevant training to stay current in their medical specialties.

Karen explains, "The reason why the bureaucracy persists is, despite it not being really proven and physicians really having to collectively protest it, that requirement we now know after studying it for a number of years is it is actually more expensive. It's more burdensome. It creates a lot of irrelevant administrative burdens. Those forced programs are not a great match for physicians and what they do in day-to-day practice. It's often not clinically relevant and plays a critical role in exacerbating physician burnout and loss. So, we set out to change this sort of old-school thinking. That's what we exist to do, to provide that competition and choice in that continuing certification market for physicians."

"It's the problem of the monopoly on continuous certification. So, the same organization that provides the initial board certification exams also reports to the entire world who is board certified. The problem has come into play for physicians and worsened access to care issues because if physicians refuse their part two or continuing certifications, the organization has, since about 2012, listed physicians as not certified in these databases."

"What's important to NBPAS is we've concerned ourselves with putting forth what we know works and what is evidence-based. The continuing education program that has a monopoly control over physician's livelihood has not been proven to impact patient outcomes and physician-led care. So what we've tried to do and how we've tried to forward our continuing certification pathway is to get accepted by all the major national accrediting bodies in the United States."

#NBPAS #PhysicianShortage #PhysicianBurnout #BoardCertification #MedicalCredentialing #Healthcare

NBPAS.org

Listen to the podcast here

Karen Schatten, the Associate Director of the National Board of Physicians and Surgeons, is encouraging consideration of alternative paths for continuous certification for board-certified physicians and surgeons. Since 2000, a bureaucratic process has been mandated for this ongoing education. NSPAS aims to modernize and disrupt this process by offering an alternative path for continuing education that addresses physician burnout and provides relevant training to stay current in their medical specialties.

Karen explains, "The reason why the bureaucracy persists is, despite it not being really proven and physicians really having to collectively protest it, that requirement we now know after studying it for a number of years is it is actually more expensive. It's more burdensome. It creates a lot of irrelevant administrative burdens. Those forced programs are not a great match for physicians and what they do in day-to-day practice. It's often not clinically relevant and plays a critical role in exacerbating physician burnout and loss. So, we set out to change this sort of old-school thinking. That's what we exist to do, to provide that competition and choice in that continuing certification market for physicians."

"It's the problem of the monopoly on continuous certification. So, the same organization that provides the initial board certification exams also reports to the entire world who is board certified. The problem has come into play for physicians and worsened access to care issues because if physicians refuse their part two or continuing certifications, the organization has, since about 2012, listed physicians as not certified in these databases."

"What's important to NBPAS is we've concerned ourselves with putting forth what we know works and what is evidence-based. The continuing education program that has a monopoly control over physician's livelihood has not been proven to impact patient outcomes and physician-led care. So what we've tried to do and how we've tried to forward our continuing certification pathway is to get accepted by all the major national accrediting bodies in the United States."

#NBPAS #PhysicianShortage #PhysicianBurnout #BoardCertification #MedicalCredentialing #Healthcare

NBPAS.org

Download the transcript here

Phoebe Souza is the clinical lead for mental health at OncoHealth, a digital telehealth platform focusing on personalized oncology-specific support for patients with cancer and their caregivers. Advanced care planning is how individuals can communicate their wishes for care that aligns with their values. Phoebe highlights the role of healthcare providers, including oncologists, in initiating conversations about advanced directives to ensure patients understand their options. She emphasizes all individuals over 18 should document their desires for medical care in the event they are unable to do so themselves.

Phoebe explains, "Advanced care planning, also called ACP, is an umbrella term that includes both communication skills, so conversations with loved ones and a person's medical team, as well as completing documents such as an advanced directive, and that helps a person make plans about their future healthcare. An advanced directive and a care plan serve as a roadmap for medical providers and loved ones to ensure that an individual's wishes are honored if they are seriously ill and unable to communicate what they would want in terms of care."

"I think of the ACP as being appropriate for any person with any health status over the age of 18, and as humans, we live with vulnerability. It's great to be proactive about writing down and communicating the type of care that you would want, and you would not want in certain situations. It aligns with our values, and it's an act of care and a gift for those who would be making those decisions for us. Specifically, for individuals living with a serious illness, it's critical to think about what type of care aligns with what they imagine for them and aligns with their quality-of-life goals."

"OncoHealth, more broadly, is supporting different ways to support individuals and families who are living with both the emotional and physical symptoms of cancer. One aspect of that is working to empower individuals and families to think about how to advocate for their needs and their care while receiving cancer treatment. We offer, specifically looking at our mental health team, opportunities to work closely with a mental health therapist to explore the emotional side and empower those skills for communicating their needs to their medical team."

#OncoHealth #Healthcare #AdvancedCarePlanning #ACP #PatientEmpowerment #PatientCare #MentalHealth #Oncology #Cancer

oncohealth.us

Listen to the podcast here

Phoebe Souza is the clinical lead for mental health at OncoHealth, a digital telehealth platform focusing on personalized oncology-specific support for patients with cancer and their caregivers. Advanced care planning is how individuals can communicate their wishes for care that aligns with their values. Phoebe highlights the role of healthcare providers, including oncologists, in initiating conversations about advanced directives to ensure patients understand their options. She emphasizes all individuals over 18 should document their desires for medical care in the event they are unable to do so themselves.

Phoebe explains, "Advanced care planning, also called ACP, is an umbrella term that includes both communication skills, so conversations with loved ones and a person's medical team, as well as completing documents such as an advanced directive, and that helps a person make plans about their future healthcare. An advanced directive and a care plan serve as a roadmap for medical providers and loved ones to ensure that an individual's wishes are honored if they are seriously ill and unable to communicate what they would want in terms of care."

"I think of the ACP as being appropriate for any person with any health status over the age of 18, and as humans, we live with vulnerability. It's great to be proactive about writing down and communicating the type of care that you would want, and you would not want in certain situations. It aligns with our values, and it's an act of care and a gift for those who would be making those decisions for us. Specifically, for individuals living with a serious illness, it's critical to think about what type of care aligns with what they imagine for them and aligns with their quality-of-life goals."

"OncoHealth, more broadly, is supporting different ways to support individuals and families who are living with both the emotional and physical symptoms of cancer. One aspect of that is working to empower individuals and families to think about how to advocate for their needs and their care while receiving cancer treatment. We offer, specifically looking at our mental health team, opportunities to work closely with a mental health therapist to explore the emotional side and empower those skills for communicating their needs to their medical team."

#OncoHealth #Healthcare #AdvancedCarePlanning #ACP #PatientEmpowerment #PatientCare #MentalHealth #Oncology #Cancer

oncohealth.us

Download the transcript here