Empowered Patient Podcast

Lora Sparkman, an RN and VP and Partner of Clinical Solutions, Patient Safety, and Quality at Relias, highlights the high maternal mortality rate in the US and the factors that contribute to it. Lora emphasizes the need for standardization of definitions and a better understanding of the social determinants of health that influence the success of a pregnancy, including the need for pre-pregnancy and post-pregnancy healthcare. Digital technology is bringing advancements to healthcare education and helping overcome geographic barriers to improve outcomes and reduce maternal morbidity and mortality.

Lora explains, "In some cases, we're getting our hands around the real story versus some variation across states and definitions, and how death was categorized, those types of things. Putting that all behind us, there's been a lot more work and effort at the federal and national levels to standardize definitions and categories."

"There's been kind of a shift we've seen over the last couple of years, which is we've been very focused on the death rate, again, but that's kind of like, what's leading up to that? Why are we having so many deaths? We're starting to understand and see that we need to focus on pre-pregnancy health, general health, and access to healthcare during pregnancy. Severe maternal morbidity affects about 50,000 to 60,000 women each year. Those numbers are growing."

"No matter where pregnant people are getting their care, our aim and the work that we've been doing at Relias is focused on standardization of using care delivery and protocols and making sure that physicians, nurses, midwives, or anyone who is caring for pregnant people, are utilizing evidence-based guidelines, are aware of the latest evidence-based in research in areas like hypertension, and obstetric hemorrhage, and substance use disorder in pregnancy."

#Relias #Nurses #MaternalMortality #MaternalMorbidity #Pregnancy #WomensHealth #ClinicalTraining #SDOH

Relias.com

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Lora Sparkman, an RN and VP and Partner of Clinical Solutions, Patient Safety, and Quality at Relias, highlights the high maternal mortality rate in the US and the factors that contribute to it. Lora emphasizes the need for standardization of definitions and a better understanding of the social determinants of health that influence the success of a pregnancy, including the need for pre-pregnancy and post-pregnancy healthcare. Digital technology is bringing advancements to healthcare education and helping overcome geographic barriers to improve outcomes and reduce maternal morbidity and mortality.

Lora explains, "In some cases, we're getting our hands around the real story versus some variation across states and definitions, and how death was categorized, those types of things. Putting that all behind us, there's been a lot more work and effort at the federal and national levels to standardize definitions and categories."

"There's been kind of a shift we've seen over the last couple of years, which is we've been very focused on the death rate, again, but that's kind of like, what's leading up to that? Why are we having so many deaths? We're starting to understand and see that we need to focus on pre-pregnancy health, general health, and access to healthcare during pregnancy. Severe maternal morbidity affects about 50,000 to 60,000 women each year. Those numbers are growing."

"No matter where pregnant people are getting their care, our aim and the work that we've been doing at Relias is focused on standardization of using care delivery and protocols and making sure that physicians, nurses, midwives, or anyone who is caring for pregnant people, are utilizing evidence-based guidelines, are aware of the latest evidence-based in research in areas like hypertension, and obstetric hemorrhage, and substance use disorder in pregnancy."

#Relias #Nurses #MaternalMortality #MaternalMorbidity #Pregnancy #WomensHealth #ClinicalTraining #SDOH

Relias.com

Download the transcript here

Mei Mei Hu, the CEO and Co-Founder of Vaxxinity, focuses on an approach to vaccines that aims to break immune tolerance to get the body to produce the antibodies to target self-antigens causing chronic conditions. Initial trials are being conducted to slow the progression or prevent the onset of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and hypercholesterolemia. Motivating this effort is the desire to democratize health and make transformative medicines available to a larger population at a lower cost.

Mei Mei explains, "Interestingly, in 1900, the average global life expectancy was 32. Today, when you hear someone died at 79, you're like, oh my gosh, what happened? We get these two bonus lifetimes now, and those three lives total for three main reasons. The first is the Green Revolution feeding us all. The second is hygienic plumbing, and the third is vaccines. But when we think of vaccines, they're usually crying babies or kids pre-COVID. What they did was able to banish the biggest diseases of our early lives."

"What we're looking to do now at Vaxxinity is do the same thing but for the diseases plaguing us in our second and third lives. That's why we go after things like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, hypercholesterolemia, which is a leading cause of heart disease. We're going after big population health things, and the best way to do them is with a vaccine approach."

"One of the main attributes of a vaccine is that it trains your body to attack pathogens or causes of disease. In our case, we're just teaching your body to produce drugs that help neutralize things like cholesterol, plaques, or CGRP, which is the culprit of migraines. That's what we mean when we talk about creating a vaccine for a chronic condition."

#Vaxxinity #Vaccine #Parkinsons #Alzheimers #ChronicDiseases #ClinicalTrials #DemocratizeHealth

vaxxinity.com

Listen to the podcast here

Mei Mei Hu, the CEO and Co-Founder of Vaxxinity, focuses on an approach to vaccines that aims to break immune tolerance to get the body to produce the antibodies to target self-antigens causing chronic conditions. Initial trials are being conducted to slow the progression or prevent the onset of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and hypercholesterolemia. Motivating this effort is the desire to democratize health and make transformative medicines available to a larger population at a lower cost.

Mei Mei explains, "Interestingly, in 1900, the average global life expectancy was 32. Today, when you hear someone died at 79, you're like, oh my gosh, what happened? We get these two bonus lifetimes now, and those three lives total for three main reasons. The first is the Green Revolution feeding us all. The second is hygienic plumbing, and the third is vaccines. But when we think of vaccines, they're usually crying babies or kids pre-COVID. What they did was able to banish the biggest diseases of our early lives."

"What we're looking to do now at Vaxxinity is do the same thing but for the diseases plaguing us in our second and third lives. That's why we go after things like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, hypercholesterolemia, which is a leading cause of heart disease. We're going after big population health things, and the best way to do them is with a vaccine approach."

"One of the main attributes of a vaccine is that it trains your body to attack pathogens or causes of disease. In our case, we're just teaching your body to produce drugs that help neutralize things like cholesterol, plaques, or CGRP, which is the culprit of migraines. That's what we mean when we talk about creating a vaccine for a chronic condition."

#Vaxxinity #Vaccine #Parkinsons #Alzheimers #ChronicDiseases #ClinicalTrials #DemocratizeHealth

vaxxinity.com

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Dr. Karlene Kerfoot, Chief Nursing Officer at symplr, points out the challenges nurses and doctors face when dealing with technology in the workplace. The disparate systems and lack of data integration make it difficult for clinicians to perform necessary duties and have moments that matter: time to provide the kind of care patients require. Karlene highlights the potential for AI and robots to alleviate some of the inefficiencies in the workflow and the need for frontline staff to be part of the decision-making process to ensure advanced technology solutions meet real needs.

Karlene explains, "We do have to deal with the technology to make it easier for people to work. For example, the nurse manager, when they want a staff and schedule, sometimes they have to go through six to eight disparate systems that don't talk to each other. So they have to go into one system and then out, and another system and out, and another system and out. So, at the end of the day, they're quite fatigued and have a lot of technology burden. They don't have time to do what they're supposed to do, which is look at the quality of work with patients and help new nurses."

"We have to run those systems by the people who use them because often, when you say to physicians, "Here's a great system." They say, "Well, that's not the way I think. That doesn't work for me." Or if you say to a nurse, "Here's a great system for you." They say, "Well, it doesn't work because we have to do all these workarounds because it doesn't really include everything we want."

"We had a little funeral for all the fax machines and put a big black curtain over them so people couldn't use them, and we said, "It's dead." And so that, in a funny way, sort of forced people to see if they could use the computer and not use paper and not use fax machines."

#symplr #MomentsThatMatter #Burnout #HealthcareTech #PatientCare #Nurses #HealthTech

symplr.com

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Dr. Karlene Kerfoot, Chief Nursing Officer at symplr, points out the challenges nurses and doctors face when dealing with technology in the workplace. The disparate systems and lack of data integration make it difficult for clinicians to perform necessary duties and have moments that matter: time to provide the kind of care patients require. Karlene highlights the potential for AI and robots to alleviate some of the inefficiencies in the workflow and the need for frontline staff to be part of the decision-making process to ensure advanced technology solutions meet real needs.

Karlene explains, "We do have to deal with the technology to make it easier for people to work. For example, the nurse manager, when they want a staff and schedule, sometimes they have to go through six to eight disparate systems that don't talk to each other. So they have to go into one system and then out, and another system and out, and another system and out. So, at the end of the day, they're quite fatigued and have a lot of technology burden. They don't have time to do what they're supposed to do, which is look at the quality of work with patients and help new nurses."

"We have to run those systems by the people who use them because often, when you say to physicians, "Here's a great system." They say, "Well, that's not the way I think. That doesn't work for me." Or if you say to a nurse, "Here's a great system for you." They say, "Well, it doesn't work because we have to do all these workarounds because it doesn't really include everything we want."

"We had a little funeral for all the fax machines and put a big black curtain over them so people couldn't use them, and we said, "It's dead." And so that, in a funny way, sort of forced people to see if they could use the computer and not use paper and not use fax machines."

#symplr #MomentsThatMatter #Burnout #HealthcareTech #PatientCare #Nurses #HealthTech

symplr.com

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Retired Brigadier General Dr. Steve Xenakis is Executive Director of the American Psychedelic Practitioners Association, a group of clinicians who are interested in developing and promoting the mainstream use of psychedelic and plant medicines for the treatment of mental health conditions. APPA works to educate practitioners on best practices and explores AI's potential role in identifying patients who could benefit from psychedelic therapies.

Steve explains, "This is a multidisciplinary group. As the treatments unfold, we're seeing it's multidisciplinary. We have psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, advanced nurse practitioners, and physician's assistants because it's a team approach. When we look at the best treatments and therapies, these people come together. They can collaborate in terms of not only prescribing the medications but also conducting the therapy and supporting the patients who come to them for help."

"They've come into this organization because they realize that to promote these treatments and therapies there needs to be a pathway to mainstream them into US healthcare. For many, for the past several decades, a number of practitioners have been using these medicines compounds and treatments. Still, they've had to be in the so-called underground because, since 1972, the use of MDMA and psilocybin has been illegal. And only recently have we seen ketamine be used. And there are other substances."

"As we think about it, and particularly with the momentum with MDMA and psilocybin in getting approval from the FDA, there's an interest in now bringing this out upfront and getting them into US healthcare and to go through what the processes are to get that done. That's how this organization has come together and been conceived."

#APPA #AmericanPsychedelicPractionersAssociation #MentalHealth #Psychiatry #Psychedelics #AlternativeTherapy #PTSD #MDMA #Psilocybin #AI

appa-us.org

Listen to the podcast here

Retired Brigadier General Dr. Steve Xenakis is Executive Director of the American Psychedelic Practitioners Association, a group of clinicians who are interested in developing and promoting the mainstream use of psychedelic and plant medicines for the treatment of mental health conditions. APPA works to educate practitioners on best practices and explores AI's potential role in identifying patients who could benefit from psychedelic therapies.

Steve explains, "This is a multidisciplinary group. As the treatments unfold, we're seeing it's multidisciplinary. We have psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, advanced nurse practitioners, and physician's assistants because it's a team approach. When we look at the best treatments and therapies, these people come together. They can collaborate in terms of not only prescribing the medications but also conducting the therapy and supporting the patients who come to them for help."

"They've come into this organization because they realize that to promote these treatments and therapies there needs to be a pathway to mainstream them into US healthcare. For many, for the past several decades, a number of practitioners have been using these medicines compounds and treatments. Still, they've had to be in the so-called underground because, since 1972, the use of MDMA and psilocybin has been illegal. And only recently have we seen ketamine be used. And there are other substances."

"As we think about it, and particularly with the momentum with MDMA and psilocybin in getting approval from the FDA, there's an interest in now bringing this out upfront and getting them into US healthcare and to go through what the processes are to get that done. That's how this organization has come together and been conceived."

#APPA #AmericanPsychedelicPractionersAssociation #MentalHealth #Psychiatry #Psychedelics #AlternativeTherapy #PTSD #MDMA #Psilocybin #AI

appa-us.org

Download the transcript here

Jeffrey Madden, Co-Founder and CEO of ADvantage Therapeutics is developing therapies for neurodegenerative conditions, particularly Alzheimer's disease. Instead of pursuing the amyloid hypothesis, ADvantage is focused on neuroinflammation as the primary driver of Alzheimer's pathology. Trials for their lead compound AD04 show promising results in slowing hippocampal volume loss and stabilizing cognition.

Jeffrey explains, "The assumption that has been in play for more than 20 years is the amyloid hypothesis. And the idea behind that is if you could clear amyloid beta, this toxic protein, you could stop or even reverse Alzheimer's. The results are in. We're reading about Biogen and Lilly, the monoclonal antibodies that do a great job of clearing amyloid but only have modest slowing of cognitive decline."

"What we offer is that the pathology of Alzheimer's is just incomplete. We take a biology of aging worldview and we know the biggest causation for Alzheimer's is aging. We know a lane of aging is chronic inflammation. We also know bad things happen in the brain with neuroinflammation. We offer that at the roots of Alzheimer's is neuroinflammation, and we train the immune system to reduce neuroinflammation in the brain."

"The dogma of the amyloid hypothesis was very much focused on this toxic protein amyloid beta. More recently, this physical biomarker of the hippocampus is becoming more in vogue for very good reason. And we're at the cutting edge using the hippocampus as a biomarker. What we're doing in our confirmation study is mirroring the predecessor trial that I referenced going back to 2014. We can't think of a more rigorous downstream biomarker than the hippocampus, and others are following suit."

#ADvantageTherapeutics #Neuroinflammation #AlzheimersDisease #AmyloidBeta #Biomarkers #Hippocampus

advantagetherapeutics.com

Listen to the podcast here

Jeffrey Madden, Co-Founder and CEO of ADvantage Therapeutics is developing therapies for neurodegenerative conditions, particularly Alzheimer's disease. Instead of pursuing the amyloid hypothesis, ADvantage is focused on neuroinflammation as the primary driver of Alzheimer's pathology. Trials for their lead compound AD04 show promising results in slowing hippocampal volume loss and stabilizing cognition.

Jeffrey explains, "The assumption that has been in play for more than 20 years is the amyloid hypothesis. And the idea behind that is if you could clear amyloid beta, this toxic protein, you could stop or even reverse Alzheimer's. The results are in. We're reading about Biogen and Lilly, the monoclonal antibodies that do a great job of clearing amyloid but only have modest slowing of cognitive decline."

"What we offer is that the pathology of Alzheimer's is just incomplete. We take a biology of aging worldview and we know the biggest causation for Alzheimer's is aging. We know a lane of aging is chronic inflammation. We also know bad things happen in the brain with neuroinflammation. We offer that at the roots of Alzheimer's is neuroinflammation, and we train the immune system to reduce neuroinflammation in the brain."

"The dogma of the amyloid hypothesis was very much focused on this toxic protein amyloid beta. More recently, this physical biomarker of the hippocampus is becoming more in vogue for very good reason. And we're at the cutting edge using the hippocampus as a biomarker. What we're doing in our confirmation study is mirroring the predecessor trial that I referenced going back to 2014. We can't think of a more rigorous downstream biomarker than the hippocampus, and others are following suit."

#ADvantageTherapeutics #Neuroinflammation #AlzheimersDisease #AmyloidBeta #Biomarkers #Hippocampus

advantagetherapeutics.com

Download the transcript here