Empowered Patient Podcast

Dr. Houda Hachad, Vice President of Clinical Operations at Aranscia, highlights the importance of regular medication reviews in an age of growing polypharmacy and advancements in the use of pharmacogenomics to identify potential risks. The key goal is to use the minimal effective dose of a medication and determine which drugs are most effective for treating identified conditions without causing unintended side effects. Adopting a preemptive pharmacogenomic testing approach for patients taking more than 5 drugs is noted as a way to reduce hospital readmissions, emergency room visits, and adverse drug events.

Houda explains, "So polypharmacy is becoming more and more common. I think the data shows that up to 40% of adults now take a lot of medications. And polypharmacy is typically defined as the regular use of five medications or more. But in some settings, we're seeing what we call excessive polypharmacy, which is using nine or more."

"So there are multiple patient cohorts, as you can imagine, that take these medications, definitely patients in hospital settings, older patients, patients that suffer from behavioral health issues, and any chronic conditions, patients with diabetes, hypertension, and obesity are going to be your typical polypharmacy patients. So our tools, which span genetic testing, medication reviews, and the use of various patient information to provide precision care, allow us to simplify and help doctors mitigate the risks associated with polypharmacy."

"Each time you add a medication to a patient, you're increasing the risk of having these adverse drug events. We have tools that can reduce the risk of polypharmacy, including pharmacogenomics."

#Aranscia #Polypharmacy, #DrugGeneInteractions #dpydTesting #MedicationSafety #Pharmacogenomics

aranscia.com

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Dr. Houda Hachad, Vice President of Clinical Operations at Aranscia, highlights the importance of regular medication reviews in an age of growing polypharmacy and advancements in the use of pharmacogenomics to identify potential risks. The key goal is to use the minimal effective dose of a medication and determine which drugs are most effective for treating identified conditions without causing unintended side effects. Adopting a preemptive pharmacogenomic testing approach for patients taking more than 5 drugs is noted as a way to reduce hospital readmissions, emergency room visits, and adverse drug events.

Houda explains, "So polypharmacy is becoming more and more common. I think the data shows that up to 40% of adults now take a lot of medications. And polypharmacy is typically defined as the regular use of five medications or more. But in some settings, we're seeing what we call excessive polypharmacy, which is using nine or more."

"So there are multiple patient cohorts, as you can imagine, that take these medications, definitely patients in hospital settings, older patients, patients that suffer from behavioral health issues, and any chronic conditions, patients with diabetes, hypertension, and obesity are going to be your typical polypharmacy patients. So our tools, which span genetic testing, medication reviews, and the use of various patient information to provide precision care, allow us to simplify and help doctors mitigate the risks associated with polypharmacy."

"Each time you add a medication to a patient, you're increasing the risk of having these adverse drug events. We have tools that can reduce the risk of polypharmacy, including pharmacogenomics."

#Aranscia #Polypharmacy, #DrugGeneInteractions #dpydTesting #MedicationSafety #Pharmacogenomics

aranscia.com

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Selena Freisens, Head of Global Medical Affairs at Merz Therapeutics, is focused on increasing access to tools to support neurological health. They have developed a digital app iFlexo, which is designed to provide at-home physiotherapy for stroke survivors. The app has been tested in Nigeria and Sierra Leone in partnership with the World Stroke Organization and is designed to operate offline as well, to serve users in rural areas with limited internet connectivity.

Selena explains, "Our company is family-owned and in its fifth generation, so we have a rather long-term legacy, and the newer part is Merz Therapeutics, and our focus in Merz Therapeutics is on neuroscience. So we practically cover the number of movement disorders such as Spasms, Dystonias. We also have a focus on Parkinson's and Multiple Sclerosis."

"We continuously work on building this awareness and knowledge. One example is Parkinson's disease. And when I started working with Parkinson's disease, most of the patients would have off episodes, which are exacerbations of their symptoms, but many of these off episodes are underdiagnosed, and they're not really treated optimally. So it's really a lot of attention is needed to educate not only HCPs and, of course, some other stakeholders, but particularly patients."

"So the time also matters for stroke survivors. So it's very important that they start as soon as possible all the therapies, but also the physiotherapy at the same time. What this digital tool does is give two options. One is education on the one side, and on the other hand, a guided exercise that will enable people and stroke survivors to exercise at home. And with that, obviously, the personalized goals have been worked out together with the experts and HCPs so that they can achieve those goals faster, while working from home."

#MerzTherapeutics #StrokeRehab #DigitalHealth #NeuroRehab #AccessToHealth #WorldStrokeOrganization #Physiotherapy #HealthEquity #TeleRehab #HCPs #Africafirst #AccesstoHealth #EquitableAccess #PostStrokeRehabilitation #PatientDrivenInnovation

Merztherapeutics.com

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Selena Freisens, Head of Global Medical Affairs at Merz Therapeutics, is focused on increasing access to tools to support neurological health. They have developed a digital app iFlexo, which is designed to provide at-home physiotherapy for stroke survivors. The app has been tested in Nigeria and Sierra Leone in partnership with the World Stroke Organization and is designed to operate offline as well, to serve users in rural areas with limited internet connectivity.

Selena explains, "Our company is family-owned and in its fifth generation, so we have a rather long-term legacy, and the newer part is Merz Therapeutics, and our focus in Merz Therapeutics is on neuroscience. So we practically cover the number of movement disorders such as Spasms, Dystonias. We also have a focus on Parkinson's and Multiple Sclerosis."

"We continuously work on building this awareness and knowledge. One example is Parkinson's disease. And when I started working with Parkinson's disease, most of the patients would have off episodes, which are exacerbations of their symptoms, but many of these off episodes are underdiagnosed, and they're not really treated optimally. So it's really a lot of attention is needed to educate not only HCPs and, of course, some other stakeholders, but particularly patients."

"So the time also matters for stroke survivors. So it's very important that they start as soon as possible all the therapies, but also the physiotherapy at the same time. What this digital tool does is give two options. One is education on the one side, and on the other hand, a guided exercise that will enable people and stroke survivors to exercise at home. And with that, obviously, the personalized goals have been worked out together with the experts and HCPs so that they can achieve those goals faster, while working from home."

#MerzTherapeutics #StrokeRehab #DigitalHealth #NeuroRehab #AccessToHealth #WorldStrokeOrganization #Physiotherapy #HealthEquity #TeleRehab #HCPs #Africafirst #AccesstoHealth #EquitableAccess #PostStrokeRehabilitation #PatientDrivenInnovation

Merztherapeutics.com

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Cara Altimus, the CEO of BD², and Emily Baxi, the Program Director of BD²'s Integrated Network, are focused on integrating research and clinical care to improve outcomes for people with bipolar disorder. They emphasize the gaps in diagnostics and effective treatments and the need to collect comprehensive biological and clinical data to enable a precision medicine approach. Their Integrated Network is a longitudinal, large-scale study that complements their investments in new therapeutics, moving away from a trial-and-error approach to effective interventions for individuals.

Cara explains, "When we think about the mission of BD², it's that we're bringing innovators and patients and the world together to drive new discovery, new understanding, and improved outcomes for people with bipolar disorder so that all people with bipolar disorder can thrive. And that thrive piece is critical to what we do. We're not just thinking about how we will change symptom outcomes, but we are thinking about how we engage across the whole life and all of the components of life, with science at the forefront of what we do."

Emily elaborates, "I think it's important to acknowledge here that the tools and the technologies that we have today are quite different from even those that we had 20, 15 years ago, and they've really set the stage for how we can bring research and clinical care together. So we didn't have electronic health records in the past. We didn't have the ability to understand both from a phenotype level, meaning, can we understand the biology? Can we understand the clinical trajectory, the course of somebody's illness?"

"We just didn't have the same tools to really bring clarity and understanding to that. So one of the reasons we're so excited about the Integrated Network is that it represents a framework where we're bringing those components together so that research and clinical care are really sitting side by side. So, in practice, that looks like a longitudinal cohort study."

#BipolarDiscoveries #BipolarDisorder #MentalHealthResearch #PrecisionPsychiatry #LearningHealthSystem #IntegratedCare #Psychiatry #HealthcareInnovation #ClinicalResearch #DataDrivenCare #PopulationHealth

bipolardiscoveries.org

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Cara Altimus, the CEO of BD², and Emily Baxi, the Program Director of BD²'s Integrated Network, are focused on integrating research and clinical care to improve outcomes for people with bipolar disorder. They emphasize the gaps in diagnostics and effective treatments and the need to collect comprehensive biological and clinical data to enable a precision medicine approach. Their Integrated Network is a longitudinal, large-scale study that complements their investments in new therapeutics, moving away from a trial-and-error approach to effective interventions for individuals.

Cara explains, "When we think about the mission of BD², it's that we're bringing innovators and patients and the world together to drive new discovery, new understanding, and improved outcomes for people with bipolar disorder so that all people with bipolar disorder can thrive. And that thrive piece is critical to what we do. We're not just thinking about how we will change symptom outcomes, but we are thinking about how we engage across the whole life and all of the components of life, with science at the forefront of what we do."

Emily elaborates, "I think it's important to acknowledge here that the tools and the technologies that we have today are quite different from even those that we had 20, 15 years ago, and they've really set the stage for how we can bring research and clinical care together. So we didn't have electronic health records in the past. We didn't have the ability to understand both from a phenotype level, meaning, can we understand the biology? Can we understand the clinical trajectory, the course of somebody's illness?"

"We just didn't have the same tools to really bring clarity and understanding to that. So one of the reasons we're so excited about the Integrated Network is that it represents a framework where we're bringing those components together so that research and clinical care are really sitting side by side. So, in practice, that looks like a longitudinal cohort study."

#BipolarDiscoveries #BipolarDisorder #MentalHealthResearch #PrecisionPsychiatry #LearningHealthSystem #IntegratedCare #Psychiatry #HealthcareInnovation #ClinicalResearch #DataDrivenCare #PopulationHealth

bipolardiscoveries.org

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Sundar Subramanian, CEO of Zyter, points out that the primary issue in healthcare is not a lack of AI intelligence but a failure in AI execution. He advocates for a vertical AI integration approach that solves entire domain-specific workflows rather than horizontal or point solutions that automate existing, often inefficient processes. To ensure safe and effective use of AI, implement guardrails that promote transparency and augment clinicians by reducing friction, helping reduce errors, and building trust.

Sundar explains, "You see a lot of AI companies around, but when you look at healthcare, especially the problem we have in healthcare, it is actually not an AI intelligence problem. What we have is an AI execution problem. The models are really growing fast and can do all kinds of tasks, but if you look at healthcare and the overall healthcare economy, trillions of dollars are still spent on lots of manual processes because doing things at scale and executing things at scale is not easy. And so Zyter is a company that's trying to solve that problem, which is really how do you coordinate and execute workflows end-to-end safely, transparently, and with humans trusting it and still in control. And so that's what we intend to do and are doing at Zyter."

"So what we mean by that is that problems get solved at the domain level. And when you solve problems at the domain level, it's not a single decision problem. You can embed horizontal tools to enable convenience and do things slightly better than they are today by embedding point solutions, and lots of platforms can help do that. But when you solve for a domain workflow end-to-end, you need a lot of domain intelligence. You need to understand how the regulatory context works. You need to understand how policies and the governance of those policies need to be done. So it's not a single decision problem. And to do that, you need to orchestrate across lots of tools and data that span many domains to solve for outcomes like healthcare access, total cost of care, or quality."

#ZyterAI #AIinHealthcare #HealthIT #ClinicalWorkflow #DigitalHealth #HealthcareInnovation #CareDelivery #HealthSystems #Payers #ValueBasedCare

Zyter.ai

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Sundar Subramanian, CEO of Zyter, points out that the primary issue in healthcare is not a lack of AI intelligence but a failure in AI execution. He advocates for a vertical AI integration approach that solves entire domain-specific workflows rather than horizontal or point solutions that automate existing, often inefficient processes. To ensure safe and effective use of AI, implement guardrails that promote transparency and augment clinicians by reducing friction, helping reduce errors, and building trust.

Sundar explains, "You see a lot of AI companies around, but when you look at healthcare, especially the problem we have in healthcare, it is actually not an AI intelligence problem. What we have is an AI execution problem. The models are really growing fast and can do all kinds of tasks, but if you look at healthcare and the overall healthcare economy, trillions of dollars are still spent on lots of manual processes because doing things at scale and executing things at scale is not easy. And so Zyter is a company that's trying to solve that problem, which is really how do you coordinate and execute workflows end-to-end safely, transparently, and with humans trusting it and still in control. And so that's what we intend to do and are doing at Zyter."

"So what we mean by that is that problems get solved at the domain level. And when you solve problems at the domain level, it's not a single decision problem. You can embed horizontal tools to enable convenience and do things slightly better than they are today by embedding point solutions, and lots of platforms can help do that. But when you solve for a domain workflow end-to-end, you need a lot of domain intelligence. You need to understand how the regulatory context works. You need to understand how policies and the governance of those policies need to be done. So it's not a single decision problem. And to do that, you need to orchestrate across lots of tools and data that span many domains to solve for outcomes like healthcare access, total cost of care, or quality."

#ZyterAI #AIinHealthcare #HealthIT #ClinicalWorkflow #DigitalHealth #HealthcareInnovation #CareDelivery #HealthSystems #Payers #ValueBasedCare

Zyter.ai

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Dr. Lorenzo Cohen, Director of the Integrative Medicine Program at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He's also co-lead author of a study on whether biofield therapy can impact pancreatic cancer. The study demonstrated that biofield therapy could decrease cancer cell proliferation, disrupt mitochondrial function, and reduce metastasis in both cell cultures and animal models, with results comparable to chemotherapy without the side effects. He highlights the challenges to the wider acceptance of this therapy, given the lack of understanding of its mechanism of action and awareness about this growing area of integrative medicine.

Lorenzo explains, "So biofield therapies fall into this category of, let's call them treatment modalities in the field of integrative medicine. So integrative medicine can be things like acupuncture, massage, yoga, meditation, nutrition counseling, exercise, things that you could say fall outside of the conventional traditional medical treatments that are within hospital systems. Now, integrative medicine as a whole and integrative oncology in particular have had a huge uptake in hospital systems because of the evidence base in those areas that I just described. The one area that probably remains the most controversial is this area of biofield therapies or often known as energy medicine. I don't actually really like using the term energy medicine because that implies that we know it has something to do with energy, and we're actually not sure exactly what the mechanism is of these therapies. And so what are these? So many of the listeners will have heard of things like Reiki, healing touch, or therapeutic touch."

"External Qigong falls into this category. These are modalities where a practitioner has been trained to be able to work with their own consciousness or their own intention, potentially the biofield of their body. And it is not controversial to know that we as human beings are energetic beings, and we actually do emit biophotons by the nature of being human. But the controversial part is that they are doing that towards a target, whether that be a human being, or, in our case, cells or animals in a laboratory. And we, in particular, worked with a biofield therapy called the Bengston Cycling Method."

#MDAnderson #IntegrativeOncology #BiofieldTherapy #PancreaticCancer #Metastasis #FOXM1 #Mitochondria #PreclinicalResearch #EnergyMedicine #OncologyResearch.

Biofield Therapy

Anticancer Living: Transform Your Life and Health with the Mix of Six

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Dr. Lorenzo Cohen, Director of the Integrative Medicine Program at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He's also co-lead author of a study on whether biofield therapy can impact pancreatic cancer. The study demonstrated that biofield therapy could decrease cancer cell proliferation, disrupt mitochondrial function, and reduce metastasis in both cell cultures and animal models, with results comparable to chemotherapy without the side effects. He highlights the challenges to the wider acceptance of this therapy, given the lack of understanding of its mechanism of action and awareness about this growing area of integrative medicine.

Lorenzo explains, "So biofield therapies fall into this category of, let's call them treatment modalities in the field of integrative medicine. So integrative medicine can be things like acupuncture, massage, yoga, meditation, nutrition counseling, exercise, things that you could say fall outside of the conventional traditional medical treatments that are within hospital systems. Now, integrative medicine as a whole and integrative oncology in particular have had a huge uptake in hospital systems because of the evidence base in those areas that I just described. The one area that probably remains the most controversial is this area of biofield therapies or often known as energy medicine. I don't actually really like using the term energy medicine because that implies that we know it has something to do with energy, and we're actually not sure exactly what the mechanism is of these therapies. And so what are these? So many of the listeners will have heard of things like Reiki, healing touch, or therapeutic touch."

"External Qigong falls into this category. These are modalities where a practitioner has been trained to be able to work with their own consciousness or their own intention, potentially the biofield of their body. And it is not controversial to know that we as human beings are energetic beings, and we actually do emit biophotons by the nature of being human. But the controversial part is that they are doing that towards a target, whether that be a human being, or, in our case, cells or animals in a laboratory. And we, in particular, worked with a biofield therapy called the Bengston Cycling Method."

#MDAnderson #IntegrativeOncology #BiofieldTherapy #PancreaticCancer #Metastasis #FOXM1 #Mitochondria #PreclinicalResearch #EnergyMedicine #OncologyResearch.

Biofield Therapy

Anticancer Living: Transform Your Life and Health with the Mix of Six

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