Empowered Patient Podcast

Boro Dropulić is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Caring Cross, a 501 (c)(3) non-profit dedicated to accelerating the development and manufacturing of advanced medicines to improve access to cures for all patients independent of where they live.

Boro explains, "One way to reduce the cost is by manufacturing the product locally at, what we call, the clinical place-of-care rather than using a centralized manufacturing model that has traditionally been used for drug distribution. By using automated devices to ensure the consistency of the products while they're being made, for example, CAR-T cell products, they can be produced at a fraction of the cost than when they're made centrally, even a 10th of the cost with current cost and materials."

"Once the CAR-T cell product is made, it is then reinfused back to the patient to have its anti-tumor effects. The most effective CAR-T cell products so far are autologous, meaning that they are from the patient's own cells and return back to the patient. There have been five FDA CAR-T cell products targeting diseases such as leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma that have been approved, and all are autologous CAR-T cell products."

"I think there's a whole range of opportunities with gene therapies because we're trying to address the genetic defect rather than trying to treat the symptoms of disease, which many drugs do. So I think there are enormous opportunities for CAR-T cells and other gene therapies to actually be transformative and really help patients with single administration therapies. Because these cells are living medicines, they live in the body and have long-term effects."

@Caring_Cross @GatesFoundation @amfAR @iasociety @globalgti #HIVcure #CARTcell #Immunotherapy #CaringCross

CaringCross.org

Listen to the podcast here

Boro Dropulić is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Caring Cross, a 501 (c)(3) non-profit dedicated to accelerating the development and manufacturing of advanced medicines to improve access to cures for all patients independent of where they live.

Boro explains, "One way to reduce the cost is by manufacturing the product locally at, what we call, the clinical place-of-care rather than using a centralized manufacturing model that has traditionally been used for drug distribution. By using automated devices to ensure the consistency of the products while they're being made, for example, CAR-T cell products, they can be produced at a fraction of the cost than when they're made centrally, even a 10th of the cost with current cost and materials."

"Once the CAR-T cell product is made, it is then reinfused back to the patient to have its anti-tumor effects. The most effective CAR-T cell products so far are autologous, meaning that they are from the patient's own cells and return back to the patient. There have been five FDA CAR-T cell products targeting diseases such as leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma that have been approved, and all are autologous CAR-T cell products."

"I think there's a whole range of opportunities with gene therapies because we're trying to address the genetic defect rather than trying to treat the symptoms of disease, which many drugs do. So I think there are enormous opportunities for CAR-T cells and other gene therapies to actually be transformative and really help patients with single administration therapies. Because these cells are living medicines, they live in the body and have long-term effects."

@Caring_Cross @GatesFoundation @amfAR @iasociety @globalgti #HIVcure #CARTcell #Immunotherapy #CaringCross

CaringCross.org

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Amir Raza is the Vice President, Strategic Services at Encora and is working with technology-enabled companies to design and support patient engagement, telehealth, remote patient monitoring, digital clinical trials, and connected care solutions.

Amir explains, "So, if you peel back the onion on the statement, we are a product engineering services company. I think what it unveils is four core capabilities that support that assertion. The first is the ability to build underlying digital platforms. The second is having mastery of data because data is increasingly crucial and critical, certainly within the empowered patient, consumer engagement, patient engagement space. I mean, data is the oil of that industry. So, all things data."

"Then, of course, I think the other key capability that comes into play when you're designing these kinds of platforms is CX, or what is known in the industry as CX/UX, which is consumer experience and user experience. How do you design delightful, intuitive products? Finally, I think the core competence, which is the scaffolding that holds these first three capabilities together, is around what's known as dev sec ops and cloud ops."

@EncoraInc #Techtalks #MedTech #SoftwareDevelopment #Healthcare #Healthtech #DigitalHealth

Encora.com

Listen to the podcast here.

Amir Raza is the Vice President, Strategic Services at Encora and is working with technology-enabled companies to design and support patient engagement, telehealth, remote patient monitoring, digital clinical trials, and connected care solutions.

Amir explains, "So, if you peel back the onion on the statement, we are a product engineering services company. I think what it unveils is four core capabilities that support that assertion. The first is the ability to build underlying digital platforms. The second is having mastery of data because data is increasingly crucial and critical, certainly within the empowered patient, consumer engagement, patient engagement space. I mean, data is the oil of that industry. So, all things data."

"Then, of course, I think the other key capability that comes into play when you're designing these kinds of platforms is CX, or what is known in the industry as CX/UX, which is consumer experience and user experience. How do you design delightful, intuitive products? Finally, I think the core competence, which is the scaffolding that holds these first three capabilities together, is around what's known as dev sec ops and cloud ops."

@EncoraInc #Techtalks #MedTech #SoftwareDevelopment #Healthcare #Healthtech #DigitalHealth

Encora.com

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Khalid Al-Maskari is the CEO of Health Information Management Systems (HiMS) and a thought leader in healthcare informatics. Behavioral healthcare is an area that Khalid has identified as ripe for innovation and where integration of systems needs to be better focused on transparency and the coordination of the care of patients.

Khalid says, "So in behavioral healthcare, a lot of the communication is between care coordinators and case managers. And most of it traditionally has been on the side of the healthcare providers having a lot of information, and then patients communicate with them. But the communication typically is long-term communication. It's not instantaneous. A lot of times, the patients have to request that information rather than them having access to it directly. So it's a longer process, unlike going to a PCP for a specific issue, behavioral health typically is a long-term process."

"One of the things that COVID made clear is that behavioral health patients are ready to be more active and participate in their healthcare. The other part that has accelerated also is the use of technology and machine learning. So there's a lot of data. There's very little, in my opinion, kind of looking at that data and translating it into something that would improve both the patient and the provider side."

@HMSFirst #EHR #IntegratedHealthcare #BehavioralHealthcare #PatientEngagement #HealthTech #BehavioralHealth #COVID19

HMSFirst.com

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Khalid Al-Maskari is the CEO of Health Information Management Systems (HiMS) and a thought leader in healthcare informatics. Behavioral healthcare is an area that Khalid has identified as ripe for innovation and where integration of systems needs to be better focused on transparency and the coordination of the care of patients.

Khalid says, "So in behavioral healthcare, a lot of the communication is between care coordinators and case managers. And most of it traditionally has been on the side of the healthcare providers having a lot of information, and then patients communicate with them. But the communication typically is long-term communication. It's not instantaneous. A lot of times, the patients have to request that information rather than them having access to it directly. So it's a longer process, unlike going to a PCP for a specific issue, behavioral health typically is a long-term process."

"One of the things that COVID made clear is that behavioral health patients are ready to be more active and participate in their healthcare. The other part that has accelerated also is the use of technology and machine learning. So there's a lot of data. There's very little, in my opinion, kind of looking at that data and translating it into something that would improve both the patient and the provider side."

@HMSFirst #EHR #IntegratedHealthcare #BehavioralHealthcare #PatientEngagement #HealthTech #BehavioralHealth #COVID19

HMSFirst.com

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Dr. Paul Peter Tak is the President and CEO of Candel Therapeutics which is focused on educating the immune system to recognize and kill tumor cells in patients with a solid tumor. Candel is developing immunotherapies using engineered oncolytic viruses for prostate cancer, brain cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, and eye cancer.

Paul Peter explains, "Viruses probably got a bad reputation during the pandemic, but you can actually use them to do something beneficial to a patient, and that's what we are doing. So, using molecular engineering, we change the viruses in such a way that they infect the tumor cells and that they induce cell death. They kill the tumor cells in a way that activates the patient's own immune system, which is basically a very natural way to fight cancer."

"So, at the same time, we change the so-called tumor microenvironment from a cold tumor, a tumor that is not very active in terms of immune activity, into a hot tumor where we activate a whole variety of immune cells. And that's an optimal way to immunize the patient against the patient's own variety of so-called cancer neoantigens, the molecules that are being recognized by the patient's immune system."

#CandelTherapeutics #Oncology #OncolyticVirus #Immunotherapy #LungCancer #ProstateCancer #BrainCancer #Glioma #PancreaticCancer #EyeCancer #Cancer

CandelTx.com

Listen to the podcast here

Dr. Paul Peter Tak is the President and CEO of Candel Therapeutics which is focused on educating the immune system to recognize and kill tumor cells in patients with a solid tumor. Candel is developing immunotherapies using engineered oncolytic viruses for prostate cancer, brain cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, and eye cancer.

Paul Peter explains, "Viruses probably got a bad reputation during the pandemic, but you can actually use them to do something beneficial to a patient, and that's what we are doing. So, using molecular engineering, we change the viruses in such a way that they infect the tumor cells and that they induce cell death. They kill the tumor cells in a way that activates the patient's own immune system, which is basically a very natural way to fight cancer."

"So, at the same time, we change the so-called tumor microenvironment from a cold tumor, a tumor that is not very active in terms of immune activity, into a hot tumor where we activate a whole variety of immune cells. And that's an optimal way to immunize the patient against the patient's own variety of so-called cancer neoantigens, the molecules that are being recognized by the patient's immune system."

#CandelTherapeutics #Oncology #OncolyticVirus #Immunotherapy #LungCancer #ProstateCancer #BrainCancer #Glioma #PancreaticCancer #EyeCancer #Cancer

CandelTx.com

Download the transcript here

Bronwyn Spira is the CEO of Force Therapeutics which is supplying tools to manage procedure-based care. CMS created CMMI, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to evaluate new alternate payment models and service delivery models that were designed to reward high-value, high-quality care while also reducing payments. They would reduce the payments to clinicians who were not meeting the performance standards but preferentially reimburse high-quality and high-value providers. And these were called alternate payment models or APMs.

Bronwyn explains, "I think the important key here is that in order to reward quality, you first have to be able to measure quality and collect quality measures. So this is where patient-reported outcome measures and performance measures become so key. You actually now need those measures to submit for reimbursement based upon the services you're providing."

"And this has changed provided behavior in a big way because before these APMS were implemented, a lot of providers actually didn't even have organized ways to collect or report quality measures, patient-reported outcomes. Some of them were using pieces of paper or mailing them to patients' homes and then spending a lot of money on nurses or medical assistants who would then have to input the data into some kind of a system."

@ForceTherEx #carecoordination #carepathways #careredesign #COVID19 #digitalcare #HospitalatHome #patientengagement #patientexperience #PhysicalTherapy #PROMS #Recovery #Rehab #RehabatHome #Rehabilitation #RehabTherapy #Treatment #ValueBasedCare

ForceTherapeutics.com

Listen to the podcast here

Bronwyn Spira is the CEO of Force Therapeutics which is supplying tools to manage procedure-based care. CMS created CMMI, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to evaluate new alternate payment models and service delivery models that were designed to reward high-value, high-quality care while also reducing payments. They would reduce the payments to clinicians who were not meeting the performance standards but preferentially reimburse high-quality and high-value providers. And these were called alternate payment models or APMs.

Bronwyn explains, "I think the important key here is that in order to reward quality, you first have to be able to measure quality and collect quality measures. So this is where patient-reported outcome measures and performance measures become so key. You actually now need those measures to submit for reimbursement based upon the services you're providing."

"And this has changed provided behavior in a big way because before these APMS were implemented, a lot of providers actually didn't even have organized ways to collect or report quality measures, patient-reported outcomes. Some of them were using pieces of paper or mailing them to patients' homes and then spending a lot of money on nurses or medical assistants who would then have to input the data into some kind of a system."

@ForceTherEx #carecoordination #carepathways #careredesign #COVID19 #digitalcare #HospitalatHome #patientengagement #patientexperience #PhysicalTherapy #PROMS #Recovery #Rehab #RehabatHome #Rehabilitation #RehabTherapy #Treatment #ValueBasedCare

ForceTherapeutics.com

Download the transcript here