Empowered Patient Podcast

Dr. Ari Vojdani, Chief Scientific Officer at Cyrex Labs, describes the two primary components of the immune system--humoral and cell-mediated immunity and how the Cyrex diagnostics are designed to measure both. The Cyrex food immune reactivity testing measures antibodies against raw, cooked, modified, and processed food proteins as the structure of these proteins can change and affect immune responses. Cyrex is also developing tests to measure antibodies against various gut bacteria, fungi, and toxins, and how these relate to autoimmune conditions.

Ari explains, "Cyrex performs lots of tests, but we can divide them based on the immune system. As you know, the immune system has two major components, the humoral and cell-mediated immunity. The humoral components of the immune system deal with measurements of antibodies. So when we get exposed to certain antigens, proteins of pathogens, food, or toxic chemicals, when they bind to human tissue, our body reacts to them, and the end result of that is specific antibody production against that specific protein or antigen."

"The second component of the immune system is cell-mediated immunity, which looks at different lymphocytes, their markers, such as whether it is a T-cell, B-cell, CD4, CD8, T helper 1, T helper 2, regulatory T cells, or natural killer cells. So that also could be abnormal in certain inflammatory and autoimmune disorders. That's why at Cyrex, the tests that they are performing are classified based on humoral and cell-mediated immunity."

"In 1986 and 1987, I developed the ELISA method for measuring antibodies against different food antigens. Then I did not have the knowledge about the importance of raw versus cooked or raw versus modified foods. I established the methodologies, and many others came to visit my laboratories. Years later, they started their own laboratories. So they continue using the same raw food for measuring antibodies in their own laboratories."

#CyrexLabs #FunctionalImmunology #FunctionalMedicine #immuneHealth #FoodSensitivity #FoodAllergies

cyrexlabs.com

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Dr. Ari Vojdani, Chief Scientific Officer at Cyrex Labs, describes the two primary components of the immune system--humoral and cell-mediated immunity and how the Cyrex diagnostics are designed to measure both. The Cyrex food immune reactivity testing measures antibodies against raw, cooked, modified, and processed food proteins as the structure of these proteins can change and affect immune responses. Cyrex is also developing tests to measure antibodies against various gut bacteria, fungi, and toxins, and how these relate to autoimmune conditions.

Ari explains, "Cyrex performs lots of tests, but we can divide them based on the immune system. As you know, the immune system has two major components, the humoral and cell-mediated immunity. The humoral components of the immune system deal with measurements of antibodies. So when we get exposed to certain antigens, proteins of pathogens, food, or toxic chemicals, when they bind to human tissue, our body reacts to them, and the end result of that is specific antibody production against that specific protein or antigen."

"The second component of the immune system is cell-mediated immunity, which looks at different lymphocytes, their markers, such as whether it is a T-cell, B-cell, CD4, CD8, T helper 1, T helper 2, regulatory T cells, or natural killer cells. So that also could be abnormal in certain inflammatory and autoimmune disorders. That's why at Cyrex, the tests that they are performing are classified based on humoral and cell-mediated immunity."

"In 1986 and 1987, I developed the ELISA method for measuring antibodies against different food antigens. Then I did not have the knowledge about the importance of raw versus cooked or raw versus modified foods. I established the methodologies, and many others came to visit my laboratories. Years later, they started their own laboratories. So they continue using the same raw food for measuring antibodies in their own laboratories."

#CyrexLabs #FunctionalImmunology #FunctionalMedicine #immuneHealth #FoodSensitivity #FoodAllergies

cyrexlabs.com

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Kevin Freeman, Chief Commercial Officer at Health Catalyst, highlights the challenges mid-market healthcare systems are currently facing, including the predicted impact of Medicaid cuts and the increase in uninsured patients. There is a need to break down data silos and use AI and data analytics to improve the quality of care, reduce costs, and address clinician burnout. The Health Catalyst platform is designed to integrate existing technology, improve efficiency, and provide expertise and support to drive better patient outcomes and manage financially sound organizations.

Kevin explains, "Health Catalyst works with healthcare providers, really of all sizes. Historically, more academics and IDNs, but more recently, over the last six to seven months, have really focused on the mid-market health systems. Mid-market health systems still struggle with some of the same issues that large health systems do, but they lack the technology, expertise, and some of the clinical experience that drive outcomes. So, we're really excited to move into the mid-market, improve quality and patient care, and reduce costs at the same time."

"Our goal is not to rip and replace, but to meet them where they're at. Those investments that they've made, we can take those investments, integrate them into our platform, and drive those outcomes—that outcome improvement strategy across the entire system. I think that one of the biggest things we're seeing is that the technology is just not enough. Dashboards aren't enough. It really takes driving those outcomes and having that clinical expertise. But we don't just bring the technology. We bring the people with the technology to actually partner with them hand-in-hand to actually drive that outcome improvement."

#HealthCatalyst #MidMarketHospitals #Hospitals #Healthcare #MedicaidCuts #HealthcareProviders

healthcatalyst.com

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Kevin Freeman, Chief Commercial Officer at Health Catalyst, highlights the challenges mid-market healthcare systems are currently facing, including the predicted impact of Medicaid cuts and the increase in uninsured patients. There is a need to break down data silos and use AI and data analytics to improve the quality of care, reduce costs, and address clinician burnout. The Health Catalyst platform is designed to integrate existing technology, improve efficiency, and provide expertise and support to drive better patient outcomes and manage financially sound organizations.

Kevin explains, "Health Catalyst works with healthcare providers, really of all sizes. Historically, more academics and IDNs, but more recently, over the last six to seven months, have really focused on the mid-market health systems. Mid-market health systems still struggle with some of the same issues that large health systems do, but they lack the technology, expertise, and some of the clinical experience that drive outcomes. So, we're really excited to move into the mid-market, improve quality and patient care, and reduce costs at the same time."

"Our goal is not to rip and replace, but to meet them where they're at. Those investments that they've made, we can take those investments, integrate them into our platform, and drive those outcomes—that outcome improvement strategy across the entire system. I think that one of the biggest things we're seeing is that the technology is just not enough. Dashboards aren't enough. It really takes driving those outcomes and having that clinical expertise. But we don't just bring the technology. We bring the people with the technology to actually partner with them hand-in-hand to actually drive that outcome improvement."

#HealthCatalyst #MidMarketHospitals #Hospitals #Healthcare #MedicaidCuts #HealthcareProviders

healthcatalyst.com

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Nick Nunez, a strategy and solutions engineer at RevSpring, discusses the significant staffing shortages and technology vendor fragmentation that hamper the healthcare revenue cycle teams. RevSpring is addressing these issues by providing integrated analytics that function seamlessly with existing workflows and various dashboards, helping to prioritize work and eliminate inefficiencies. AI tools are being designed to support the financial and administrative aspects of healthcare, automating certain functions, augmenting human staff, and improving the quality of vendor and patient financial engagement.

Nick explains, "RevSpring has a fairly broad footprint inside of the healthcare revenue cycle ecosystem here, and we support everyone from large health systems, IDNs, these integrated delivery networks, academic medical centers, to specialty clinics and smaller managed care organizations. We also have a footprint, actually, within our early out or bad debt vendors in healthcare. So we really do get an opportunity to see the full lifecycle of revenue even outside the walls of the originating health systems."

"There are a couple of things that we've really started to focus on. We've been in the game for a long time doing things like statements, print and mail, and that is still important. So you asked the question about paper on day-to-day operations. I don't see as much about it, but paper statements out the door is still a need and sometimes an obligation that health systems have. And so we've done a lot to actually invest in giving analytics and insight to make sure that we are sending only the amount of statements via mail that are necessary to drive yield, drive down costs from postage by knowing this patient responds better to a text message versus a digital outreach versus print."

#RevSpring #Ai #RevenueCycle #InspiringAction #PatientPathway #PatientFinance

revspringinc.com

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Nick Nunez, a strategy and solutions engineer at RevSpring, discusses the significant staffing shortages and technology vendor fragmentation that hamper the healthcare revenue cycle teams. RevSpring is addressing these issues by providing integrated analytics that function seamlessly with existing workflows and various dashboards, helping to prioritize work and eliminate inefficiencies. AI tools are being designed to support the financial and administrative aspects of healthcare, automating certain functions, augmenting human staff, and improving the quality of vendor and patient financial engagement.

Nick explains, "RevSpring has a fairly broad footprint inside of the healthcare revenue cycle ecosystem here, and we support everyone from large health systems, IDNs, these integrated delivery networks, academic medical centers, to specialty clinics and smaller managed care organizations. We also have a footprint, actually, within our early out or bad debt vendors in healthcare. So we really do get an opportunity to see the full lifecycle of revenue even outside the walls of the originating health systems."

"There are a couple of things that we've really started to focus on. We've been in the game for a long time doing things like statements, print and mail, and that is still important. So you asked the question about paper on day-to-day operations. I don't see as much about it, but paper statements out the door is still a need and sometimes an obligation that health systems have. And so we've done a lot to actually invest in giving analytics and insight to make sure that we are sending only the amount of statements via mail that are necessary to drive yield, drive down costs from postage by knowing this patient responds better to a text message versus a digital outreach versus print."

#RevSpring #Ai #RevenueCycle #InspiringAction #PatientPathway #PatientFinance

revspringinc.com

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Michael Palladino, VP of Sales and Clinical Solutions at OptimizeRx, is utilizing AI to educate patients and providers, promoting shared decision-making about which medications are most likely to yield the best health outcomes. The goal is to combat information overload by precisely targeting education to specific patients and delivering that information on the patient's preferred media delivery platform. Technology-driven nudges deliver timely information, reminders about upcoming appointments, and address medication adherence issues.

Michael explains, "So OptimizeRx is a health technology company. We partner with the life sciences industry, and we help patients get on the right drug at the right time, educating both patient and provider. And we do that through some traditional methods of point-of-care. We also use our AI technology, which we will talk a little bit about today."

"We've evolved as a company to be as individualized as possible, and that really has been using the technological advances of AI and machine learning over the past three years to predict in a patient journey when they may qualify for a procedure or drug, and educating both the patient and the HCP. So, it's really the use of data and technology that has evolved, and it's how we're leveraging our expertise in the space."

"Traditionally, the way that a pharmaceutical industry may work or a life science manufacturer may work is they're often quite siloed. The patient gets some type of education on TV, the HCP somewhere in the country gets a similar type of education, and there's not a lot of synergy. What we have done in the marketplace is combine the patient's finding with the HCP's finding, and we educate them at the right time."

#OptimizeRx #PrecisionMedicine #HealthTech #AI #HealthAI #DrugInformation

optimizerx.com

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Michael Palladino, VP of Sales and Clinical Solutions at OptimizeRx, is utilizing AI to educate patients and providers, promoting shared decision-making about which medications are most likely to yield the best health outcomes. The goal is to combat information overload by precisely targeting education to specific patients and delivering that information on the patient's preferred media delivery platform. Technology-driven nudges deliver timely information, reminders about upcoming appointments, and address medication adherence issues.

Michael explains, "So OptimizeRx is a health technology company. We partner with the life sciences industry, and we help patients get on the right drug at the right time, educating both patient and provider. And we do that through some traditional methods of point-of-care. We also use our AI technology, which we will talk a little bit about today."

"We've evolved as a company to be as individualized as possible, and that really has been using the technological advances of AI and machine learning over the past three years to predict in a patient journey when they may qualify for a procedure or drug, and educating both the patient and the HCP. So, it's really the use of data and technology that has evolved, and it's how we're leveraging our expertise in the space."

"Traditionally, the way that a pharmaceutical industry may work or a life science manufacturer may work is they're often quite siloed. The patient gets some type of education on TV, the HCP somewhere in the country gets a similar type of education, and there's not a lot of synergy. What we have done in the marketplace is combine the patient's finding with the HCP's finding, and we educate them at the right time."

#OptimizeRx #PrecisionMedicine #HealthTech #AI #HealthAI #DrugInformation

optimizerx.com

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Jim LaRoe, CEO of Symphion, highlights an often overlooked cybersecurity threat posed by network-connected printers in a hospital setting. Modern printers are complex devices with numerous features that create vulnerabilities and potential access points to patient and hospital data for cybercriminals, yet they are generally managed outside of the IT security environment. The first step in ensuring printer security is to determine the number of printing devices on the network, their locations, and their configurations. Additionally, it is essential to ask the IT team to demonstrate security hygiene for the entire printer fleet.

Jim explains, "We personally were exposed to the print industry in about 2015. And we noticed that the printers are really essential for patient care. They process, store, and transmit the most sensitive data, but they have grown up outside of the information security and supply chain. The security has been left vulnerable. In today's cybercrime growth industry climate, where opportunistic criminals are looking for opportunities to steal data, ransom, or attack patient care, you've got a real recipe for disaster. So really, we're facing a whole lot of issues that relate to the vulnerability of the printer."

"They're absolutely very complex business machines, and the manufacturers for the last 40 years or so, from what you're talking about, the analog days, have really enriched them with incredible features beyond the camera, the document sorter, and things like that. They built in incredible web server features, email servers, fax servers, FTP servers, like a Dropbox that we all use for heavy payload communication protocols. They built all those features into the devices, and they built in ways to secure those features, but they haven't been used, and they're not being used on networks."

#Symphion #Hospitals #PrinterSecurity #Cybercrimes #NetworkSecurity

symphion.com

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Jim LaRoe, CEO of Symphion, highlights an often overlooked cybersecurity threat posed by network-connected printers in a hospital setting. Modern printers are complex devices with numerous features that create vulnerabilities and potential access points to patient and hospital data for cybercriminals, yet they are generally managed outside of the IT security environment. The first step in ensuring printer security is to determine the number of printing devices on the network, their locations, and their configurations. Additionally, it is essential to ask the IT team to demonstrate security hygiene for the entire printer fleet.

Jim explains, "We personally were exposed to the print industry in about 2015. And we noticed that the printers are really essential for patient care. They process, store, and transmit the most sensitive data, but they have grown up outside of the information security and supply chain. The security has been left vulnerable. In today's cybercrime growth industry climate, where opportunistic criminals are looking for opportunities to steal data, ransom, or attack patient care, you've got a real recipe for disaster. So really, we're facing a whole lot of issues that relate to the vulnerability of the printer."

"They're absolutely very complex business machines, and the manufacturers for the last 40 years or so, from what you're talking about, the analog days, have really enriched them with incredible features beyond the camera, the document sorter, and things like that. They built in incredible web server features, email servers, fax servers, FTP servers, like a Dropbox that we all use for heavy payload communication protocols. They built all those features into the devices, and they built in ways to secure those features, but they haven't been used, and they're not being used on networks."

#Symphion #Hospitals #PrinterSecurity #Cybercrimes #NetworkSecurity

symphion.com

Download the transcript here