Empowered Patient Podcast

Amy Gordon Franzen, CEO of Rune Labs, developed StrivePD, a patient-facing app that supports those with Parkinson's disease by passively tracking their movements and collecting longitudinal data on tremor, gait, and activity patterns. The technology addresses a critical gap in neurodegenerative disease management by providing continuous, objective data that enables patients and clinicians to make more informed treatment decisions. There is also an AI chatbot that allows patients to interrogate their data and receive personalized insights while enabling clinicians and drug developers to optimize treatment strategies and accelerate development of therapies.

Amy explains, "Rune Labs has been around for about seven years. We have consumer-facing and patient-facing technologies, with a core product called StrivePD. StrivePD helps patients with Parkinson's disease better manage their symptoms by passively tracking their movements, ingesting data that comes in naturally through HealthKit, and asking those patients questions so they can go back and forth with the app, better understand their disease, and provide actionable insights against it."

"If you think about the way that neurodegenerative diseases are treated, and Parkinson's is one of the best examples, historically, the disease has been treated as a moment-in-time disease. You see a clinician every six months if you're lucky, and that clinician is observing you in the moment. They're asking you about how you have been, and then they're applying a fairly well-researched, precise treatment to that very subjective point in time. What Rune Labs is out to solve is twofold. One, we are bringing objective longitudinal data to that discussion. So rather than rely on that point in time, you as a patient can now bring a report in that shows what the last six months have looked like, in fact, as your movements go throughout the day. And so your clinician can see tremor, dyskinesia, can see how it changes with time, and can see how it changes with your medication schedule."

#RuneLabs #ParkinsonsDisease #DigitalHealth #BrainData #PrecisionMedicine #Neurology #AIinHealthcare #StrivePD

runelabs.io

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Amy Gordon Franzen, CEO of Rune Labs, developed StrivePD, a patient-facing app that supports those with Parkinson's disease by passively tracking their movements and collecting longitudinal data on tremor, gait, and activity patterns. The technology addresses a critical gap in neurodegenerative disease management by providing continuous, objective data that enables patients and clinicians to make more informed treatment decisions. There is also an AI chatbot that allows patients to interrogate their data and receive personalized insights while enabling clinicians and drug developers to optimize treatment strategies and accelerate development of therapies.

Amy explains, "Rune Labs has been around for about seven years. We have consumer-facing and patient-facing technologies, with a core product called StrivePD. StrivePD helps patients with Parkinson's disease better manage their symptoms by passively tracking their movements, ingesting data that comes in naturally through HealthKit, and asking those patients questions so they can go back and forth with the app, better understand their disease, and provide actionable insights against it."

"If you think about the way that neurodegenerative diseases are treated, and Parkinson's is one of the best examples, historically, the disease has been treated as a moment-in-time disease. You see a clinician every six months if you're lucky, and that clinician is observing you in the moment. They're asking you about how you have been, and then they're applying a fairly well-researched, precise treatment to that very subjective point in time. What Rune Labs is out to solve is twofold. One, we are bringing objective longitudinal data to that discussion. So rather than rely on that point in time, you as a patient can now bring a report in that shows what the last six months have looked like, in fact, as your movements go throughout the day. And so your clinician can see tremor, dyskinesia, can see how it changes with time, and can see how it changes with your medication schedule."

#RuneLabs #ParkinsonsDisease #DigitalHealth #BrainData #PrecisionMedicine #Neurology #AIinHealthcare #StrivePD

runelabs.io

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Dr. Sid Kerkar, CEO and Founder of AllerGene AI Therapeutics, is developing in vivo gene therapy for severe food allergies, where symptoms are currently treated rather than root causes. AllerGene AI is targeting mast cells, which are immune cells responsible for triggering allergic reactions, and their approach represents a significant opportunity to prevent these reactions. Unlike traditional cell therapy, this technology modifies cells within the body to recognize and eliminate armed mast cells, allowing the body to repopulate with non-reactive cells, preventing severe allergic reactions and establishing long-lasting immune tolerance.

Sid explains, "Today, millions of people suffer from food allergies in the US and worldwide. And that's a spectrum from just the mild symptoms that cause discomfort to the really severe kind, which can lead to life-threatening issues. And for us as a company, that's where we focus and where the biggest need is to come up with new treatments that can help prevent these life-threatening events from happening."

"A lot of it is symptom management, and EpiPens are a staple. Everyone who has had a severe reaction or may have one has to carry one around that can help prevent you from having the cardiac and lung issues that cause death. But there's no real treatment that can prevent someone from having these severe reactions. And this is where we're focused: treating the root cause of these severe reactions in the hope that we can develop a treatment that can prevent these terrible reactions from happening."

"The triggers can be wide-ranging, from many different food products such as peanuts or seafood or milk. It could be anything really that can sensitize one to have a reaction. And even beyond food, all other types of allergens like bee stings can cause a reaction. We know the cell type that is central to these reactions, and it's a cell type called a mast cell."

#AllerGeneAI #MastCells #AllergicReaction #SevereAllergy #FoodAllergy #AllergyGeneTherapy #GeneTherapy

allergene.ai

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Dr. Sid Kerkar, CEO and Founder of AllerGene AI Therapeutics, is developing in vivo gene therapy for severe food allergies, where symptoms are currently treated rather than root causes. AllerGene AI is targeting mast cells, which are immune cells responsible for triggering allergic reactions, and their approach represents a significant opportunity to prevent these reactions. Unlike traditional cell therapy, this technology modifies cells within the body to recognize and eliminate armed mast cells, allowing the body to repopulate with non-reactive cells, preventing severe allergic reactions and establishing long-lasting immune tolerance.

Sid explains, "Today, millions of people suffer from food allergies in the US and worldwide. And that's a spectrum from just the mild symptoms that cause discomfort to the really severe kind, which can lead to life-threatening issues. And for us as a company, that's where we focus and where the biggest need is to come up with new treatments that can help prevent these life-threatening events from happening."

"A lot of it is symptom management, and EpiPens are a staple. Everyone who has had a severe reaction or may have one has to carry one around that can help prevent you from having the cardiac and lung issues that cause death. But there's no real treatment that can prevent someone from having these severe reactions. And this is where we're focused: treating the root cause of these severe reactions in the hope that we can develop a treatment that can prevent these terrible reactions from happening."

"The triggers can be wide-ranging, from many different food products such as peanuts or seafood or milk. It could be anything really that can sensitize one to have a reaction. And even beyond food, all other types of allergens like bee stings can cause a reaction. We know the cell type that is central to these reactions, and it's a cell type called a mast cell."

#AllerGeneAI #MastCells #AllergicReaction #SevereAllergy #FoodAllergy #AllergyGeneTherapy #GeneTherapy

allergene.ai

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Dr. David Feldman is the Chief Medical Officer at Dimer Health, a virtual care medical practice designed to improve patient outcomes during the critical 1-3 days following hospital discharge, outpatient surgery, or emergency room visits. The company addresses the gap in post-acute care between hospital care and primary care follow-up by proactive monitoring, medication management, and pain control. Inspired by the hospitalist model, Dimer is defining a transitionist model that is tailored to each patient's needs and home environment, intervening early on minor complications to reduce emergency room revisits and hospital readmissions.

David explains, "Dimer Health is a health tech company. It's a medical practice deliberately built to better serve patients after any post-acute care event. And what I mean by that is patients go to the emergency room and are discharged, patients are admitted to the hospital and are discharged, maybe they have surgery. And it's in those first 1 to 3 days after that when the trajectory of their recovery is really determined. As an emergency room physician, I see a lot of those complications that come in. A couple of our founders were also emergency room providers, and so we wanted to be deliberate about building a medical practice, a virtual care medical practice that fits right into that window to prevent those patients from coming back to the hospital."

"And I think a good example of that is a very realistic scenario: a patient has joint replacement surgery, and it's a couple of days later. Their pain medications are changing. Maybe they're transitioning to different types of pain medications, or they're just starting to utilize their pain medications. They're adjusting to new mobility issues. Maybe they're learning different kinds of injections or blood thinners. They're not sleeping well. Families are trying to help, and there are just changes to their home life that occur because of the procedure that happened. And when you're outside the four walls of the hospital, it's sometimes difficult to understand what's normal post-op healing and what's more concerning than that."

#DimerHealth #JointReplacement, #PostAcuteCare, #PatientSafety #HospitalReadmissions, #PostDischargeCare, #SurgicalRecovery

dimerhealth.com

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Dr. David Feldman is the Chief Medical Officer at Dimer Health, a virtual care medical practice designed to improve patient outcomes during the critical 1-3 days following hospital discharge, outpatient surgery, or emergency room visits. The company addresses the gap in post-acute care between hospital care and primary care follow-up by proactive monitoring, medication management, and pain control. Inspired by the hospitalist model, Dimer is defining a transitionist model that is tailored to each patient's needs and home environment, intervening early on minor complications to reduce emergency room revisits and hospital readmissions.

David explains, "Dimer Health is a health tech company. It's a medical practice deliberately built to better serve patients after any post-acute care event. And what I mean by that is patients go to the emergency room and are discharged, patients are admitted to the hospital and are discharged, maybe they have surgery. And it's in those first 1 to 3 days after that when the trajectory of their recovery is really determined. As an emergency room physician, I see a lot of those complications that come in. A couple of our founders were also emergency room providers, and so we wanted to be deliberate about building a medical practice, a virtual care medical practice that fits right into that window to prevent those patients from coming back to the hospital."

"And I think a good example of that is a very realistic scenario: a patient has joint replacement surgery, and it's a couple of days later. Their pain medications are changing. Maybe they're transitioning to different types of pain medications, or they're just starting to utilize their pain medications. They're adjusting to new mobility issues. Maybe they're learning different kinds of injections or blood thinners. They're not sleeping well. Families are trying to help, and there are just changes to their home life that occur because of the procedure that happened. And when you're outside the four walls of the hospital, it's sometimes difficult to understand what's normal post-op healing and what's more concerning than that."

#DimerHealth #JointReplacement, #PostAcuteCare, #PatientSafety #HospitalReadmissions, #PostDischargeCare, #SurgicalRecovery

dimerhealth.com

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Sharon Blank, CEO of RxTran, highlights the value of certified translations of prescription dosing instructions in 26 languages to ensure that limited-English-proficient patients can understand dosing and medication risks. The organization works with pharmacies to deliver translations created by native-speaking pharmacists rather than by automated systems or untrained interpreters. As this LEP population grows, RxTran advocates for standardized, human-verified translation practices to ensure healthcare access and patient safety across all populations.

Sharon explains, "So RxTran's mission is to provide certified translation of the dosing instructions on prescription labels and ensure that LEP patients have the ability to understand their dosing instructions. And our primary clients include both small individual pharmacies as well as large chains."

"Truthfully, everybody needs the exact same standard of care, whether you are proficient in English or not. And we always say that good enough is not good enough. So it is our belief that you absolutely must have the translated SIGS be done by a pharmacist who is native in the language into which it's being translated. And then be stored in a bank. So it's not pre-written text dosing instructions. It is from a data bank of certified translations."

"So, right now, there are sort of three real issues in that situation. And the dangerous outcomes include the patient won't take the medication because they're fearful. Or they take the wrong dose or at the wrong time. And what we hear time and time again is that they rely on an untrained relative, neighbor, or friend to translate. And all of these just really potentially cause great harm."

#RxTran #PatientSafety #HealthEquity #Pharmacy #LimitedEnglishProficiency #LEPpatients #MedicationSafety #LanguageAccess #HealthcareInnovation #PatientAdvocacy #HealthcareInnovation #EmpoweredPatient #MedicationAdherence #PharmacyInnovation #WomenInHealthTech #HealthTech

RxTran.com

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Sharon Blank, CEO of RxTran, highlights the value of certified translations of prescription dosing instructions in 26 languages to ensure that limited-English-proficient patients can understand dosing and medication risks. The organization works with pharmacies to deliver translations created by native-speaking pharmacists rather than by automated systems or untrained interpreters. As this LEP population grows, RxTran advocates for standardized, human-verified translation practices to ensure healthcare access and patient safety across all populations.

Sharon explains, "So RxTran's mission is to provide certified translation of the dosing instructions on prescription labels and ensure that LEP patients have the ability to understand their dosing instructions. And our primary clients include both small individual pharmacies as well as large chains."

"Truthfully, everybody needs the exact same standard of care, whether you are proficient in English or not. And we always say that good enough is not good enough. So it is our belief that you absolutely must have the translated SIGS be done by a pharmacist who is native in the language into which it's being translated. And then be stored in a bank. So it's not pre-written text dosing instructions. It is from a data bank of certified translations."

"So, right now, there are sort of three real issues in that situation. And the dangerous outcomes include the patient won't take the medication because they're fearful. Or they take the wrong dose or at the wrong time. And what we hear time and time again is that they rely on an untrained relative, neighbor, or friend to translate. And all of these just really potentially cause great harm."

#RxTran #PatientSafety #HealthEquity #Pharmacy #LimitedEnglishProficiency #LEPpatients #MedicationSafety #LanguageAccess #HealthcareInnovation #PatientAdvocacy #HealthcareInnovation #EmpoweredPatient #MedicationAdherence #PharmacyInnovation #WomenInHealthTech #HealthTech

RxTran.com

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Craig Ahrens is the CEO of Worki, a healthcare workforce management platform that aggregates fragmented HR records by unifying disparate data sources and deploying AI agents to streamline workflows. To address anxieties, the focus needs to be on reducing administrative burdens through intelligent scheduling, not on eliminating jobs. Transparency is key for employees in this integration of legacy systems with AI-powered tools, so that healthcare organizations can improve resource allocation, enhance retention, and improve patient care while maintaining human oversight.

Craig explains, "Worki is solving the fragmentation tax that is plaguing the HR and workforce components of the healthcare industry. And when I say the fragmentation tax, what I'm talking about is that within healthcare, there are a number of legacy systems and non-legacy systems, meaning just spreadsheets and pieces of paper that are part of the HR workforce picture. These are leading to what I call visibility gaps or blind spots, as well as high administrative friction or burden for frontline clinical workers."

"So the ability to manage the workers, the ability to engage them, the ability to efficiently deploy AI in a meaningful way through a combination of data, has been hampered. And what we do is we solve for that by unifying that fragmented information and then putting it into action around key HR workforce roles. Specifically, we start with usually access scheduling roles as well as career amplification roles."

"What I mean by clear career amplification could be retention, could be upskilling in the face of the evolution of work around how AI is impacting their tasks associated with their roles. We're basically helping organizations, particularly healthcare organizations, address these fundamental fragmentation issues and then activate in a way that empowers HR to solve for the evolution of work."

#Worki #HealthcareWorkforce #AIinHealthcare #WorkforceInnovation #HealthcareOperations #HealthcareTechnology #FutureOfHealthcare #Healthcare #Nursing #HealthcareHR #WorkforceManagement #HealthIT #Staffing #Upskilling #PatientCare #DigitalTransformation

worki.ai

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Craig Ahrens is the CEO of Worki, a healthcare workforce management platform that aggregates fragmented HR records by unifying disparate data sources and deploying AI agents to streamline workflows. To address anxieties, the focus needs to be on reducing administrative burdens through intelligent scheduling, not on eliminating jobs. Transparency is key for employees in this integration of legacy systems with AI-powered tools, so that healthcare organizations can improve resource allocation, enhance retention, and improve patient care while maintaining human oversight.

Craig explains, "Worki is solving the fragmentation tax that is plaguing the HR and workforce components of the healthcare industry. And when I say the fragmentation tax, what I'm talking about is that within healthcare, there are a number of legacy systems and non-legacy systems, meaning just spreadsheets and pieces of paper that are part of the HR workforce picture. These are leading to what I call visibility gaps or blind spots, as well as high administrative friction or burden for frontline clinical workers."

"So the ability to manage the workers, the ability to engage them, the ability to efficiently deploy AI in a meaningful way through a combination of data, has been hampered. And what we do is we solve for that by unifying that fragmented information and then putting it into action around key HR workforce roles. Specifically, we start with usually access scheduling roles as well as career amplification roles."

"What I mean by clear career amplification could be retention, could be upskilling in the face of the evolution of work around how AI is impacting their tasks associated with their roles. We're basically helping organizations, particularly healthcare organizations, address these fundamental fragmentation issues and then activate in a way that empowers HR to solve for the evolution of work."

#Worki #HealthcareWorkforce #AIinHealthcare #WorkforceInnovation #HealthcareOperations #HealthcareTechnology #FutureOfHealthcare #Healthcare #Nursing #HealthcareHR #WorkforceManagement #HealthIT #Staffing #Upskilling #PatientCare #DigitalTransformation

worki.ai

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