Empowered Patient Podcast

Dan Levendowski, Co-Founder and President, and Chris Berka, Co-Founder and CEO of Advanced Brain Monitoring, have developed medical devices that measure brain activity through electroencephalography (EEG) during awake and sleeping states. These easy-to-use EEG devices can be used at home and in a clinic to identify biomarkers for cognitive decline and neurodegenerative diseases. The company has built large databases of EEG data from healthy individuals and those with various neurodegenerative diseases, which allows them to compare a patient's brain activity to healthy controls and track changes over time.

Dan explains, "We're now in year seven of a large longitudinal study where we've identified and extracted these measures of the brain's electrical activity under different conditions that help us differentiate or characterize whether the person has normal cognition or their sleep looks like somebody with normal cognition. Or how the brain responds to certain stimuli and if it looks like somebody with Parkinson's disease or early Alzheimer's disease. We do that both during sleep and during wake."

Chris elaborates, "What differentiates our products is that Dan mentioned that we've received a little over $40 million in funding from NIH, DARPA, and other funding sources. And that has allowed us to create very large databases with tens of thousands of recordings from healthy controls. So people ages 6 to 96. For any new patient that comes in, we can compare their brain to a group of people in the same age range and sex and say, how far are you quantitatively from your healthy control peers?"

"We print everything, all of the EEG sensors, on a very lightweight flex cable, which is easily applied and hits all the target sites according to the neurology 10-20 system. That is fully disposable. So after you take it off, you discard it. It's only used once. Then, all of the electronics for our system, which does the amplification of the signals, the digitization of the signals, and then sending via Bluetooth to a laptop or a handheld or desktop computer. All of that is in a very small electronics box worn on the head. The entire system weighs less than three ounces. So we've had patients wear it for many hours and forget they're wearing it. It's so lightweight and comfortable."

#AdvancedBrainMonitoring #EEG #NeuroBiomarkers #Cognition #NeuroDiagnosticDevice #AlzheimersDisease #Dementia #ParkinsonsDisease #LewyBodyDementia

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Dan Levendowski, Co-Founder and President, and Chris Berka, Co-Founder and CEO of Advanced Brain Monitoring, have developed medical devices that measure brain activity through electroencephalography (EEG) during awake and sleeping states. These easy-to-use EEG devices can be used at home and in a clinic to identify biomarkers for cognitive decline and neurodegenerative diseases. The company has built large databases of EEG data from healthy individuals and those with various neurodegenerative diseases, which allows them to compare a patient's brain activity to healthy controls and track changes over time.

Dan explains, "We're now in year seven of a large longitudinal study where we've identified and extracted these measures of the brain's electrical activity under different conditions that help us differentiate or characterize whether the person has normal cognition or their sleep looks like somebody with normal cognition. Or how the brain responds to certain stimuli and if it looks like somebody with Parkinson's disease or early Alzheimer's disease. We do that both during sleep and during wake."

Chris elaborates, "What differentiates our products is that Dan mentioned that we've received a little over $40 million in funding from NIH, DARPA, and other funding sources. And that has allowed us to create very large databases with tens of thousands of recordings from healthy controls. So people ages 6 to 96. For any new patient that comes in, we can compare their brain to a group of people in the same age range and sex and say, how far are you quantitatively from your healthy control peers?"

"We print everything, all of the EEG sensors, on a very lightweight flex cable, which is easily applied and hits all the target sites according to the neurology 10-20 system. That is fully disposable. So after you take it off, you discard it. It's only used once. Then, all of the electronics for our system, which does the amplification of the signals, the digitization of the signals, and then sending via Bluetooth to a laptop or a handheld or desktop computer. All of that is in a very small electronics box worn on the head. The entire system weighs less than three ounces. So we've had patients wear it for many hours and forget they're wearing it. It's so lightweight and comfortable."

#AdvancedBrainMonitoring #EEG #NeuroBiomarkers #Cognition #NeuroDiagnosticDevice #AlzheimersDisease #Dementia #ParkinsonsDisease #LewyBodyDementia

advancedbrainmonitoring.com

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Dr. Julie Schulz, VP of product at Avalon Healthcare Solutions, a company that helps health plans manage their laboratory spend and benefits by contracting with labs and analyzing lab data. Lab tests are important for identifying the right patients for GLP-1 drugs and assessing their cardiometabolic health. While GLP-1 drugs were initially developed for diabetes they have been found to have broader benefits in treating conditions like obesity, heart disease, and kidney disease. Avalon's real-time access to lab data can help health plans and providers better identify appropriate patients for GLP-1 drugs and address health equity and access issues.

Julie explains, "Labs are increasingly looking at biomarkers that provide an overall sense of patient health. Molecular diagnostics, including genetic testing, is on the upswing. Understanding the complexities of that testing and the clinical decisions that come from it is more and more important for health plan employers in the broader healthcare ecosystem."

"So GLP-1 drugs were initially indicated for diabetes and help patients who struggle to control their diabetes with other medications to help bring down their hemoglobin A1c. But we found they have a much broader effect on the entire cardio kidney metabolic syndrome. Increasingly, clinicians in the American Heart Association are recognizing that cardiorenal metabolic syndrome is a collection of related disorders that involve cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, liver disease, and others as well. What's interesting about GLP-1s is they've been shown to have an impact on many of these systems."

"Now all of those labs can come together and can actually be used to calculate a score of a patient's tenure and 30-year risk of major adverse cardiac events. So, heart attack and stroke, but also heart failure. So, bringing all those things together will inform the patient's broader cardiometabolic health status and can also help start identifying patients who will benefit the most from these drugs."

#AvalonHCS #LaboratoryBenefitsManager #HealthPlans #HealthEquity #GLP1 #CardiometabolicDiseases #Obesity #KidneyDisease #HeartDisease

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Dr. Julie Schulz, VP of product at Avalon Healthcare Solutions, a company that helps health plans manage their laboratory spend and benefits by contracting with labs and analyzing lab data. Lab tests are important for identifying the right patients for GLP-1 drugs and assessing their cardiometabolic health. While GLP-1 drugs were initially developed for diabetes they have been found to have broader benefits in treating conditions like obesity, heart disease, and kidney disease. Avalon's real-time access to lab data can help health plans and providers better identify appropriate patients for GLP-1 drugs and address health equity and access issues.

Julie explains, "Labs are increasingly looking at biomarkers that provide an overall sense of patient health. Molecular diagnostics, including genetic testing, is on the upswing. Understanding the complexities of that testing and the clinical decisions that come from it is more and more important for health plan employers in the broader healthcare ecosystem."

"So GLP-1 drugs were initially indicated for diabetes and help patients who struggle to control their diabetes with other medications to help bring down their hemoglobin A1c. But we found they have a much broader effect on the entire cardio kidney metabolic syndrome. Increasingly, clinicians in the American Heart Association are recognizing that cardiorenal metabolic syndrome is a collection of related disorders that involve cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, liver disease, and others as well. What's interesting about GLP-1s is they've been shown to have an impact on many of these systems."

"Now all of those labs can come together and can actually be used to calculate a score of a patient's tenure and 30-year risk of major adverse cardiac events. So, heart attack and stroke, but also heart failure. So, bringing all those things together will inform the patient's broader cardiometabolic health status and can also help start identifying patients who will benefit the most from these drugs."

#AvalonHCS #LaboratoryBenefitsManager #HealthPlans #HealthEquity #GLP1 #CardiometabolicDiseases #Obesity #KidneyDisease #HeartDisease

avalonhcs.com

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Adrian Mendes, CEO of Perimeter Medical Imaging AI, is solving the problem of margin assessment in cancer surgery. Surgeons often have to perform a second surgery on breast cancer patients because they are unable to completely remove all of the cancerous cells the first time. The company has developed Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) imaging technology that allows surgeons to see cells at a microscopic level in real-time during surgery, helping them remove the tumor and all surrounding cancerous tissue.

Adrian explains, "The surgeon is trying to ensure that when they extract the tumor and the cancer, there is a margin of healthy cells around it. Studies have shown that if they can achieve that, and with breast cancer, that margin needs to be two millimeters generally, then the likelihood of them having left cancer cells back in the body goes down drastically. This is every surgeon's objective for cancer treatment. We help the surgeons ensure that they've achieved what they call clean margins."

"Yes, it's quite significant. So, for breast cancer surgery alone, it's about one in every five surgeries are unsuccessful because the margins aren't clean, and then the patient has to come back for a second surgery. So, there are about 300,000 breast cancer surgeries per year in the United States. If you think about 20% of that, there are a lot of women that are having to go back for a second surgery every year. That's just in the United States. And it's a global problem."

"What's unique about our technology is we use an imaging tech called OCT or Optical Coherence Tomography that allows images to be created down at around 15-micron width level. And that's small enough to be able to distinguish cells. And so with that, it just gives the surgeon so much more ability to see what they're looking at."

"The next generation uses the same imaging modality, the OCT imaging, but it adds an artificial intelligence and AI layer to it. So what we've done is trained an AI algorithm to recognize suspicious areas inside images of breast tissue. And these suspicious areas are indicative of cancer. The way we train the model is we have a library of about 2 million images of breast tissue, both cancerous and healthy tissue, and we've got labels that have been provided by pathologists."

#PerimeterMedical #Oncology #BreastCancerSurgery #OCT #Tumors #MedAI

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Adrian Mendes, CEO of Perimeter Medical Imaging AI, is solving the problem of margin assessment in cancer surgery. Surgeons often have to perform a second surgery on breast cancer patients because they are unable to completely remove all of the cancerous cells the first time. The company has developed Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) imaging technology that allows surgeons to see cells at a microscopic level in real-time during surgery, helping them remove the tumor and all surrounding cancerous tissue.

Adrian explains, "The surgeon is trying to ensure that when they extract the tumor and the cancer, there is a margin of healthy cells around it. Studies have shown that if they can achieve that, and with breast cancer, that margin needs to be two millimeters generally, then the likelihood of them having left cancer cells back in the body goes down drastically. This is every surgeon's objective for cancer treatment. We help the surgeons ensure that they've achieved what they call clean margins."

"Yes, it's quite significant. So, for breast cancer surgery alone, it's about one in every five surgeries are unsuccessful because the margins aren't clean, and then the patient has to come back for a second surgery. So, there are about 300,000 breast cancer surgeries per year in the United States. If you think about 20% of that, there are a lot of women that are having to go back for a second surgery every year. That's just in the United States. And it's a global problem."

"What's unique about our technology is we use an imaging tech called OCT or Optical Coherence Tomography that allows images to be created down at around 15-micron width level. And that's small enough to be able to distinguish cells. And so with that, it just gives the surgeon so much more ability to see what they're looking at."

"The next generation uses the same imaging modality, the OCT imaging, but it adds an artificial intelligence and AI layer to it. So what we've done is trained an AI algorithm to recognize suspicious areas inside images of breast tissue. And these suspicious areas are indicative of cancer. The way we train the model is we have a library of about 2 million images of breast tissue, both cancerous and healthy tissue, and we've got labels that have been provided by pathologists."

#PerimeterMedical #Oncology #BreastCancerSurgery #OCT #Tumors #MedAI

perimetermed.com

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Brent Lucas, CEO of Envoy Medical, highlights the lack of innovation in hearing aids and the need to better address hearing health. Envoy has developed fully implanted hearing devices that provide 24/7 hearing assistance without the need for daily recharging of the battery. With the introduction of over-the-counter hearing aids and the advanced Apple AirPods Pro 2, customer options have been expanded, making it easier to address some forms of hearing loss. Implanted devices eliminate the limitations of external hearing aids and reduce the impact of hearing loss on their daily lives.

Brent explains, "Part of the problem in the hearing loss industry has been that it's not well understood. So there has not been a great deal of competition and innovation in the hearing loss world. Most of us have thought about hearing loss and how it's addressed by looking to our grandparents, the elders. Plenty of people joke about our dads or our grandfathers not being able to hear our grandmothers. When I tell people I'm in the hearing industry, the first thing that they say is, I can't hear you. And I always fall for it. And I say, I'm in the hearing industry, and they come clean that it was a joke. At the end of the day, there are unmet needs in finding solutions for people that are not just the status quo. That's really where Envoy Medical is building products that are fully implanted, in a sense, a better life because they're not tied to their hearing loss."

"Right now, the current solutions on the market are all external products that need to be taken off at night or around water in the shower, during strenuous activity, working out, sweating too much, that sort of thing. You have to take your external device off. Our devices are fully implanted, meaning you can be capable of hearing 24/7, hearing all day, every day. We think that's the right thing to do for a patient because your hearing loss, after all, is a 24-hour problem. It shouldn't be that your solution is only on for part of the day."

#EnvoyMedical #HearingLoss #Acclaim #HearingAids #CochlearImplant $COCH #HearingHealth

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Brent Lucas, CEO of Envoy Medical, highlights the lack of innovation in hearing aids and the need to better address hearing health. Envoy has developed fully implanted hearing devices that provide 24/7 hearing assistance without the need for daily recharging of the battery. With the introduction of over-the-counter hearing aids and the advanced Apple AirPods Pro 2, customer options have been expanded, making it easier to address some forms of hearing loss. Implanted devices eliminate the limitations of external hearing aids and reduce the impact of hearing loss on their daily lives.

Brent explains, "Part of the problem in the hearing loss industry has been that it's not well understood. So there has not been a great deal of competition and innovation in the hearing loss world. Most of us have thought about hearing loss and how it's addressed by looking to our grandparents, the elders. Plenty of people joke about our dads or our grandfathers not being able to hear our grandmothers. When I tell people I'm in the hearing industry, the first thing that they say is, I can't hear you. And I always fall for it. And I say, I'm in the hearing industry, and they come clean that it was a joke. At the end of the day, there are unmet needs in finding solutions for people that are not just the status quo. That's really where Envoy Medical is building products that are fully implanted, in a sense, a better life because they're not tied to their hearing loss."

"Right now, the current solutions on the market are all external products that need to be taken off at night or around water in the shower, during strenuous activity, working out, sweating too much, that sort of thing. You have to take your external device off. Our devices are fully implanted, meaning you can be capable of hearing 24/7, hearing all day, every day. We think that's the right thing to do for a patient because your hearing loss, after all, is a 24-hour problem. It shouldn't be that your solution is only on for part of the day."

#EnvoyMedical #HearingLoss #Acclaim #HearingAids #CochlearImplant $COCH #HearingHealth

envoymedical.com

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Caleb Manscill, President of Vyne Medical, has a mission to present a holistic view of data, from origination to use, within a healthcare organization. The goal is to guide them to find ways to streamline the workflow, save time, reduce errors and costs, and improve patient outcomes. Using AI to handle faxes, data entry, and other administrative tasks can free up staff to handle issues that require human intervention. Vyne Medical provides insights about implementing technology and overcoming cultural resistance to changes in healthcare organizations.

Caleb explains, "We've got multiple use cases, but I'll speak to two. The first one is the simple handling of faxes. There's lots of unstructured data coming into different points of care. In this case, I'll talk about the hospital, but there are lots of referrals being made. There are lab reports being sent and there's data that needs to be appended through HIM. Often, this data will come in through the fax machine as unstructured data, and individuals will pick up this paper. And we're talking, again, going back to the paper and picking it up and keying it in. There's the risk, not to mention miskeying it or accuracy. Still, that process is potentially taking place anywhere. If it's a simple patient order, it could take a few minutes. If it's an extensive lab report, it could take upwards of 20 minutes. The automation or AI utilized within our product suite and platform can take that down to 30 seconds or even just a few seconds, depending on the workflow that needs to be initiated."

"That's why we exist in that very specific use case of fax management. The way that our solution works is it streamlines the whole process so that there isn't any paper handling. So it's almost as if it's being sent electronically, through the internet, or however you want it to be. What's most important to us is that if they're not going to change their behavior, at least we can meet them where they are and streamline it as if they had adopted the most up-to-date APIs or ways of sending those data."

#VyneMedical #Workflow #Hospitals #Automation #HospitalWorkflow

vynemedical.com

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Caleb Manscill, President of Vyne Medical, has a mission to present a holistic view of data, from origination to use, within a healthcare organization. The goal is to guide them to find ways to streamline the workflow, save time, reduce errors and costs, and improve patient outcomes. Using AI to handle faxes, data entry, and other administrative tasks can free up staff to handle issues that require human intervention. Vyne Medical provides insights about implementing technology and overcoming cultural resistance to changes in healthcare organizations.

Caleb explains, "We've got multiple use cases, but I'll speak to two. The first one is the simple handling of faxes. There's lots of unstructured data coming into different points of care. In this case, I'll talk about the hospital, but there are lots of referrals being made. There are lab reports being sent and there's data that needs to be appended through HIM. Often, this data will come in through the fax machine as unstructured data, and individuals will pick up this paper. And we're talking, again, going back to the paper and picking it up and keying it in. There's the risk, not to mention miskeying it or accuracy. Still, that process is potentially taking place anywhere. If it's a simple patient order, it could take a few minutes. If it's an extensive lab report, it could take upwards of 20 minutes. The automation or AI utilized within our product suite and platform can take that down to 30 seconds or even just a few seconds, depending on the workflow that needs to be initiated."

"That's why we exist in that very specific use case of fax management. The way that our solution works is it streamlines the whole process so that there isn't any paper handling. So it's almost as if it's being sent electronically, through the internet, or however you want it to be. What's most important to us is that if they're not going to change their behavior, at least we can meet them where they are and streamline it as if they had adopted the most up-to-date APIs or ways of sending those data."

#VyneMedical #Workflow #Hospitals #Automation #HospitalWorkflow

vynemedical.com

Download the transcript here