GeekWire Health Tech

To say that Dr. Brad Younggren has a unique perspective on COVID-19 would be an understatement -- because he actually has multiple perspectives.

Dr. Younggren is the chief medical officer at Seattle-based healthcare startup 98point6, which has seen interest in its on-demand virtual care service skyrocket amid the pandemic. He's also an emergency physician, and the medical director for emergency preparedness, at EvergreenHealth Medical Center, in Kirkland, Wash., the first hospital in the country to manage an influx of COVID-19 patients earlier this year.

And he has been on the front lines before, literally, as a former U.S. Army physician who earned a Bronze Star and the Combat Medic Badge for his service in Iraq.

So it was with a sense of hope and cautious optimism that he received his first dose of COVID-19 vaccine last week, along with his Evergreen colleagues.

"It's been an intense year, working through this massive growth at 98point6, and seeing how we can support the country at scale," he said. "Then the individual work, taking care of patients at Evergreen, has definitely been tasking at times. It's been an emotional experience just to see the light at the end of the tunnel — that sense of hope that comes from interval change in how we're managing this pandemic."

With cases surging in the U.S., Younggren and his colleagues are careful to note that we're not out of the woods yet. But even when the world can put the pandemic into the history books, COVID-19's impact on the science and technology of healthcare will endure.

He drew parallels between his time serving in the military and the past year in the pandemic, in terms of its impact on people working in healthcare.

There's a "battle rhythm you develop, because you're basically on all the time, and there's a level of fatigue that comes from that kind of work," he said. "We're seeing a lot written about the impact of COVID-19 on the healthcare worker, and not just the physicians, the nurses and the janitors and the people who are cleaning the rooms. It's impacting the entire healthcare system. These are very stressful times from that perspective."

Younggren reflects on the past year, and talks about what's next, on this episode of GeekWire's Health Tech Podcast.

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Did you get really sick in the first few months of the year? Do you wonder if it was COVID-19? You're not alone. 

On the Season 5 premiere of the GeekWire Health Tech Podcast, we revisit the early days of the pandemic in an effort to figure out a mysterious illness, with help from experts at the University of Washington, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and ZoomCare. We come away with a deeper understanding of the nuances of COVID-19 testing, and insights into how the outbreak is changing the detection and treatment of disease.

Hosted and produced by GeekWire editor Todd Bishop, with guests Dr. Erik Vanderlip, ZoomCare chief medical officer, and Dr. Alex Greninger, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Washington Medical Center.

Season 5 of the GeekWire Health Tech Podcast is sponsored by Premera Blue Cross.

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The last time we caught up with Pillsy co-founders Jeff LeBrun and Chuks Onwuneme, three years ago, they were focused on their flagship product, a smart pill bottle that sounds an alarm if people forget to take their pills.

But that was just one example of the broader trend of remote patient monitoring -- technology that helps medical professionals keep tabs on the status of patients at home, day in and day out, not just during periodic visits to the doctor’s office. Even before COVID-19 led to a boom in telehealth, LeBrun says, the need for better remote patient monitoring was becoming clear to Medicare officials, due to an aging population and a limited supply of health care workers.

"There's been over a decade of research showing that remote patient monitoring has led to improved health outcomes and reduced costs," LeBrun says. "With a system that's already stretched thin, they knew that they needed to use more technology to try to handle this coming load of care that they would need to provide over the next 10 years. And so I think we're really just at the tip of the iceberg. Certainly what we're seeing now is accelerating that approach."

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GeekWire Health Tech Podcast subscriber, you're invited to join us at 1:30 p.m. Pacific this Thursday, May 21, for a live online discussion with Dr. Thomas Lynch, the new president of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. You may have caught my earlier conversation with Dr. Lynch on this podcast when he was just starting in the job, back in February. Of course, a lot has happened since then!

Register for the webinar here.

Scientists from the Seattle-based institute have emerged as leaders in the global effort to understand, track and reduce the spread of COVID-19. We’ll talk with Dr. Lynch about those initiatives, as well as Fred Hutch’s core cancer research efforts, and get an update on his long-term vision for Fred Hutch as an institution.

Participation in these live webinars is normally exclusive to GeekWire members, but as a health tech podcast subscriber, you’re invited to join us for this one as our guest, and sample one of the perks of membership to see if you’d like to join. 

Go here to register and submit a question, and join us online this Thursday 

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In the world of diagnostic tests for COVID-19, there are two main approaches: PCR tests, which detect the presence of the live virus; and serology tests, which detect antibodies that indicate whether someone has recovered from the disease.

But could there be a third way? Two companies based in the Seattle region, Microsoft and Adaptive Biotechnologies, are working together to try to create a better diagnostic test. Joining us to explain the initiative are Peter Lee, Microsoft corporate vice president of AI and Research, and Adaptive CEO Chad Robins. 

At a basic level, Microsoft and Adaptive are looking for the unique signature associated with COVID-19 in the specialized cells that determine the human immune system's response to the disease. Once that signature is identified, they say, it could lead to a new test that would detect the tell-tale signs of the disease in others, providing a new form of diagnosis.

The companies last week launched a virtual clinical study, seeking 1,000 people across the country who have been diagnosed with, exposed to, or recovered from COVID-19. The study is called “ImmuneRACE,” for Immune Response Action to COVID-19 Events. It focuses on 20 major metro regions in the US.. As of earlier this week, the study had more than 100 participants out of the 1,000 it’s seeking.

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We’re exploring the intersection of psychedelics, health care, mental health and even spirituality with a journalist who has been reporting on the topic for GeekWire, two entrepreneurs looking to capitalize on future legalization of psychedelics, and a physician scientist who uses a form of psychedelics as part of his practice of medicine and psychotherapy.

Related stories

• COVID-19 mental health crunch puts impetus on psychedelic drug innovation, doctor says
• Oregon psychedelic startup tests nasal spray for PTSD, depression as legislative momentum builds

With Oregon activists pushing for state-wide decriminalization of magic mushrooms for therapeutic use this year, one local startup wants to keep the momentum going. Silo Wellness, based in Springfield, Oregon, has developed a nasal spray for microdosing psilocybin meant to aid with anxiety, PTSD and depression. The company now hopes to spread the good word, offering seminars for volunteers who normally wouldn't try it on the black market to test the device in a controlled setting in Jamaica, where magic mushrooms are legal.

Joining us for this discussion Mike Arnold, founder of Silo Wellness; entrepreneur and consultant Eric Boone of Cannabinovation.com; Dr. Sunil Aggarwal, an affiliate clinical assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine; and journalist Anastasia Ustinova.

As the deadly coronavirus pandemic continues to grow, the looming mental health crisis creates an urgent need for innovation, putting a spotlight on psychedelic-assisted treatments, says Aggarwal, the co-founder of Advanced Integrative Medical Science Institute (AIMS) in Seattle.

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SPOKANE, Wash. — If you showed up at an emergency room with a heart attack, you’d expect to receive some diagnostic tests like pulse, blood pressure and an EKG. You’d be surprised if medical professionals based their assessment only on how you looked, or how they perceived your behavior that day.

Yet, that is exactly how autism spectrum disorder is diagnosed. Dr. Georgina Lynch, an assistant professor at Washington State University in Spokane, Wash., says autism is assessed with too limited a set of tools, focusing only on sociability and behavior markers that can often be perceived subjectively by healthcare providers.

She started Appiture Biotechnologies to bring a new objective autism test to the healthcare market. Researchers have long hoped that a genetic marker or blood test would offer an objective clue to diagnosing autism. Instead, Dr. Lynch’s approach is based on what she finds to be a unique reaction to light in the pupils of people on the autism spectrum.

“When we think of autism as just a behavioral or mental health disorder, that's the first mistake,” she said. “We need to think about it as a biological condition.”

Read more and see a video of the test at geekwire.com/healthtech.

This week's episode was reported, hosted and produced for GeekWire by Meredith Hogan, an independent multimedia journalist who produces documentary podcasts, video, films and interactive features. She worked previously for NBCNews.com and has a BS in Journalism from Northwestern University. Follow her @mer_hogan.

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Much of the current focus in health care is rightly on the near-term challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. But beyond the current crisis, health care technology veterans are already seeing major changes that promise to become permanent realities -- from the sudden boom in telemedicine, to regulatory shifts impacting health care billing, to the use of location data to track the disease.

"Most interesting is what's going to happen when this is over," says Anne Weiler, the co-founder and former CEO of Seattle health tech startup Wellpepper, recently acquired by Caravan Health. "I don't think people are going to be satisfied with going back to the status quo, because these other things are now working."

"I think these regulatory changes represent a big shift in how health care will be delivered beyond 2020," adds Nirav Shah, CEO of Sentinel Healthcare, a neurologist and the former stroke director at Swedish Hospital in Seattle. Sentinel recently launched a real-time fever tracking app for COVID-19 cases, and today announced that UT Health Austin will roll out its quarantine management program.

But it will be key to deliver solutions that actually work for front-line health care workers, says Doug Cusick, CEO of Seattle startup TransformativeMed, which is offering its electronic record keeping application to screen COVID-19 patients, monitor symptom checklists, and track lab results and other data.

"Look to technology to solve problems, but don't forget about these poor clinicians who've been left out in the process," Cusick explains. "The view has to be into solving these big communication and collaboration problems, which will enable so much else to work across our ecosystem."

We introduced these health tech leaders recently and brought them together for a conversation about the COVID-19 crisis. The conversation quickly turned to the long-term implications for hospitals, clinicians, startups, patients and health technology.

As a bonus, here are some of Anne Weiler's recommended Twitter accounts to follow, which she alluded to during the show.

• @ScottGottliebMD
• @RanaAwdish
• @meganranney
• @leorahorwitzmd
• @DrSidMukherjee
• @UrbaneDoc4Kids
• @Farzad_MD
• @ShawnteJamesMD

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On this episode: FindTheMasks.com,GetUsPPE.org and Masks 4 WA.

The coronavirus outbreak in Washington state has not yet reached the "peak" some public health officials anticipate but already ICU physicians like Mike Holmes are grappling with a dearth of necessary supplies.

Holmes described an "extreme shortage" of masks he and his colleagues at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle need to treat COVID-19 patients. "We are now reusing single-use masks over and over and over again," he said.

It's a challenge facing healthcare workers across Washington, who are asking the general public to donate any personal protective equipment (PPE) they have. Though Washington is receiving some supplies from the federal stockpile of protective equipment, people on the front lines of the crisis say it is not enough.

But long before Washington became a hotspot for COVID-19, it was an epicenter of innovation, home to Microsoft, Amazon, Boeing, and hundreds of tech startups known for creative problem-solving. Many of those innovators are now stepping up to find ways around supply chain challenges and the global shortage of protective gear for healthcare providers. GeekWire's Monica Nickelsburg joins us with the story on this special episode of the GeekWire Health Tech Podcast.

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A consortium of tech leaders — including Seattle’s Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Microsoft — today unveiled an AI-enabled database that’s meant to give researchers quicker, surer access to resources relating to coronavirus and how to stop it. GeekWire science editor Alan Boyle explains the initiative on this special episode of the GeekWire Health Tech Podcast. Read his story here.

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