HIT Like a Girl Pod: Empowering Women in Health IT

Here at HIT Like a Girl pod, we’re all about trying to make sense of the complexity of the healthcare system. In this episode, Joy sits down with Beth Friedman, Senior Partner at FINN Partners, and Julien de Salaberry, CEO and Founder of Galen Growth to discuss the state of digital health around the world.

The Galen Growth FINN Partners Report results from an incredible collaboration between two like-minded partners who recognize the fragmented health ecosystem can crush innovation that can improve people’s lives. This Report is a navigational tool for innovators and their funders to improve the odds toward success.

Please read the report to see how in 50 pages, the authors were able to put together a complex puzzle that evaluates 250 million data points. 

Download the Global Digital Health Ecosystem 2022 Year-End Report.

In this episode, Joy sits down with Adimika Aurther, India Williams, and Janna Guinen about the launch of a new platform, Aperture, which aims to connect underrepresented founders in the health tech industry with healthcare organizations, investors, and other partners. Immigrant founders and community-based organizations around the world deal with challenges pertaining to systemic structures, like racism, bias, and discrimination. Aperture is designed to reduce these biases and to ensure that products and services that people are developing are equitable. Founders can join for free with a simple application process. Tune in to learn more!

In this episode, Joy talks with Gael Aitor, founder, and host of Teenager Therapy, the largest teen mental health podcast in the world. Gael shares how he got started with his podcast at the age of 14 with the intention of creating a space where he and four of his friends could discuss the issues they face and relate to one another, in hopes of reaching other teens going through similar struggles. Considering that the youth mental health crisis is growing, his coming-of-age story portrayed in real-time is a valuable resource. Listen in!

In this episode, Joy welcomes Mandira Singh, SVP of Acute & Payer Markets for PointClickCare to the podcast.

Did you know 85% of patients who get discharged from a hospital go to a PointClickCare Skilled Nursing Facility? Mandira shares an anecdote about a time when the patient's discharge notes were pinned to his coat in hopes that the receiving clinicians would find the information they needed.

We know that effective communication between caregivers is crucial to not only ensure that the patient receives the best possible care and has a smooth transition between healthcare settings, but also to prevent misunderstandings and errors that could potentially cause harm.

In this episode, Joy welcomes Nathan Bowser (they/them), Chief Marketing Officer of Augmented World Expo (AWE) to the podcast to share how being immersed in VR provided them with a sense of freedom and flexibility they wanted to also experience in real life. Nathan shares how VR has been a valuable tool to explore and understand their gender identity in a safe and supportive environment.

As someone whose life has been changed by virtual reality, Nathan is determined to share and cross-pollinate between the vibrant AR/VR communities to highlight the benefits, impacts, and opportunities for healthcare applications and new ways of communicating and computing.

We're here for it.

Ring in the new year with a sense of community and connection.

In this episode, Joy sits down with mentors from CSweetener – an organization powered by the HLTH Foundation with a mission to improve gender equity in healthcare leadership. Nancy Green, Kate Liebelt, and Janna Guinen share how the mentorship matching program has provided an opportunity to give back to the community, share their knowledge and experience, and help shape the next generation of professionals. And their mentees get access to valuable guidance, support, and resources that can help them navigate their career path and reach their goals.

Enjoy!

Dr. Geri Landman is a pediatrician who recently founded a nonprofit, Moonshots for Unicorns, which is committed to curing curable single-gene disorders, like her daughter Lucy's. While each gene is unique, they all share the fact that these children are missing one single protein in their cells to function appropriately. Science exists to fix this; it just takes passion, focus, funding, and innovation to make a meaningful impact - one rare disease at a time. Listen in to hear more about Lucy, Moonshot’s mission, and about which digital health innovations Dr. Geri believes could have the most impact on rare disease research and treatment!

In this episode, Joy talks with Dr. Brittany Barreto, Co-Founder and Executive Director of FemTech Focus, Host of the FemTech Focus Podcast, and Co-Founder of Coyote Ventures.

Every day Dr. Brittany Barreto dedicates her work to advance women’s health by equipping founders, investing in innovative ideas, and engaging key stakeholders to create better healthcare for women, females, and girls, an industry known as FemTech. She is an unconventional scientist, entrepreneur, and consultant that proves that anything is possible with hard work and heart.

In this special crossover episode, Kathryn Ayers Wickenhauser from Direct Trust interviews one of this year’s interoperability heroes and official Health IT Rockstar, Susan Clark.

Susan has a talent for expert orchestration regarding data governance, social determinants of health, and interoperability, where she helps identify disparate and often disconnected components of healthcare and is constantly trying to bridge the gaps between them. 

She also plays the bass guitar, so she qualifies as a legit rock star. She’s fun, innovative, and whip-smart. Enjoy! 

On this episode of HIT Like a Girl, Grace Vinton talks with Jane Myles, Vice President of Clinical Trial Innovation at Curebase, about how the time has come for the research community to take a page out of healthcare providers' playbooks and deliver care with a greater focus on the patient experience. Jane explains how a patient-centered view will help with improved trial compliance, better diversity, and more rapid trial completion. She further explains how patient experience has long been an oversight for the research community, and insights into how some leaders have been advocating for industry improvement in this area for decades.