HIT Like a Girl Pod: Empowering Women in Health IT

In this bonus episode, Grace Vinton interviews Shrujal Baxi, MD, MPH, Senior Vice President of Clinical and Scientific Solutions at Verana Health. 

Her work at the digital health company serves patients through advancing the development and use of real-world evidence to address challenges in patient outcomes, healthcare delivery, and drug development. Dr. Baxi discusses with Grace why she chose a career in medicine, how her career path has led her to from medical oncology into digital health tech, and why she’s excited about the potential of using EHR-derived real-world evidence to improve patient care.

In this bonus episode, Grace Vinton interviews Juli Heitman, Customer Success and Quality Manager at Motient, on what drove her to make the shift from nursing to health IT. 

Juli recently completed a post-master’s degree in health care quality to continue her pursuit of making a difference in healthcare. Passionate about improving tech and workflow for our front-line heroes, Juli discusses the challenges we’ve seen since the pandemic with patient transfers and how this is affecting emergency department workers.

In this episode, we talk with Rebecca Love, Chief Clinical Officer of IntelyCare. Rebecca founded HireNurses.com and was the first nurse featured on TED.com, making her one of the country’s most prominent advocates for nurses.

Rebecca also started the nation’s first nurse innovation and entrepreneurship program at the School of Nursing at Northeastern University, is the co-author of two internationally best-selling books (The Nurses Guide to Innovation and The Rebel Nurse Handbook), and is the host of the Outcomes Rocket Nursing podcast.

In this bonus episode, Grace Vinton interviews the vibrant Jessica DaMassa, Health Innovation Reporter Host & Executive Producer, "WTF Health - What's the Future, Health?" and is Co-Host of Health Tech Deals. 

Jess talks with us today about the digital health funding landscape and what she sees to be the future of healthcare and care delivery. Jess has interviewed thousands of startups, digital health investors, and incumbents working to change the future of health worldwide. This experience of speaking with innovators in our space every day gives her a unique view into fresh innovations and business models that are transforming HIT and the healthcare industry.

In this episode, Dr. Pamela Peeke, Chief Medical Officer of Embr Labs talks about the Wave, a wearable that works as a personal bio-hack.

The Wave is a low-power, completely silent wearable that safely moves heat or cold away from your skin, acting as a mini air conditioner and heater. It warms or cools the sensitive skin on the inside of your wrist, signaling your nerves, and sending a feel-good message to your brain that quickly provides relief to your entire body.

In this bonus episode, Grace Vinton interviews Summer Humphreys, Principal at VisiQuate, provider of advanced revenue cycle analytics, intelligent workflow and AI-powered automation.

Summer talks with us today about the impact the pandemic had on service lines and dives into what service lines have bounced back since then and which ones are still struggling. She also talks with us about the impact that the pandemic has had on the revenue cycle management (RCM) workforce, transitioning from working in an office to working at home, and how data and analytics can now be used to help enhance RCM leadership and workforce performance unlike anything that’s been done before in this space. 

As CoFounder and Chief Scientist at Happify Health, Dr. Acacia Park’s research focuses on digital methods for managing and treating depression and anxiety, as well as chronic health conditions.

"People make better health decisions when they have good mental health. And conversely, when people are depressed or more anxious, they're distracted because of their mental state. They might not be making the best health choices. And so those things are in an inextricably intertwined.

In this bonus episode, Grace Vinton interviews Heidi Polek, Strategic Program Manager at DrFirst, on innovations in the pharmacy HIT space. 

Heidi talks about what her biggest challenges were when she was a practicing pharmacist and how she uses those lessons now in her role to improve pharmacist workflow and help combat front-line fatigue through technology.

In this episode, we talk with Emily Tyson, Chief Transformation Officer for Relatient / Radix Health. The two organizations recently merged and are helping to create stronger digital front doors to improve scheduling, provider communication and overall patient engagement.

She states, "What really fascinates and frustrates me about the healthcare industry is how chaotic, complex, and quite frankly conflicting the different systems and processes and incentives really are. It's like having a trillion-piece puzzle to put together, but the pieces don't actually fit. So my goal is to find areas within our health care system, where we can start to untangle the mess and simplify it."

In this episode, Grace Vinton interviews Dr. Talya Miron-Shatz, psychologist, researcher, and specialist in behavioral economics. Dr. Talya’s new book, “Your Life Depends on It: What You Can Do to Make Better Choices About Your Health,” talks about patient strengths, limitations, and how those impact care decisions and experiences. 

As an expert in decision-making, Dr. Talya also talks with us about the importance of behavioral economics in the HIT innovation process. The future of innovation in this space will look like using economics and psychology to help understand why people act the way they do and using this understanding to better the tech experience and user impact to improve outcomes.