Author: healthprofessionalradio

David West, co-founder and CEO of Proscia, discusses the rapid modernization of pathology, a practice that has only recently started to shift away from the microscope towards a data-driven standard of care. David offers a high-level background on the factors accelerating digital pathology adoption and speaks to the unprecedented potential of AI before exploring the impact of digitization on patient care. 

The COVID-19 Delta variant is raging through the US putting patients on hemodialysis (HD) at higher risk for infection. John Milad, CEO of Quanta Dialysis Technologies discusses how this time can be used as a catalyst for positive change in the care of HD patients through accessible remote care and why innovation is needed now to bring a positive impact to the healthcare system and patients. 

Moderate to severe fatigue affects nearly 50% of psoriatic arthritis (PsA) patients and greatly impacts their quality of life.    Dr. Alyssa Johnsen, MD, PhD, Vice President, Rheumatology Disease Area Lead, Janssen Research & Development discusses a new publication in “Arthritis Research & Therapy” that supports TREMFYA’s (guselkumab) ability to reduce fatigue in psoriatic arthritis (PsA) patients.   The two phase 3 clinical trials of 1,120 patients with active PsA found that guselkumab 100 mg every four weeks or every eight weeks led to clinical and sustained improvements in fatigue through one year.

Dave Pierce, Executive VP and President, MedSurg and President, Endoscopy at Boston Scientific discusses the recent FDA clearance of its EXALT™ Model B Single-Use Bronchoscope, the latest device in the company’s single-use portfolio. Designed for use in bedside procedures within the intensive care unit (ICU) and operating room (OR), EXALT Model B provides an important option for the more than 1.2 million bedside procedures involving a bronchoscope performed in ICU and OR settings each year.  

Dr. Richard Furie, Chief, Division of Rheumatology, Northwell Health, and principal investigator in​ the Saphnelo™ (anifrolumab) clinical trials for the treatment of moderate-to-severe systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) discusses what this approval means for the SLE community. This complex disease hasn’t seen a new treatment approved in over a decade. Saphnelo™ is also under regulatory review for SLE in the EU and Japan. The ​phase III trial in SLE using subcutaneous delivery has been initiated, and additional ​phase III trials are planned in lupus nephritis, cutaneous lupus erythematosus and myositis. 

Dr. Ada Kumar, Medical Director in Medical Affairs at Horizon Therapeutics discusses recent findings from “Rheumatology” (July 10, 2021) which showed an “urgent need” for high-quality, prospective studies of patients hospitalized for gout flares. She talks about how clinicians can use the time a patient is hospitalized – when they are more receptive – to educate them on gout and how to treat it, why it’s critical for a rheumatologist to be consulted in the hospital setting, and how Horizon is supporting the gout community through its ongoing and prospective studies. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically decreased blood donations, especially those for plasma.  Thousands of patients rely on plasma-derived therapies to treat potentially deadly conditions like cancer, primary immunodeficiency disease, hemophilia, severe burns and more. One of these patients is John Boyle, who has lived with a rare primary immunodeficiency disease, X-linked agammaglobulinemia (XLA), since he was 6 months old. He must receive monthly plasma transfusions to survive – which means he has received more than 1,000 plasma donations in his lifetime.  He is here to discuss the dire need for donations, the donation process, his personal journey with plasma, and how plasma donations support these patient communities.   A list of donation centers can be found at donatingplasma.org.

Returning guest, Dr. William Haseltine, President, Access Health International, discusses his latest book “Science as a Superpower: My Lifelong Fight Against Disease and the Heroes who Made it Possible” (June 2021). 

Clinicians are acutely interested in delivering the best outcomes for their patients. One of the biggest challenges for healthcare providers is to get data that is reliable, accurate and timely. Dr. Rohit Uppal, MD, Chief Clinical Officer of TeamHealth Hospitalist Services, one of three groups that were compared in this IllumiCare study, discusses how Teamhealth is using IllumiCare’ s Smart Ribbon (a ribbon of information that hovers within a hospital’s Electronic Medical Record) to display real-time cost, risk and other data. The goal is to empower clinicians to practice more clinically effective medicine, while also being better stewards of resources. TeamHealth also worked with IllumiCare to measure the quality and cost of care provided by hospitalists and how one hospitalist group compares to another.