INTERVIEWS

Rich Birhanzel, senior managing director at Accenture who leads the company’s global health practice, discusses a recent Accenture report called “Breakthrough Behavioral Health Access: Think Virtual”.  The report finds that the use of virtual delivery channels could expand treatment to millions.

Ken Perez, VP of Healthcare Policy for Omnicell discusses the launch of Omnicell One, the first tech-enabled service for health system pharmacies that leverages cloud-based data and predictive intelligence.

Chris Bradley, CEO of Loki Therapeutics discusses Loki’s proprietary AWAKE™ strategy that completely bypasses the major challenges faced by traditional immunotherapy approaches.  AWAKE reactivates and redirects pre-existing, life-long Memory T-cells created during childhood vaccination to target and eliminate cancer cells rather than training naïve T-cells against tumor antigens like traditional immunotherapy.

Returning guest, Dr. Ray Costantini, CEO and co-founder of Bright.md, discusses AI’s role in screening for the coronavirus and their recently released COVID-19 Screener that has been offered for free in the US.  He also talks about the popularity and challenges of telehealth during COVID-19 and how health systems can fill the gaps with non-video asynchronous care. 

Dr. Dave Anderson, Chief Scientific Officer at VBI Vaccines discusses the company’s work to develop a pan-coronavirus vaccine to address mutations.  He talks about the public health implications of a mutation of COVID-19.  In addition to COVID, VBI Vaccines is in late-stage development of the only potential vaccine that mimics all three surface antigens of the hepatitis B virus.

Dr. Gary Lelli, Vice-Chair of Ophthalmology at Weill Cornell Medicine, discusses the Horizon Therapeutics and Prevent Blindness launch of FOCUS, an initiative created to help those living with Graves’ Disease recognize the symptoms of a separate, but related disease called Thyroid Eye Disease (TED), a serious, progressive and vision-threatening rare autoimmune disease that, in rare cases, can lead to blindness.

Dr. Lisa Ravindra, Primary Care Physician and Physician lead for Virtual Care Programs at Rush University Medical Center, discusses the dramatic dip in U.S. cancer screening, due mostly to people staying away from the doctor’s office because of COVID-19.  She talks about new guidelines published by The National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable and the important role that telehealth and at-home screening tests can play in detecting colorectal cancer earlier amidst this new normal. Learn more at Cologuard.

Returning guest, Dr. Gwen Nichols, Chief Medical Officer at the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) discusses the Children’s Initiative, a $100M dollar effort to address the lack of treatments for pediatric blood cancers.  She also talks about the PedAL trial that is part of the Children’s Initiative. This master clinical trial will test simultaneously multiple targeted therapies for children who experience a relapse of their acute leukemia.   The study will take place at more than 200 sites worldwide that are part of the NCI-supported Children’s Oncology Group (COG) network of children’s hospitals, including those in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. 

Dr. Gwen Nichols, M.D., Chief Medical Officer at the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society discusses blood cancers, the progress in blood cancer therapies, and the impact COVID has had on research.

Clinician safety is the top priority during the COVID-19 crisis. Ariel MacTavish, VP/GM of Respiratory Interventions in the MITG division and  Frank Chan, VP/GM of Patient Monitoring at Medtronic discuss Medtronic’s first-of-its-kind software solution that enables doctors and nurses to manage and adjust ventilators remotely.  This reduces room entries and exposure and conserves PPE.  In addition, Medtronic is taking the lead to protect healthcare workers and prepare them for the potential next wave of COVID-19 by partnering with hospitals like Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., where healthcare providers have access to a range of remote monitoring devices such as remote-access solutions for pulse oximeters, used to measure oxygen levels in the blood, and the latest in capnography to monitor carbon dioxide levels in the airways.