AB: Emma, thank you so much for taking the time to speak at our symposium today. If you don’t mind, could you give the audience a brief background on yourself as well as an introduction?

EM: Thanks so much. Thanks so much for having me. Actually, health equity is very dear to my heart because 15 years ago, I used to be a nurse, been a patient many times, and now I work in the healthcare industry.

AB: I’m really curious to know. So, how do you envision medical technology playing a role in reducing disparities in healthcare access and outcomes on a global scale?

EM: So probably if you asked me this question five years ago, I would have think about specific tools or new innovations, but the last years I realized one of the biggest things that we can support the transformation is with the backbone of the healthcare system, is with innovative operating models for public health and human services. For us, like COVID-19, it was like a magnifying glass for all the efficiencies around the health system. And I honestly believe the healthcare, like the industry, our industry has been ready to have this conversation for a while. Right now, the health systems are ready to listen because they need our support. So we must understand that the future of public health requires new ways of working, new ways of thinking, and it also requires new skill sets and embracing enabling technologies that can help us reduce disparities. One of the key steps, I would say, the first one is for an innovative operating model is data integration, insights, and policy development. And I know it’s very fashionable to talk about data enablement and AI. Right now, everything is AI, but actually, in reality, our health systems are super fragmented in this aspect. I work in several health systems around the world, and I found these all over the place. We can help modernize the health information systems, and I’m talking, for example, about EHRs, with integrated solutions, because if we enhance coordination between health facilities, professionals, and the patients, we’re going to start with a better facilitating like data sharing, like research collaboration, promoting evidence-based practices globally, and we could track trends, identify vulnerable populations and find the resources that they need, and act towards them. And when we have AI-driven diagnostics and decision support, all those algorithms can help us analyze medical data, recognize patterns. It can help us find triggers. And when I say triggers, it can help us see where the patients are, vulnerable patients in our communities. And we can go there and precisely identify a plan and assistance for socially vulnerable populations. And of course, it can help with prevention programs for cancer screening in communities that we already know they have higher risk. We also have mobile health and patient empowerment tools, because I would say if the first step is data integration insights and policy development, the second I would say is health literacy, because we need to build health literacy and trust again in the health system. So with health literacy, this can act as a catalyst to dismantle barriers and creating a more equitable healthcare, because the patients can be better informed and engaged in their own care. Right now, if we don’t have that, we see a lot of misuse of the system. And also even our health professionals have burned out because the patients, they don’t know where to go and they don’t go to where they’re supposed to be.

AB: No, those are very, very good and true points. But on the topic of that advancement, we know we’ve seen a lot about AI, like you’ve mentioned, but in terms of advancements, for example, in like telemedicine and digital health solutions, do you think that MedTech can contribute to improving healthcare access and equity in remote and underserved areas by using these specific advancements as well?

EM: I know, again, like telehealth has been there for a while now. It is expanded, but it’s still like we need to expand the connectivity and the access and bridge the gap between patients and healthcare professionals, because despite we believe everyone has an iPhone or a Samsung right now, or internet, it’s far from the truth, right? Like we need to find like hotspots points where patients can get connection or points of care for those patients. Telehealth obviously can reduce like cost, time, accessibility, and convenience. And we have probably the best doctors here in New York City, but our patients, they’re not here and they don’t have the time. They don’t have the resources to come. Telehealth can help us support. And pharma companies, MedTech companies, they’re building a lot of patient pathways for different disease, et cetera, et cetera. It depends on the drug that we’re selling or the device that we’re selling. Remote monitoring, like devices that we can provide to our patients like wearables, apps. Imagine those patients, those chronic patients, and I’m thinking about a diabetic patient, a patient with hypertension. Doctors usually they only see them like twice, three, four times per year. And we need to have an impact in the full continuum of care. And we need to know what happened in between because when we don’t do it, there is a lot of waste and costs associated with comorbidities of those patients. When we provide those remote monitoring devices, we can see what happened in between and we can act when we see a lot of variability. So we can have like some prevention. I can give you an example for this one, really good one that I had experienced. There is a startup called Carium based in California. They actually won the award for Successful MedTech Solution. I think it was in this year, like breakthrough – MedTech breakthrough. And they approach an underserved community in Northern California. And they build a program for hypertension patients. They provide the blood caps for them. And they had a platform that connected with the physicians. But what they did different is like they realized that innovation is not a portal and it’s not giving a patient a blood cap. It’s like, okay, we realized like 60% of our population is a Spanish speaker. They can barely communicate with their doctors. They cannot communicate with us. So they hired a Spanish health coach that they could help them with the full process of how to connect to their phones, their devices, how – they needed to understand like even basics on diet, exercise, like sodium has an impact in blood pressure, which is such a basic, but they didn’t know. So they bridged the gap just with a language barrier in an underserved population that otherwise they would have given the cap, the free program, but they wouldn’t have been able to use it. And for me, that is like success in MedTech with telehealth, and remote monitoring.

AB: Yeah, you answered my next question. I was going to ask if you had any examples of ways to be able to increase that connectivity. And unfortunately we’re almost at time. 10 minutes flies by so quickly, but I wanted to ask you just one last question. So as the MedTech industry evolves, what steps are being taken to promote diversity and inclusivity within the field from a workforce representation to product development?

EM: So luckily, the simple learning of the past years is that there is an urgency to act on diversity and inclusion initiatives. So, I think from the beginning until product development, just from the moment you go to an interview in one of our companies, the panel must be a diverse panel for interviews. So they have a diversity training and conscious bias workshops. So they can hire actually a different representation in the workforce. They forge more public and private partnerships, which is, again, thanks to COVID-19, we realized the participation between corporations and public health actually works and we can work faster. And then we can officially – in big companies commit towards health equity, and that drives accountability. So in your website, you should be like, this is what I’m doing in terms of leadership representation, workforce representation, equal opportunity, employment, like inclusivity, inclusive policies. And then in product development, we account from clinical trial design to diverse themes studying the gaps that those clinical trials have. So it’s like all the journey from the beginning that you step into a company like this to what is the product that you want to give to our patients.

AB: I love that. Thank you so much, Emma, for giving your insights today and answering all of my questions. And so I hope you have a great rest of your day.

EM: Thanks so much for having me. Have a good day.