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Tech Tonics — Health & Fitness
Tech Tonics

Tech Tonics, the Podcast, is a twice-monthly program focused on the people and passion at the intersection of technology and health. Hosted by Lisa Suennen and David Shaywitz (the co-authors of “Tech Tonics: Can Passionate Entrepreneurs Heal Healthcare With Technology?”) the show draws on their experience in business, medicine, and health-IT.

The Tech Tonics podcast seeks to bring the people in the digital health field to life and, ideally, elevate humanism in a healthcare world captivated by technology. “We deeply believe in what Robert Coles, an inspiration to us both, has termed ‘the call of stories,’” David Shaywitz says. “Our aspiration is to bring the spirit of Coles and Michael Lewis to the world of digital health.”

Together, Suennen and Shaywitz engage a range of intriguing guests in discussions that enable listeners to appreciate the stories behind the startups and the people behind the passion.

Lisa Suennen is the Managing Partner of Venture Valkyrie Consulting, LLC, a firm that provides advisory services to corporate and independent venture capital funds and to large and small companies around investment and product strategy, innovation spin-outs, market development, partnerships and financing. She is currently a member of the Qualcomm Life Advisory Board, the Sanofi Integrated Care Advisory Board, the Dignity Health Foundation Board, and an Advisor to the California Health Care Foundation Innovation Fund and a member of several private company Boards of Directors.

Dr. David Shaywitz is the Chief Medical Officer of DNAnexus, a company that makes it easier to work with genomic data using advanced bioinformatics and scalable compute systems based on the cloud. He received his M.D. from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health, Science, and Technology at Harvard Medical School, and his Ph.D. from the Department of Biology at MIT. He trained in internal medicine and endocrinology at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and conducted his post-doctoral research in Doug Melton’s lab at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.

Tech Tonics, the Podcast is produced by Jason Lopez and syndicated by Connected Social Media. You can also find out more at venturevalkyrie.com and connectedsocialmedia.com.

Copyright: © ConnectedSocialMedia.com

Latest Episodes:

Tech Tonics: Susan Desmond-Hellmann, The Inquisitive Leader Jan 22, 2019

Show notes

Her illustrious career has taken her from clinician to biotech executive to university chancellor to CEO of the world’s largest foundation, yet throughout this exceptional journey, Susan Desmond-Hellmann has remained empathetic, inquisitive, and emphatically true to herself.

Growing up in Reno, Nevada as one of seven children, Sue was inspired by her father, a pharmacist, and her mother, a teacher; she said she always wanted to be a doctor, but even so, she could not have predicted the direction and velocity of her subsequent career.

In today’s far-ranging discussion, Sue talks about how she discovered her passion for oncology; her introduction to and involvement in the HIV-AIDS crisis; how she and her husband Nick have supported each other across the ups and downs of their often-overlapping careers; their transition to pharma; her return to academia at UCSF after an exceptional decade and a half in industry; and. now as CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, her perspective on the future of public health — a view that leverages quantitative data and focuses on precision and personalization.

This is a captivating conversation that touches on translational research, executive leadership, and public health, as well as the person behind the success story. David and I spoke to Sue from her home in Washington State and were thrilled to have her on the show.

Today’s episode is sponsored by IDEA pharma, the industry’s leading path-to-market strategy practice, bring more medicines to patients. You can find them at:
ideapharma.com.

Show Notes:

This is the commentary about orphan drugs cited by David.

This Forbes column from David asks how to leverage data and analytics (as Sue proposes) without fetishizing them.

Tech Tonics: Axel Heitmueller, Everything is a Shade of Gray Jan 07, 2019

Show notes

Axel Heitmueller, Ph.D. grew up in Germany, the son of an engineer. Yet, despite the often discrete intellectual structure engineering can impose, Axel’s personal experiences have taught him how important it is to find comfort with a state of gray. As a transition economist, he has learned that everyone has an opinion; as a caretaker to severely disabled children he learned about the relative value of life; and, as a government official, he has learned that one must balance incrementalism with radical change to make progress in effectively serving patients.

Despite an early belief that he wasn’t cut out for healthcare, Axel has had a notable career driving innovation in the UK healthcare system even though there is occasional resistance to receiving it. Axel has worked on both sides of the National Health System, serving three Prime Ministers and also working at community hospitals and related organizations. His current role is as Managing Director of Imperial College Health Partners. Among the big lessons he has learned is that there is no such thing as evidence-based policy-making and that incremental innovation is often better than no innovation at all.

Having lived close to the center of power, Axel’s current obsession is how we talk to our kids at this challenging moment in history. He is thinking hard about how we succeed in using broad-based civil discourse to empower citizens around culture, democracy, health and education to reduce the growing sense that there is an elite vs. disenfranchised population. It’s hard not to appreciate the way he is deeply thinking about how we curate conversations that include everyone around topics that affect each of us, often in different ways.

David and I spoke to Axel from his home in London and were thrilled to have him on the show. To hear today’s episode, click on the link or go to iTunes or Connected Social Media’s website.

We are grateful to GE Ventures for their sponsorship today. GE Ventures – Multiple Paths to Big Impact.

Rockpointe: innovators in medical education and patient engagement. — Tech Tonics: Darshak Sanghavi, Public Health Pediatrician Dec 17, 2018
Show notes

Passionate about the intersection of policy and medicine, Darshak Sanghavi’s career has taken him from pediatric cardiology to the Obama Administration to his current role as CMO, OptumLabs, always seeking to define and improve on one thing in particular: the outcomes that matter most.

Like so many origin stories, Darshak’s begins in New Jersey, where he attended the same high school as previous Tech Tonics guest Atul Butte. After college in Boston (where he majored in biology and U.S. politics) and medical school in Baltimore (where he traveled globally to pursue an interest in public health), he returned to Boston to pursue pediatrics, and ultimately pediatric cardiology, while taking several years off to work as an Indian Health Service pediatrician on a Navajo reservation in New Mexico. He also authored a highly-regarded book, “A Map Of The Child.”

After nearly a decade practicing pediatric cardiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (ultimately as chief), he joined the Brookings Institution, then was recruited by his former intern Patrick Conway to join the Obama Administration, where he served as the Director of Preventive and Population Health at the HHS Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. In August 2016, he transitioned into the private sector into his current role as Chief Medical Officer of OptumLabs.

We are thrilled to welcome the preternaturally eloquent Darshak to today’s show – and among other topics, hear him explain why he believes health care and reality TV are so similar (see here)! Plus, his thoughts on work-life balance (or its absence).

Today’s episode is sponsored by Rockpointe: innovators in medical education and patient engagement.

To learn more go to:
RockpointE.com

Tech Tonics: Ari Caroline: Broad Intellect Meets Deep Humanity Dec 03, 2018

Show notes

An accomplished linguist who planned to take a job after college with a Russian oligarch (but rethought the notion after the man was nearly assassinated), Ari Caroline’s journey has taken him from language to economics to business to his current role as Chief Analytics Officer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), where he sees himself as a data intrapreneur, striving to use data to improve the care of patients with cancer.

The son of two scholars, Ari tells us he spent most of his childhood in Philadelphia. “I had a good sense of what I enjoyed,” Ari says that sports statistics, and science were his favorites, “but was less certain how to translate these interests into a career.” In college, he initially pursued languages – difficult languages including Russian and Mandarin – as he recognized he had a natural facility for learning them. He flirted with the idea of international business, and pursued quantitative finance at Yale before ultimately landing at MSKCC, helping to create and implement their data vision.

At MSKCC, Ari’s broad intellect and deep humanity have found expression in a range of initiatives aimed at applying data intelligently in the service of cancer patients and the care teams treating them. As Ari describes on the show, he looks closely at the costs and effects of different treatment regimens, and uses a range of techniques, including game theory, to try to understand how real world decisions occur. He also tells us why he agrees with Sean Parker’s comment that “tech people coming from tech to biology so dramatically underestimate the complexity of the human body.” In Ari’s view, building a data team in an academic center helps provide this much-needed domain expertise.

Ari also shares a deeply personal perspective of how religion – he describes himself as “conspicuously observant” – has impacted his life, from the superficial (patients mistaking him for a rabbi) to the more profound, including his affinity for mission-driven work, and his appreciation of the need to balance structure and chaos.

We are so delighted to welcome Ari to Tech Tonics!

This episode of Tech Tonics is sponsored by DNAnexus, the secure and compliant cloud platform that enables enterprise users to analyze, collaborate around, and integrate massive amounts of genetic and other health data.

Additional show notes:

New Yorker post-election cover

Henny Youngman’s doctor joke Lisa alludes to: “This guy asked his doctor, ‘Will I be able to play the piano after my operation?’ And the doctor says ‘Sure.’ And the guy says, ‘Funny, I couldn’t do it before.’”

Grammy Hall’s mental image of “conspicuously observant,” from Annie Hall, alluded to by David: here.

Tech Tonics: Sarah Iselin of Florida Blue – Bringing Light to the Darkness Nov 19, 2018

Show notes

Growing up on Capitol Hill in a Washington, DC political family, Sarah Iselin did the obvious thing, at least to her, by rebelling and going to art school. But when her practical self realized that was going to make for a hard living, she eventually found her way to healthcare through an internship at the Visiting Nurses Association that launched her into a long and successful career. A serendipitous connection to a lifelong mentor, Andrew Dreyfus, now CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, led Sarah down a long and successful path at BCBS Massachusetts and its Foundation. This path then winded it’s way to the Massachusetts State House where she was instrumental in designing what we now call RomneyCare and served as Commissioner of Healthcare Finance and Policy in the administration of Governor Deval Patrick.

To know Sarah is to know she is pure sunshine. She is always smiling and ready to embrace you with a positive attitude. Yes, she has rapidly climbed the healthcare ladder, driving innovation as both payer executive and government official. But she is especially excited today to use her current leadership position as SVP and Chief Strategy Officer at Florida Blue Cross Blue Shield (aka Guidewell) as a platform to drive social justice by addressing community challenges like access to effective mental health care.

Sarah is exquisitely aware of the challenges people face when depression, anxiety and worse come calling. Because despite all of her success, Sarah has had, like so many others, also experienced the lowest of the lows. The love of her life committed suicide 3 ½ years ago and then, while she was reeling from that, her son experienced some severe mental health issues and spent a long time in psychiatric facilities and programs on his way to getting better.

Navigating the care process for her son laid bare the difficulties people face in accessing effective mental healthcare when they need it. Her openness on this topic and her willingness to talk openly about these experiences also serve to remind all of us that everyone has a story, and that even the most successful and accomplished people face the very real ups and downs of life.

We are so excited to have Sarah on the show today to learn about her work and life, and for her also to demonstrate the power of resilience.

We are grateful to GE Ventures for their sponsorship today. GE Ventures – Multiple Paths to Big Impact.

Tech Tonics: Stephanie Tilenius – Work, Not Worry Nov 05, 2018

Show notes

An accomplished investment banker who transitioned to become an accomplished executive at leading tech companies including eBay and Google, Stephanie Tilenius has now set her sights on an even more difficult challenge. As CEO of Vida Health she is focused on improving the health of the chronically ill with evidence-based coaching.

Along her remarkable journey, Stephanie has been guided by wisdom from her father (“work, not worry”) and lessons she’s picked up along the way. She sees a real need in the management of chronic disease, and, at Vida, aims to leverage her experience “building great products” and leading high-performing teams.

Following up on a recent, fascinating discussion with our colleagues at Healthy Dose (see here) Stephanie reiterated in her conversation with us that she viewed her experiences at both Google and eBay as extremely positive, and felt that both companies focused on merit and rewarded performance despite some of the circumstances reported by others. She said that her experiences at these companies — and that of many other women she knew in these organizations– were gratifying ones, even if this isn’t the conventional wisdom about tech companies. She worries more, as an entrepreneur, about the world of VCs, which she thinks eventually care about returns but, in the short run, may value other characteristics that tend to favor male entrepreneurs.

We’re grateful to Stephanie for sharing her inspiring story, and engaging in such a frank discussion around a number of important topics.

Today’s show was sponsored by IDEA pharma, the industry’s leading path-to-market strategy practice, bringing more great medicines to patients. You can find them at:
ideapharma.com

Additional links:

Lisa on the new California bill to ensure female board members: Here, Here.

David’s Forbes piece on this debate: here.

Tech Tonics: Dr. Carla Pugh on Serendipity and the Technology of Touch Oct 22, 2018

Show notes

Dr. Carla Pugh does a lot of things. She is trauma surgeon, entrepreneur, researcher and educator and is officially a professor of surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine (she also went to UC Berkeley so Go Bears!) and also Director of the Technology-Enabled Clinical Improvement Center at Stanford.

Born into an entrepreneurial home, Carla started helping her mom at age 2 by filing computer punch cards. But she knew she wanted to be a doctor at the age of 5 and, specifically, a cranio-facial reconstructive surgeon at the age of 14 after seeing a movie about Dr. Paul Tessier, a renown cranio-surgical reconstructionist.

Her ultimate role as combination surgeon and entrepreneur grew out of Carla’s experience as a “maker” before that term even existed, handy with tools and determined to fix stuff in life and later in medicine. As a young girl, she didn’t want Barbies, she wanted a soldering iron and set about fixing other kids’ toys.

Today Carla runs a lab at Stanford where all sorts of interesting tools are invented to help physicians train, test their skills, and understand their limitations. Key among these are sensors and devices that provide feedback to physicians about their touch and the way they use their hands, which is key to so many diagnostic procedures. According to Carla, “sensors don’t lie” and doctors tend to believe the computer more than the faculty when it comes to testing skills in simulation labs, a task that not all physicians embrace, particularly when they find out they have been doing standard procedures wrong for years.

Carla says, “My career is a string of serendipitous and magical experiences.” We are delighted to have her on the show to describe them as only she can.

And we are grateful to Medidata for their sponsorship today. Medidata – the Intelligent Platform for Life Sciences that closes the loop between clinical development and commercialization to power smarter treatments and healthier people.

Tech Tonics: Microsoft Global Chief Medical Officer Simon Kos, Using Technology to Light the Future of Medicine Oct 08, 2018

Show notes

Medical technology thought leader by day, computer gamer by night, Dr. Simon Kos, Global Chief Medical Officer of Microsoft, is a physician, business strategist and technologist who by his own admission is drawn to “bright shiny objects.” But a commitment to make medicine safer and better through technology has been his career guiding light.

Simon, an Australia native, was born into a medical family but didn’t know it was his destiny to follow in the family footsteps. He studied to be an engineer and did become a lover of technology, but eventually the pull of fate was too much and Simon ended up in medical school. Yet he was troubled that the time he spent in the critical care unit was fraught with data-free decision making, which made him realize his ultimate purpose: to use technology to improve medicine. While working to spread electronic medical records, thinking they could be the tool that could make the difference, Simon quickly realized there was a big difference between digitization and transformation. He soon began his journey to discover how to use technology as a true means of change management, eventually landing at Microsoft in Australia and then in the global role.

Simon loves the latest greatest tech breakthroughs, particularly those that first find a place in other industries, and for that reason has found Microsoft such a stimulating environment. His latest interest is in mixed and virtual reality, thinking about how Hololens can contribute to a better healthcare system, among other things.

Simon is also enamored of the latest computer games and spends a lot of time hanging around The Continent, the magical world where Witcher 3 takes place. Witcher 3, for those of you who don’t know, is a very popular open world role playing game where you get to be a monster slayer. Funny that Simon is a doctor focused on healing but loves to play a game that is grisly and violent and surely would deliver people to his critical care unit of old. Perhaps it’s the cool technology combined with the need for human decision making and empathy that reconciles these worlds.

You can hear Simon talk about all of this, plus his view on people with special needs and the positive aspects of neurodiversity. As the father of a child with autism, Simon is a champion of helping all people become their best self in the greater community.

We are delighted to have had Simon on this week’s show!

And we are grateful to Medidata for their sponsorship today. Medidata – the Intelligent Platform for Life Sciences that closes the loop between clinical development and commercialization to power smarter treatments and healthier people.

Rockpointe: innovators in medical education and patient engagement. — Tech Tonics: Sek Kathiresan, When The Genetics of Heart Disease Becomes Intensely Personal Sep 24, 2018
Show notes

When Harvard cardiologist and geneticist Sek Kathiresan was promoted earlier this year to full professor at Harvard Medical School (he also has an appointment at the Broad Institute), he shared the news in a poignant tweet that basically said, ““from India to Pittsburgh public elementary school to this – what a thrilling ride in this amazing country; grateful to my family.”

Sek grew up in a small town in India. When he was young, his parents and younger sister left for the U.S., leaving Sek and his older brother Senthil with family for several years before they too emigrated to the United States and found themselves in Pittsburgh, PA.

While he attended Wharton as an undergraduate and briefly flirted with a career on Wall Street, Sek quickly recognized his passion was medicine; he trained at Harvard Medical School, followed by internal medicine and cardiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He then found himself captivated by the genetics of coronary artery disease, a passion that was as much personal as professional, as he shares in this episode, talking about how heart disease has affected his family.

Sek’s nuanced view of the genetics of complex disease has helped transform the way medicine and science think about these areas; for instance, he’s helped advance the view that diseases may not divide into discrete subtypes (the “fruit salad” model) but may represent (as David described in Forbes) a “gemish, with slight defects in multiple pathways collectively contributing to disease manifestation.” More recently, he’s also developed a polygenic risk score that estimates susceptibility to illnesses such as coronary artery disease (CAD) based on the evaluation of (in the case of CAD) over six million DNA variants. Note that Sek mentioned this website at the Broad Institute during the show.

We are thrilled to welcome Sek to our show today!

Today’s episode is sponsored by Rockpointe: innovators in medical education and patient engagement.

To learn more go to:
RockpointE.com

Rockpointe: innovators in medical education and patient engagement. — Tech Tonics: Brad Hirsch, A Cancer Doctor With Management Chops Sep 10, 2018
Show notes

If Alex P. Keaton was from Texas, went on to med school, and then trained in oncology, he might have emerged looking something like today’s guest, Dr. Brad Hirsch, an MD/MBA with a doctor’s heart and a businessman’s head, who’s now busy integrating both of these qualities as CEO of SignalPath, a company trying to improve the execution of clinical trials.

Brad grew up in Texas, the son of a corporate CEO (who’s now a private equity executive). From an early age, Brad was interested in medicine, as well as business, and studied both biology and economics at the University of Pennsylvania, and went on to pursue both medicine – internal medicine then oncology – and business; he was especially interested in the intersection of the two, and thought there must be ways to improve the way care is delivered. (Tech Tonic listeners may recall very similar sentiments from previous guest Bob Kocher, see here).

Following somewhat contrasting experiences at McKessen and Flatiron, Brad became CEO of SignalPath, a company that spun out of Duke and which is focused on pragmatically using technology and data to improve the operations of clinical trial sites, with a particular focus on simplifying the life of the clinical site coordinator.

On today’s show, we also learn about Brad’s formative outdoor leadership experiences in Alaska and Utah, and his equally memorable experiences as a med student at University of Texas-Southwestern’s famously demanding Parkland Hospital. Brad also helps us understand why this health tech entrepreneur was so determined to return to the Lone Star State.

Today’s episode is sponsored by Rockpointe: innovators in medical education and patient engagement.

To learn more go to:
RockpointE.com

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