Marc O’Connor, of Curant Health

Better Medication Management and Compliance

Curant Health (Formerly HealthStat Rx) is a national healthcare company utilizing an innovative patient-centric services, medication management and specialty pharmacy program to provide chronic disease expertise and support to improve the therapy experience and quality of life for patients nationwide. Curant Health also provides hospitals, Accountable Care Organizations, concierge medicine practices, benefits managers, self insured employers, health care technology and home healthcare companies support programs to dramatically improve patient outcomes, reduce the health care spend, and decrease hospital readmission rates.

Curant Health was listed #4 on the 2015 INC. 500 for large health care companies. Curant Health also received the 2016 Atlanta Business Chronicle Pacesetters Award and the 2016 ACG Fast 40 Award for the fastest growing companies in Atlanta and the State of Georgia. Curant Health’s proprietary Pharmacy Analytics platform MedPlan was a Grand Finalist for Microsoft’s 2013 Excellence Award for Innovation.

Dune Medical is maker of MarginProbe. Dune Medical develops, manufactures, and commercializes innovative products that improve the effectiveness and outcome of cancer therapy by providing real-time tissue characterization systems to guide surgical and diagnostic decisions.  The company accomplishes this by identifying significant unmet clinical and market needs and investing in core technologies to develop products that improve patient care, build shareholder value, and create an exciting environment for employees.

Dune Medical Devices was founded in 2002 by Dr. Dan Hashimshony to realize the extraordinary medical potential of its proprietary tissue characterization technology.  Offering surgeons and radiologists the real time ability to identify cancerous tissues and react immediately, this technology holds the promise for a broad range of surgical and diagnostic applications.  Dune Medical Devices is a privately held company with offices in the U.S. and Israel.

MarginProbe allows surgeons to be able to, in real-time, determine the effectiveness of their lumpectomy excision of a worrisome breast lesion, regarding the presence or absence of tumor cells within the surgical margin.  The technology helps reduce the occurrence of having to return to surgery after the pathology results come in reflecting the need for additional excision.  Today, as many as 1 in 4 patients must return for more surgery after lumpectomy when this tool is not deployed.

The company has had this tool utilized on over 9000 patients to date and response from clinicians has been overwhelmingly positive.

Special Guests:

Marc O’Connor, COO, Curant Health

Lori Chmura, President, Dune Medical Devices

T3 Labs’ Deepal Panchal

Tackling Cardiovascular Disease Through Research, R and D

Health experts will be addressing top disease states & explore collaborations that will reduce their occurrence at the upcoming Health Connect South 2016 event.  Panelist, Dr. Neal Weintraub of Augusta University talks about obesity, its contribution to cardiovascular disease, and research aimed at tackling this and other risks.  T3 Labs – Translational Testing and Training Laboratories, Inc. Deepal Panchal M.S. explains how they facilitate R&D and training on new healthcare technologies.

More info soon!

Improving Quality of Diagnostic Data

Dr. Carolyn Compton, a panelist at the upcoming 2016 Health Connect South event September 21, took time out to join me on the show to talk about the need for improving the quality of data we get through diagnostic testing through better control of how specimens are gathered, handled, and stored.

She shared an example of how a specimen, collected knowing it was positive for tumor cells, can be made to return a “Negative” result for cancer if the specimen is not handled properly once it’s been collected.   She will be talking about how many factors can affect the validity and thus, value, of given tests if there exists a wide range of variance across the pre-diagnostic phase of test gathering.

A pathologist by profession, Dr. Comptom is very familiar with how significant the impact can be if diagnostic testing is unreliable due to practices that could be prevented.  Insuring that we are making decisions using the best, highest quality data available, means we need to look for any areas where variability creates what in essence is data artifact.

Arizona State University ranked by US News and World Report as the most innovative university in the
country and is the #1 producer of Fulbright scholars. Mayo Clinic is ranked by US News and World Report
as the best hospital in the US. NBDA is a 501C3 dedicated to collaboratively developing and implementing the cross­cutting standards needed to re­engineer the biomarker development process and increase its success rate, a critical issue and limiting factor for the implementation of precision medicine.

Special Guest:

Dr. Carolyn Compton, MD

Professor Arizona State University and Mayo Clinic

CMO NBDA; CMO CASI

Facilitating Clinical Trials

On this episode I caught up with Josh Mann, Co-founder/President of a non-profit organization, shareforcures.com, a digital platform that is facilitating clinical trials.  The platform accomplishes this by creating a database that enables individuals to contribute various aspects of their personal health data that can be utilized by clinical trials.

We know securing test participants is one of the greatest challenges and sources of cost for clinical trials.  So to have resources such as this becoming available should help tackle that problem as more and more patients and individuals populate the database with ever more information.

Data can come from wearable tech such as FitBits, Apple Watch, and others, as well as diagnostic equipment like glucometers, blood pressure, and even electronic medical records.  The individuals contributing data have the ability to make as much or as little of their information accessible by clinical trials.  And when it is utilized, it is possible to de-identify the individual to protect their privacy.

Josh talked about the fact that currently, most clinical trials end up with participants who as a group are often not truly representative of the patients who will be utilizing a medicine or device.  The reason for this stems from the fact that typically, patients taking multiple medications are often not included, along with patients who have multiple diseases, or other factors that can contribute to effectiveness of a drug or treatment regimen.

Josh will be participating in the discussions at the Health Connect South event September 21, 2016 at the Georgia Aquarium, talking about the role of big data in healthcare and how its evolution and integration will impact patient outcomes and clinical trials.  Be sure to use the promo code “RadioX” when you go to register for the event.  And make sure your contacts know about our promotion for Radio X listeners!

Sidney Welch, Tiff Wilson

Transition To Value-Based Healthcare

Recent changes in law have necessitated a transition to value-based healthcare delivery model, moving away from a volume-focused, treat-when-diagnosed approach to a pro-active, preventive “wellness” initiatives.

Sidney Welch works with clients to best position them in the explosion of heath care change. Focusing on operational, transactional, regulatory, administrative, and litigation matters nationally, Sidney works with clients to structure transactions and respond to compliance issues associated with federal and state health care laws and regulations. She is known for her work with specialty physician practices and health care technology companies across the country, and provides strategic counsel to clients regarding innovations in health care. See more.

Tiffany Wilson joined the Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI) in 2011 during its startup phase, directing business development activities, building strategic relationships and bringing together core members of the medical device ecosystem. She was quickly promoted to Executive Director, leading all strategic direction and day-to-day operations of the center. Her strong background in medical devices, commitment to fostering innovation and understanding of business strategies have propelled Wilson into a leadership role in the Southeast and brought her into the national spotlight. Full bio

We talked about the transition to value-based healthcare and its impacts on all parties involved, patient, payor, hospital, and physician, and how this transition affects some of the top disease states such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and others.

Tiff shared the news of GCMI’s recent merger with T3 Labs, bringing the lifecycle of tech innovation R&D/commercialization ecosystem and user training under one organization to capitalize on efficiencies, communication, and more.

Special Guests:

Sidney Welch, Healthcare Innovation Practice Lead, Polsinelli

Tiff Wilson, Executive Director, GCMI- the Global Center for Medical Innovation

Dr. Dan Roden

Damon Hostin

Precision Medicine

On this week’s episode I talked with two healthcare leaders who are experts in precision medicine.  One, Dr. Dan Roden, is one of the leading researchers on pharmacogenomic testing and its impact on patient outcomes at Vanderbilt University.  His work, along with colleagues at Vanderbilt and nationally, is contributing to the growing body of evidence supporting the value of personalized care.  The other was Damon Hostin, Administrative Vice President, Precision Medicine, at Catholic Health Initiatives, an organization that is an early adopter among health care systems putting precision medicine into action in their hospitals.  Their two perspectives give insight into the “Why’s” and “How’s” of implementing precision medicine within our healthcare delivery model.

After obtaining his MD and completing internship, Dr. Dan Roden went to Vanderbilt where he trained in Clinical Pharmacology and Cardiology, and has been a faculty member there since. His initial career focus – that he has maintained – was studies of the clinical, genetic, cellular, and molecular basis of arrhythmia susceptibility and variability responses to arrhythmia therapies.

Over the last 10 years, Dr. Roden has led Vanderbilt’s broader efforts in pharmacogenomics discovery and implementation.  He is principal investigator for the Vanderbilt sites of the National Institutes of Health’s Pharmacogenomics Research Network (PGRN) and the National Human Genome Research Institute’s Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network. He directs the Vanderbilt DNA databank BioVU, a discovery resource that as of spring 2014 included >175,000 samples linked to deidentified electronic medical records.  He is a leader in Vanderbilt’s PREDICT project that since 2010 has been preemptively embedded pharmacogenomic variant data in the electronic medical records of >14,000 Vanderbilt patients; as of April 2013, PREDICT displays information on 5 drug-gene pairs and delivers point of care decision support when a target drug is prescribed to patients with variant genotypes.

Prior to joining Catholic Health Initiatives, Damon was a clinical business lead for Complete Genomics and Strategic Diagnostics. Earlier, Mr. Hostin served as VP of Scientific Operations for GenVis Labs, a genetic diagnostic company purchased by Pfizer in 2008.  At Actinium Pharmaceuticals, Hostin managed alliances and licensing for the development of oncology therapeutic  candidates.  Earlier he served as Team Leader of Sequencing, at Celera Genomics- where he was co-published on the Human and Drosophila genome papers in Science as well as contributed to the launch of the commercial genomic database.  Mr. Hostin’s education includes undergraduate studies at Tulane University; Master’s studies at Harvard University; and certificate programs at The Institute for Genomic Research, the NIH, and Wharton.

In its discussion of the Precision Medicine Initiative Cohort Program, the National Institute of Health states, “Far too many diseases do not have a proven means of prevention or effective treatments. We must gain better insights into the biological, environmental, and behavioral influences on these diseases to make a difference for the millions of Americans who suffer from them. Precision medicine is an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person. While some advances in precision medicine have been made, the practice is not currently in use for most diseases.

That’s why on January 20, 2015, President Obama announced the Precision Medicine Initiative® (PMI) (link is external) in his State of the Union address. Through advances in research, technology and policies that empower patients, the PMI will enable a new era of medicine in which researchers, providers and patients work together to develop individualized care.

The President called for $215 million in fiscal year 2016 to support the Initiative, which includes several components with efforts from across the federal government. Of this total proposed budget, $130 million was allocated to NIH to build a national, large-scale research participant group, called a cohort, and $70 million was allocated to the National Cancer Institute to lead efforts in cancer genomics as part of PMI for Oncology.”

Special Guests:

Dr. Dan Roden, MD, Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Personalized Medicine, Vanderbilt University             

Damon Hostin, Administrative Vice President, Precision Medicine, Catholic Health Initiatives        

Chris Clark of UCB

Russ Lipari, Founder, Health Connect South

UCB on Epilepsy and Collaboration

On this week’s episode I hosted CEO/Founder of Health Connect South, Russ Lipari, and Chris Clark, Portfolio Strategy and Intelligence, Epilepsy at UCB, a pharmaceutical research and development company with a US location in Smyrna, GA.  It’s been three years since I first met Russ when he joined me as a guest on the Top Docs Radio show to talk about Health Connect South and its genesis as a platform for collaboration among healthcare organizations in the region.

At the time, it was thought the primary approach to fostering introductions and the partnerships/collaborations that would follow would be via meeting events throughout the year.  Over time, the platform has grown to include the weekly Health Connect South Radio show, regional educational events with subject matter experts, and a developing digital environment that will provide another means for organizations to share what they are doing, talk about resources they need, and potentially link up with partners that can meet them.

The primary needs of Health Connect South has relating to resources are funding and health care experts who are willing to support the initiative by making themselves available as thought leaders who can share information that will promote advances in healthcare outcomes for our communities.  Historically, HCS has been funded primarily through event attendance fees.  In order to insure sustainability and growth of this useful healthcare platform, the organization is actively seeking financial benefactors who will provide endowments or other ongoing funding beyond what is achieved through HCS events.

The 2016 Health Connect South event is fast-approaching—September 21, at the Georgia Aquarium’s conference facility.  This year’s focus will be featuring health leaders talking about how they are working to tackle the World Health Organization’s Top 10 Disease States affecting large populations around the globe.  Listeners of the show can take advantage of the promo code: RadioX and receive a discount on their registration fee.

Russ shared how UCB has been one of the first partners in making Health Connect South become a reality and they continue to do so today.  Chris explained the work UCB is doing to develop medications to address a number of challenging health problems, particularly neurologic and immunologic ones such as epilepsy and rheumatoid arthritis.

More info soon!