Using Tele-Health for the Best Possible Care with Anil Appukuttan
CHRISTINA: hello everyone and welcome to another but a special episode of I am Christina Diarcangelo and today I'm very excited to have Anil with me you may have remembered Danielle from previous from a previous podcast that we'd been on talking about spectral telemonitoring and today the reason why Anil and I decided to join forces was that Anil is also on the Affinity patient advocacy board and we've been watching some of the patients and the things that have been going on out there in the medical society and Healthcare itself and we felt that perhaps it was time for us to come back on to talk a little bit about the telemonitoring so thank you so much Anil for joining us today.
ANIL: thank you Christina thank you
CHRISTINA: it's great to have you because you know we talk internally all the time about all the things that our telemonitoring can do and things that we have already started working on that have been helping patients like the electronic data capture side of the platform and the e-pro we're running clinical trials through it but what's cool about our Enterprise solution is the fact that we are able to actually monitor patients 24 7. do you want to talk a little bit about that Anil and then I could talk about the patient side a little bit and how there's the Synergy and the connection piece to it.
ANIL: Sure, Christina.
So I still remember like you know in 2020 you reached out to me and um you know my previous company to build up an EDC platform right so that thing I realized like you're you know the end-to-end vision to build an EDC along with the tele monitoring software with the remote patient monitoring aspect right so now I can understand like you know the vision you had that time so now it's like it is, it can be used for the regular you know the Physicians consultation and at the same time it can be used for the clinical trial you know patient visits no it's now I can see like all dots are being connected right so it's a wonderful job.
CHRISTINA: yes it's been a wonderful Journey because yeah I I know it's kind of crazy sometimes when I get these ideas in my head of like well we have the box right and so they've been sitting here you know just sitting here and then we started working on the EDC and the e-pro right and then once we we've really dug into that then we started working on the telemonitoring and I love the point that you brought up that this was 2020 guys so when everybody was complaining about covid we were also working on covid treatments you know with the feds and everybody and the Dominican so we were doing that stuff like Nitty Gritty work uh even with the White House one of the projects was involving the White House we were clearly the telemonitoring and the e-pro quietly at the same time so thank you so much for bringing that up because we don't I don't and as a team we don't talk we don't pat ourselves on the back and say listen you know we did this while everybody was sleeping or complaining or or whatever they were doing we were Vision Act activate it really with this covid because we saw the breakdown in society based on a virus I mean we all went into lockdown I mean you know it was horrible we couldn't see I mean I still haven't met you face to face yet we've only been onFilms we've been working together through zooms and texting you know um so I'm really excited that you don't we did it right and and we were conditioned forward but you know
ANIL: um so I'm really excited that you don't we did it right and and we were conditioned forward but you know regarding the technology right so when youexplain this concept so I was very keen and particular about the the technology stack what we are going to use right because I was 100 sure that eventually hundreds of studies will be going through this platform right and thousands of small and mid and large size hospitals will we use this platform for the tele monitoring and the consultations right so hundreds of we are talking about hundreds of thousands of patients in the system so the the back the database the architecture and everything thing is like built or for for scaling so that is taken care it is secure we are you know HIPAA compliant and all other personal health information everything is you know properly managed in the system.
CHRISTINA: Exactly, even with our telemonitoring system y'all how it works is just like we did with the clinical trial side because remember we started with the clinical trial side first then we built the telemonitoring site right?
ANIL: Right
CHRISTINA: so we created a randomization structure when the subjects because I'm sorry those would be patients then when patients come into telemonitoring they're randomized so what that means is they're identified by a code and their initials so we as a company and Neil me and everybody else that supports us there's a lot of people we have supporting us it's about us doing this there's all these people um that are behind us we will never know who these patients are so I love that you brought that up because I don't want patience because patients data they're stolen all the time you know I'm sure you've gotten stuff in the mail Anil because you've gone to a doctor then there was a compromise thing or your phone you know T-Mobile all these companies have had problems you know I've had there was a women's health practice here in Pennsylvania I don't know it was like seven eight years ago their infrastructure got hacked and all of our data was released who we were what we were doing all that stuff so I really love that you brought that up because that's an important topic today especially with everybody worrying about being hacked right and then what's really important I think about the telemonitoring is that patients know that the infrastructure will protect them and it's built for scalability just like Anil eloquently Said so the great thing about this and what's really important that we wanted to discuss today was those components that are applicable to say a hospital or say a state level Department of Health that's worried about the patients in their state um our ability to be able to track and Trace prescriptions the connection to the EMR and the fact that we are capturing biometric data from the patients based on their wearables are all essential for truly understanding what's going on a patient so as we have seen Anil with APA we have patients that go to the doctor then they end up in the hospital but doctors doing one thing the hospital's doing.
Another thing the patient isn't I mean they're normal people they don't know they have to go back to their general practitioner and tell them that the hospital put them on X Y and Z because a lot of times the information isn't flowing back from the hospital to the GP because the GP the general practitioner may not be affiliated with that hospital right if it's a private practice they surely aren't going to be so they have no idea what's going on so if in fact the patient doesn't always tell the hospital what they're taking the hospital unless they do talk screens and even then may not pick up the fact that these patients are taking all these other things and then they're having Contra drug interactions happening do you have patients that um sometimes are prescribed things that are painkillers and then they start they kind of become addicted to it and then they start going pill shopping they go from one hospital to another hospital their doctor has no idea the prescriptions aren't being tracked these patients have 120 you know oxy contains and a week which they shouldn't have and then we have overdose problems we have mental health issues being triggered all of this is going on it's a whole big storm but we have the solution to help The Perfect Storm because of how we track that information do you want to go in a little bit more detail about that Anil that's not too technical for our viewers and listeners right they get the juice.
ANIL: yeah I can explain from the functional point of view Christina so so the best part is like you know this system this you know the spectral tele monitoring is integrated with all the major EMR systems right like epic or Practice Fusion or all the major EMR systemsso the data is being like you know the transmitted from maybe from one Physician's office to the next small hospital or large Hospital the data is being like captured properly and it is integrated with the with the lamp right so that is also kind of you know the requisition the lab work requisition is also part of the system you know the results are coming through the system so that like each hospitals or the Physicians they can see the data right so it's all integrated.
CHRISTINA: I love that you brought that up because I forgot about the lab part that's like one of the most important parts.
ANIL: and the promote patient monitoring through the wearables the wearables or or any other spectral custom you know digital wearables or through other you know Omron or any other certified remote patient monitoring devices like to measure the blood pressure or any other you know critical parameter.
CHRISTINA: yep exercise sleep right because as a physician I'm sure Physicians who may be listening or viewing us understand what we're talking about because they deal with these patients every day right and you go into the doctors and you say and the doctor goes how have you been sleeping right they always ask and you go yes okay and well how many hours are you getting I think I have four or five at say seven hours right it goes always goes up right because they don't really know because they're not tracking that but if they're wary they're wearable no pun intended but if they have this the doctor would then get the static directly they don't even have to do anything so they would see this patient so say the patient's in they're meeting with the patient they could go to their computer hook into the telemonitoring go oh okay so you said you slept seven hours well according to the data it states and the patients also have access to all of their data too so they can see it too but the doctor could say I see you had three hours of deep sleep in two hours of light sleep that's five hours that's not enough sleep so let's talk about what's going on okay we see that noise has been an issue at night time in your in your surroundings what's going on at home that you have an increase in noise we've also noticed that your heart rate has been going up and down in various times of the day what is going on during those times of the day that's happening what's triggering your heart rate to go these are all the things we're able to see so that this like the doctors are and the patients that can help these patients really get through some of these things think about the mental health right mental health has been just going off the charts with cases since covet right so that's why I kind of like was happy brought up the covet because we intentionally did this stuff because we were forward thinking like listen everybody's been locked down of course they're going to be upset I know my son was upset I'm sure your kids were upset because they're used to playing sports and playing with their friends and going to birthday parties and now they were doing drive-bys you know where the kids would have a parade you'd wave everybody has a mask on outside I throw candy in the cars for the kids because you can't even go near the car because of covet you know this is not normal so back to the mental health you know we were worried about this right we knew that this was you know potentially going to happen so with mental health patients we are able to see since triggers occur as they occur TTS patients I mean look at there's someone in Pennsylvania that just had a pretty substantial check-in to the hospital and it's all over the media and even fact that person would have had been accessing our tunnel monitoring that physician who was their primary physician a psychiatrist whomever they're all hooked in they would all know this person was having a problem because of what was going on with the biometric status just the Biometrics data alone that's not talking Labs that's not talking you know everything else that we have hooked into the system the prescriptions.
ANIL: yeah yeah and um Krishna would you like to talk more about the patients Paradise like that will be also part of the mental health right I think it said.
CHRISTINA: yes so um what Anil is is tipping you guys off about um is the fact that we are also working on developing and inclusive metaverse for patients called the patient's paradise and what that means is that patients can come into our safe space our metaverse and they could come in as they are right whatever they feel like being whatever that that icon is that they come in with their Avatar whatever it is whatever they feel like showing up they show up to a safe space and they can interact with board members of APA they have the ability to interact with each other with other patients like themselves again showing them they're not alone and that they're the same because at the end of the day a lot of us have the same issues a lot of times we don't want to talk about it I know for myself there were times I didn't want to talk about health issues I had or sometimes things that had happened um to family or whatever because I was kind of embarrassed by it and so and I know people are probably what no and the it will tell you there's been times that I'm like hey I really I just can't even talk about this to out loud to people other than certain people because it was just it's just a disaster and this is a place where people can feel free and give them freedom and access to information and support.
ANIL: Exactly
CHRISSTINA: yeah I think I think our whole Vision here has been more of patient focused patient help we want to help people we don't want to replace doctors I want to be clear we're not like as our CFO always says we're not yet Roman we're not trying to replace doctors we want the doctors involved but we want the doctors to support to be able to have the tools to support their patients remember the one study we were running recently we had a patient that came in that luckily didn't get consented because the study coordinator thank goodness could notice something was wrong with his patient which is part of the screening process anyway but it turns out that the patient was having heart attack and this would have been a patient that would have come into our study now the reason why we didn't know they were having a heart attack is because the only part of the the Enterprise that was open for the study was the EDC the electronic data capture and the electronic patient reported outcomes side the questionnaire portion of the trial side we did not have the tele monitoring opened because there we can do that for clients if they want us to do it which I would strongly suggest they do because of this they learned a big lesson because and I of course told them that we saved thank God this man's life the study coordinated not us but the fact that the person didn't consent into a trial they were having a heart attack and we'd have an automatic serious adverse event once hospitalization occurs it's an SAE it could have blown the study up from a clinical trial standpoint so thank God the person was paying attention but really the the answer should be if we have the telemonitoring on even for the clinical trial participants it will help these people progress even better in the clinical study in my political trial Experience and then also the Bots right keeping the patients in the study we were just talking about it before we came on we're a bunches okay.
ANIL: yeah no the patient recruitment board you're talking
CHRISTINA: yep the patients
ANIL: yes identify the right patients you know contact the police screening you know questionnaire and finally bring them to the to the study right so that's a I think that's a that is also part of the center ecosystem so ADC in a clinical trial bought for you know to onboard patients and the tele monitoring that completes the you know the entire subsystem.
CHRTISTINA: and then retaining the patients right rent tension that's what we were talking about today intention is really important Pharma companies and biotech spend a lot of money finding the right patients working with sites and all this stuff right and doing what they're doing but to retain the patients are essential and given the space that we've been in lately it's been really hard and very challenging for clinical trials to retain patients because we've had I don't know how many outbreaks of covid multiple things then RSV happens now there's some dog flu or something people are afraid to leave their house again I it's just one thing after another we keep getting hit with all these ailments which if you're working in any indication that has a secondary mental health endpoint like anxiety you're gonna have a challenging time keeping those patients in the trial so if we turn on our bot that we mentioned can help pre-screen he can we call him a he they're boy face their brothers they one of those Bots could come on and talk to the patients regularly to keep them engaged like especially if we're hooked into the tele monitoring right so if their heart rate's going up we would then know it right if if everything is hooked into the telemonitoring and we have the study running at the same time the bot could come on and say is everything okay yes or no no what's going on and then we can have the the Bots fired to the doctor or the study coordinator really because they really are the ones who talk to people and then they can call the the subject directly because remember there's a randomization code that's assigned and the doctor Personnel knows who's behind that number we don't I think I think these are all great points that we brought up today Neil I feel like we're you know really it was good for us to have like a full circle discussion again because the last time we talked we talked a lot about what we are doing but now this is more of a Um kind of a podcast to say listen we Understand we see what's going on and we can help you with our solution.
ANIL: correct exactly
CHRISTINA: well I want to thank you for coming on again with me today and taking time out of your busy schedule to discuss this very important topic um because it's important and you know we've seen things personally we've seen things through the patient advocacy side of the firm where we've you know there's been some things that have been very challenging for our patients so we know that the telemonitoring is really the way to go.
ANIL: yeah so thank you so much Chritsina for inviting me and I know your passion for patience through you know you know Affinity bio partners and you know patients advocacy and so many aspects so some of them are not-for-profit rates you are doing it for the for the for the patients so that's a for free so that not-for-profit is the is the major thing like why you know I am more interested and Keen like you know what what you are doing for the patients right so yeah always I'm available anytime we can discuss more you knowas we build the platform for for the patients more exciting things are on the way metaverse for the patients parody so many things right.
CHRISTINA: I we're very excited you know we've been patient Neil and I we've been really patient because there's a lot of things that we want to do and we have to Stage ourselves just like you stated yourself in a tech environment I've now learned CDs had to learn to Stage herself again because I want to go you want to go but you know we have to Stage ourselves and we have to do things as necessary right and there's certain projects we're working on that we've got to you know complete so that we can get on to the next thing which the next thing is this this forward approach of really pushing the metaverse and the patient's paradise and I appreciate you saying that Emil and I know how much you care about the patients because we've had a lot of discussions and that was one of the reasons why I wanted you to join our board was because you really truly believe in helping people you are one of those Executives that cares about helping patients before making a profit and that's really important because not a lot of people will do that today and I just want to thank you for all that you do to help support us and all the things I mean you're just amazing and and the team that's built behind us is just amazing as well we're very blessed to have them all.
ANIL: thank you so much Christina!
CHRISTINA: thank you so with that we'll end for today and as we always say remember we are the same I am Christina d'arcangelo thank you for joining us today.
“We are the same!”