Make everyday better for patients and their families all from the palm of their hands
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Welcome to the Outcomes Rocket podcast where we inspire collaborative thinking improved outcomes and business success with today’s most successful and inspiring healthcare leaders and influencers. And now your host Saul Marquez
: And welcome back to the podcast. Today I have Lynda Brown Ganzert. She’s the CEO and Founder at Curatio. Lynda’s a connector, serial entrepreneur, and health innovator, and award winning digital media leader, recognized as an international experts. She is also Chair Emerita at SFU and a Director of the Canada Foundation for Innovation. Through her various senior positions across almost every platform, TV, web, telecommunications, videogames, mobile yet she’s involved in a lot of things she’s pioneered over 100 products and projects that have uniquely use digital media for the purposes of improving health education and business. Today she leads a team at Curatio and that’s what we’re going to be diving into today. They’re the world’s first socio health prescription and their aim is to make everyday better for patients and their families all from the palm of their hands. So without further ado I want to welcome Lynda to the podcast. Welcome Lynda.
: Thanks so much. Happy to be here.
: Hey it’s a pleasure to have you here. Now tell me what made you get into the health care sector?
: I think for many of us it comes from that personal experience and so you know my background has been using technology to connect people that’s my passion. But it wasn’t until I became the patient went through a complicated pregnancy and some challenges with fertility that I saw some broken parts to that experience. And in a small way coming from a technology perspective I thought I know how to fix this part and that’s just one part of the overall puzzle. And that’s really where Curatio came from. And I ended up sort of hitching it to the back of the napkin idea to a dear friend of mine. And together we sort of worked out the initial concept and he further helped me out by having a heart attack about two hit flater. He’s great now and…
: That’s good.
: He is all good by but he became my first guinea pig. So you know the start of Curatio is a very personal and patient-base experience and looking at what sort of tools. Not just me but the entire team has an artful kit and how that helps in transforming health care.
: Very cool. I think it’s really neat that you have taken a personal experience then your dear friend and an experience and you guys have pieced together something before the interview folks, Lynda told me Curatio means health circle. Is that what it means in line?
: It means healing circle.
: Healing circle. I thought that’s more appropriate.
: Thank you.
: So this healing circle is this community that Lynda has built for patients that are you know going through a healing process. Is it mostly post treatment that you’re helping them out or is it through the entire journey?
: It’s through the entire journey. And we have users now in 70 countries and 4 languages so you can see the global need is pretty massive. But really what we’re doing is that end to end and what we would call sort of patient acquisition, retention, and engagement. So we’re a platform that can be plugged in that type of social plug to any offering whether that’s a chronic condition, a rare disease whether that’s helping on the provider’s side in the hospital to home transition or on the pharmaceutical side and supporting adherence. We’re really if you think of us as a type of social plug in that anyone can use alongside their existing offering to really help build that that community of trusted trusted private community for patients and you know attract and build that community with patients being very patient centric and then retain and engage in a way that really improves quality of life and health outcomes.
: I think it’s valuable and in today’s age where people are used to groups, online groups you know on Facebook, on LinkedIn it’s great to have a platform where somebody like an employer or a provider could guide their people to. That’s really a guided group that it’s not like “hey anything goes and I’m going to give you some herbs and snake oil or whatever.” This is really good stuff. This is diet, diet.
: Yeah exactly. It’s curated evidence based. We have you know human community managers we have an AI health body that helps you navigate through the system and it’s privacy compliant which is really important to us. They really like Data from the users and a patients perspective around protecting privacy. So hip, GDPR, now Paquita compliant worldwide. And that’s an important part and it can also be branded to look and feel like you’re offering. So it’s not meant to be another walled garden. It’s really meant to be a social private experience that can integrate into what you’re currently doing.
: Love it. So give us an example in how the platforms creating results improving outcomes.
: Oh sure. So we’ve we’ve had some great published clinical evidence that shows that patients using Curatio have found statistically significantly improved outcomes using a research tool called the HEIQ and that was published clinical evidence that showed that our users were performing higher and 5 motivate areas. What does that mean? It means that they were better able to navigate and self manage, they had improved outcomes, psychosocial, and wellbeing. So we’re really excited about that. We’re now into the second year of a three-year national study using our platform on that hospital those are home transition and how to help people stay connected and empowered and improve their self-management as they go from hospital to homes. So we’re quite involved in the research area that’s just two examples of what we’re doing. But it’s important to constantly show so that the improvements we’re moving the needle on improving health outcomes and we do that in a very patient centric way. So we are talking to our users and their families and their caregivers on a weekly basis and really dialing into what do they need. What’s that experience need to be and then translating it back into what we’re building a platform that helps manage daily health and capture some of those patient reported outcomes in a way that gives some valuable insights to patient population health.
: Yeah some great results thus far Lynda. Super exciting work that you guys are up to so yeah and so curious you know we don’t always succeed the first time around, we have setbacks. Can you share with us a setback that you had and what you learned from it?
: Well that’s a great question because you know we talk about in our company sort of a failing forward as the term so you know we’re very thoughtful around certainly protecting the patient the customer experience so you know we always have that first in mind. But the notion of trying and being nimble and making things better for the patient in incremental ways. So I’m mentioning that because every week, we’re learning something new and I don’t consider it failing as much as really learning. Like okay this patient population is really needing this and so how would we build that for them or how do we you know articulate for for them there. I think one of the big learnings that we’ve had for a Curatio is it really comes down to engagement and meeting the patient where they are. So that is going to be a really different experience based on what part of that health journey you’re on whether you’re a patient, or a parent, or a caregiver, it’s going to depend on what your learning style is, what your personality trait is and so we’re very focused on making that experience personalized. And that’s been a key learning for us over the years that we’ve been developing now. And you know I think some fits and starts there and in terms of really dialing into what the user needed and where we’ve arrived at is I think really getting into that personalized experience that is tailored to each individual.
: Congrats on finding that sweet spot.
: Thanks as you know it’s trial and error.
: And a lot of work and it changes and just get a stay on it always right.
: Exactly.
: So thank you for sharing that I think you know a lot of a lot of technologies that are developed and you know put out there are definitely pressure tested and those that stand the test of time are the ones that focus around the patient. What would you say your proudest leadership experience has been today?
: Oh gosh there’s been so many. I mean I have a fantastic team and a great board and investors. So it’s been an amazing experience but I think the fact that we are used in 70 countries that, we have a master service agreements in place with some of the largest healthcare partners in the world is great. You know I am really proud of all that we’ve done to do that. For me personally, what makes my day every single day is hearing from a patient or a future user around not only the value that we’re providing but how much it means to them. And so you know people share with me on a daily basis pretty personal and insightful conversations on why what we’re doing is important what it means to them and how we’re changing the world around, how we approach self-management.
: Nice. So tell us about an exciting project that you’re working on that obviously Curatio is exciting and results are very good. But what would you say within what you guys are doing there is an exciting project?
: Oh sure well we’re pretty excited about our AI agent right now. Our Health Buddy and back to what I was saying earlier really being able to personalize that experience and recognizing that people are coming into their health journey at different points and so leveraging the power of AI that can really provide that buddy. You know that first friend for any user or their family or their caregiver to help guide and navigate them along the way. So without getting into too much of the secret sauce we’re really excited about our development there and what that’s going to mean for both our users and our customers. As everyone is focused on, how do you empower and engage patients as you know as quickly and as personalized as possible.
: Love it. Love it. Excited to see when you guys come out with that. And folks if you are curious about Curatio and the things that they’re working on. Visit their website there at Curatio.me and you’ll be able to find that we’ll also included in the show notes so you could click on it and check out what the cool things that they’re up to are. Lynda getting close to the end here, let’s pretend you and I are building a medical leadership course and what it takes to be successful in the business of medicine. The ABCs of Lynda Brown Ganzert.
: Sure. Alright.
: Ive got four questions for you okay and they’re going to be lightning round style.
: Okay.
: And then I’ll follow that with the question about your favorite book.
: Great.
: All right here we go. What’s the best way to improve health care outcomes?
: Empower the patient.
: What is the biggest mistake or pitfall to avoid?
: Gosh not not listening to the patient.
: How do you stay relevant as an organization despite constant change?
: Keep learning.
: What is the one area of focus that drives everything in your company?
: Passion and love for the patient.
: What book would you recommend for the listeners on this syllabus Lynda?
: Being mortal by Atul Gawande was a paradigm shift for me and how we help patients at every stage write their own stories.
: Love it. It’s a great book folks if you haven’t check that out definitely make that high on your priority list. And for this full syllabus and transcript of our interview with Lynda go to outcomesrocket.health/curatio you’ll find it there. Lynda before we conclud, I love if you could just share a closing thought and then the best place for the listeners could get in touch or follow you.
: Oh for sure so I love hearing from people so Lynda with a Y at Curatio.me or through our website on Twitter curationme. So easy to find us. Closing thought would be anything that you build with love in the center and wanting to help someone else will be successful. So go forward with that. And there’s so much work to do in the world so if you approach it from that perspective you will find followers and success.
Thanks for listening to the Outcomes Rocket podcast. Be sure to visit us on the web at www.outcomesrocket.com for the show notes, resources, inspiration, and so much more.
