Using telemedicine to fill the gap of the lessening number of physicians
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Best Way to Contact Saya:
saya@simplecontacts.com
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Saul Marquez:
Welcome back to the podcast. Today I have the outstanding doctor Saya Nagori. She’s a medical director at SimpleHealth. Glaucoma surgeon co-founder of this company Doctor Saya Nagori completed her undergrad training at Villanova University where she earned her bachelor’s degree and was presidential scholar. She then attended Drexel College of Medicine where she was recipient of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Fellowship for her work in patient education in regards to diabetic eye disease. Following her schooling at Drexel she completed her Optum ology residency program at St. Luke’s and Roosevelt Hospital System in New York City where she was chief resident. She then completed a glaucoma fellowship at the Kresge Eye Institute in Michigan. Dr. Nick Gorrie is a glaucoma specialist and anterior segment surgeon performing both cataract surgery as well as surgery for glaucoma. She’s been published in several major journals in survey of the malady and also archives about them ology. But she’s very fond of performing a business that will help patients that are not as sick patients that need services that aren’t in the normal health care setting and so I’m excited to dive into some of her experience in the traditional health care space as well as some of the work that she’s innovating and so say I just want to welcome you to the podcast.
Saya Nagori:
Thanks so much Saul. Really happy to be here.
Saul Marquez:
Absolutely. Now tell me something what got you into the medical sector?
Saul Marquez:
So I think it was just predestined from when I was younger my my family is full of physicians and my mom particularly had a lot of health issues when I was younger she had rheumatic heart disease. She had a Whipple for pancreatic cancer which happened to be a non-life threatening pathology and she is still alive and well then she had a pacemaker placed so I have just been in and out of the hospital through her and have really had some amazing physicians who have helped my family specifically and so we’ve just been around medicine my whole life.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah sounds like it was something that just got you from the beginning. You were positively affected with all the work they did with your mom and you’re like man this is this is for me.
Saya Nagori:
Yeah exactly I just it didn’t seem like there was anything else that I was going to do.
Saul Marquez:
I love it. So Saya now. Your diving into entrepreneurship and with your work at SimpleHealth. What’s a hot topic that you think needs to be on health leaders agenda today and how are you guys approaching it.
Saya Nagori:
I definitely think that telemedicine is a very hot topic. I think that we need to be approaching it as health leaders. Number one reason is that the patient population is growing and there’s an anticipated physician shortage of almost one hundred and twenty thousand doctors by 2030. So as the number of physicians is going down and the number of patients is rising something needs to help fill that gap. And telemedicine is a really great way to do that. I think some people are very resistant to telemedicine and they think that maybe it’s not safe or maybe it’s going to take physician jobs away. And the reality is there’s plenty of work to be done in telemedicine is really only going to be an asset for both patients and physicians.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah it’s a great call out and a lot of folks have started but there’s some resistance. The opportunity for enterprising physicians that are not part of a large hospital chain I think is very large in that they have more flexibility there. I know that you’ve you’ve done some more care to help these types of practices. You want to dive into some of what that looks like and what you’ve done?
Saya Nagori:
Sure yeah. So there’s two major ways that I have been helping the private sector and physicians get involved in this space. I actually created a telemedicine course for physicians that they can use to basically jumpstart their telemedicine careers. If there’s not really any education out there for implementation of telemedicine that is useful and practical and succinct. And that was my goal is to deliver a telemedicine implementation education to private doctors and doctors looking to expand their care, doctors looking to expand what they are able to offer their patients and provide virtual options for their existing patients. And so I’ve done that course. And then on the entrepreneurial side, me and a few other entrepreneurial physicians as well as telemedicine physicians are hosting an entrepreneurial conference for physicians in New York in April of this year and that is really intended to help physicians that are looking to develop apps, technology, innovative ideas, innovative products whether it’s a drug whether it’s a makeup line whether it’s a mobile app where we’re looking to help them get to the next level and be the next generation of physician innovators and CEOs.
Saul Marquez:
Love it. Always finding ways to make it more lean make it more practical. I think you’re doing some great work Saya and so tell us an example of something you’ve done so far to help improve outcomes and improve efficiencies by doing things differently.
Saya Nagori:
So specifically I can talk about SimpleHealth and we were originally called simple contacts because we started with vision exams and we can now confidently say that we have had over a million patients use the app and over three years we have had zero adverse outcomes from patients using our vision exam for contact lens renewal. So just to give you some background contact lenses when used correctly and when taken care of and removed appropriately and put in appropriately and change at the right time are very very safe device. 80%of contact lens users use the same prescription year to year not every single one of those patients needs a complete full dilated eye exam especially if they are healthy with no medical problems, asymptomatic and no vision changes. So what we did initially when we developed the company a few years ago is we developed a online vision exam for those patients who can then seamlessly renew their contacts and not have to go into the doctor’s office for an unnecessary visit. But we still do an assessment. It’s not that we’re just renewing the contacts without any information. There is still a vision exam done there is still a video taken of the eye. There is still a medical history and a questionnaire done and now we have enough data over three years to show that we’ve been able to fulfill thousands of prescriptions and renew thousands of pages of contact lenses for healthy patients. And we’ve had zero adverse outcomes from any of that. And that’s pretty powerful data and that’s pretty powerful outcome in keeping these people out of the doctor’s office for a routine healthy visit.
Saul Marquez:
That’s such a great great call out. And when you have these patients that don’t need to attend the doctor’s office why have them show up. With the number of physicians really meaning to be a lot higher with the number of patients that are increasing services like CI as are going to be crucial for the way that we take care of the population. So I think that’s a great recommendation there by Dr. Nagori and one that that we should be thinking about more broadly across the health care system. What are things that we could keep people at home for and take care of them through services like an app or web site or telemedicine. Can you share a time when you had a setback and what you learned from it?
Saya Nagori:
Sure. So I think one of the biggest challenges in telemedicine that we experience and I wouldn’t even say it’s a setback it’s sort of a common challenge that we face as a recurring challenge and sometimes even a recurring setback is that there’s a lot of education involved in telemedicine. So we are in an era of evolution and things are changing. And so there’s a lot of people that are jumping ahead that are all about artificial intelligence and A.I. and technology and then there’s a group of people in the middle and there’s a group of people that are really resistant to a lot of that. So every year, telemedicine usually comes up in one two three or four state legislatures across the country. And I think educating people about telemedicine and the ways that it can be use safely is something that we have to do every year not just as a company but. Also as physicians and making and being involved in that discussion about telemedicine being educated ourselves as physicians about telemedicine and helping to guide that discussion on telemedicine is really critical because telemedicine is a state by state regulated issue and we need to be able to educate our legislators and educate the patients in each state on the ways telemedicine can be safely and what it’s appropriate for and maybe it’s not appropriate for and so that is one of just the daily challenges or yearly challenges that we face. And I would say any telemedicine provider faces in education and making sure that telemedicine is being used appropriately.
Saul Marquez:
I think it’s a good call out. There’s some some great opportunities out there and maybe even looking at it because from what I understand in order to see a patient, say in Michigan you need to be licensed in Michigan you can’t necessarily see them from Virginia.
Saya Nagori:
Yes of course you need to be licensed in each state that you intend to practice telemedicine.
Saul Marquez:
And I mean you know just thinking through the physician shortage and models to take a look at, I mean I think it would make a lot of sense to have some sort of national license. I know we’re getting deep into some policy stuff here. But wouldn’t that make sense?
Saya Nagori:
Oh I think it makes a lot of sense. So when I started practicing telemedicine four years ago I had to get 15 state licenses because.
Saul Marquez:
Crazy.
Saya Nagori:
I wanted to be able to serve patients all over the country. And the only way for me to do that was to get 15 state licenses. Now as you can imagine not only is that a cumbersome process it’s an expensive process and it’s a very tedious process to maintain because every state has different requirements for renewal of licensure. So right they’re all in different timelines. They all have different CME requirements. And so there’s a lot of mess not just in the health care system from a patient standpoint but there there’s a lot of mess from the physician standpoint like it’s really just messy from licensure to credentialing and technology will hopefully help with a lot of that as we go forward.
Saul Marquez:
Now it makes a lot of sense and you know just thinking about it even from the policy perspective you know any regulators or policy folks are listening this siloed nature of really the entire system we’ve got to start taking a deeper dive into it thinking differently. To develop models to help folks like Dr. Nagori that want to make a national impact make that impact with the proper infrastructure. We’re going to need to make some changes. So definitely appreciate your feedback there, Saya. Tell me about an exciting project or focus you’re working on today?
Saya Nagori:
So we have a really big exciting thing going on it’s SimpleHealth. We have. Well first we’ve rebranded from simple contacts to SimpleHealth. We have started expanding what we offer. We not only offer vision exams now we are also offering online consultation and when appropriate prescriptions for birth control renewal. We have started rolling that out in several places across the country and we continue to make moves to get into more states and be able to provide more services to more patients. So that’s an ongoing process. We are really excited about it. We want to be able to provide more simple solutions for healthy patients and one of our biggest advances this year is expanding beyond. Well sorry it happened last year. One of our biggest events last year was expanding from just vision exams to now offering a wider gamut of services for patients.
Saul Marquez:
That’s awesome. And key focus folks say I mentioned that they’re working with healthy patients. So we we take a look at the efforts being put forth here on the front of health care not just sick care. And I think a lot of the burden will be shifted if we do start seeing more innovations like the ones Dr. McGorry is up to so let’s keep our eye on these things as we move ahead thinking through different models to help us succeed. This part of the podcast Dr. Nagori, we’ve got it’s a lightning round so I’ve got a couple of questions for you followed by a book you recommend to the listeners. You ready?
Saya Nagori:
Ok.
Saul Marquez:
What’s the best way to improve health care outcome?
Saya Nagori:
Innovation
Saul Marquez:
What is the biggest mistake or pitfall to avoid?
Saya Nagori:
Judging too early.
Saul Marquez:
How do you stay relevant despite constant change?
Saya Nagori:
Surrounding myself with awesome people.
Saul Marquez:
What is the one area of focus that drives everything in your organization?
Saya Nagori:
The patient.
Saul Marquez:
These last two are a little bit more fun. What is your number one health habit?
Saya Nagori:
I want to say working out but I just injured myself so I haven’t worked out for weeks. Usually it’s working out.
Saul Marquez:
All right.
Saya Nagori:
So I’m going to say that with a caveat.
Saul Marquez:
Stick with it. And what is your number one success habit?
Saya Nagori:
Being open to pivoting.
Saul Marquez:
What book would you recommend to the listeners.
Saya Nagori:
So this book actually has nothing to do with why don’t say it has nothing to do with business or health care but any of my friends were listening we’ll just laugh because I recommend this book to every single person I ever talked to. But it’s actually it’s called letting go and it’s more about human emotion and how to analyze emotion. And I loved it because it really helps you recognize the person in front of you which I think is really important in all aspects of life like not just health care. You have to see the patient, see why they’re reacting a certain way but in business. Understand why your colleague your business partner or possibly future business partner may may be reacting a certain way. And I thought the book which is very fascinating and eye opening. So I think it’s actually very relevant across all fields. I feel like I should probably be this authors like agent or something because I have sold so many books for him.
Saul Marquez:
Too funny.
Saya Nagori:
So the author of this book is David Hawkins and I always recommend “Letting go” to everybody I think it’s a fantastic book. It’s on audio so it’s very easy to pop it in and listen to it. And I thought I think it’s phenomenal it’s got nothing to do with business specifically or health care specifically.
Saul Marquez:
It doesn’t. And it does. So I think it’s a great great recommendation when taking a look at what we do here folks. For a link to this book as well as an entire transcript of our discussion and the brief syllabus that we just went through. Just go to outcomesrocket.health type in Saya Nagori or type in SimpleHealth in the search bar. and you’ll see this episode pop up you can get access to all those resources and again just want to say thanks Saya. If you can, just leave us with a closing thought and then the best place where the listeners could stay in touch.
Saya Nagori:
Sure yes. So my closing thought would be the health care revolution is upon us. We have so many things that we can be doing to help not just patients but the overall system and making it better so I really encourage any physicians listening or any health care leaders listening to connect with each other to reach out. I myself would love to connect with more people but if there’s something that you’ve been thinking about doing I think there’s no harm in trying. I think there’s a lot of space for improvement and so I think I’m always trying something new. And it’s keeping me excited and in order to stay in touch, anyone can feel free to reach out to me on email. My email is saya@simplecontacts.com or if anyone’s interested in the free innovation newsletter as well as information on the conference that we’re hosting. They can head to www.medicineandtech.com. That’s the word medicine then andtech.com. Yeah medicineandtech.com or feel free to reach out on email.
Saul Marquez:
Love it Saya. Thanks again for that. And folks take her up on connecting she’s up to some really great things and if you’re looking to form a mastermind or work with other people doing the things that you’re doing amplify your work. That’s what we do here and the Outcomes Rocket is we put you together. So again just want to say thanks again Dr. Nagori, appreciate your time and looking forward to staying in touch.
Saya Nagori:
Thanks Saul. Thanks for having me.
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.
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