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Saul Marquez:
Hey, everybody! Saul Marquez, with the Outcomes Rocket. I want to welcome you back to this episode series straight from ViVE in Nashville, Tennessee. What an incredible conference! And we’re just gathered by amazing leaders. Today, I’ve got the outstanding Reena Sooch with us today. She’s the Global Head of Digital and Connected Health at Ipsos and also serves as an advisor to HLTH Europe. Her history is a really rich history of experience at the NHS with a mental health specialty, and now, for the last 12 years focused on research, especially research in the digital transformation of healthcare. So with that introduction, Reena, want to welcome you to the podcast.
Reena Sooch:
Thank you, Saul. This is long overdue.
Saul Marquez:
It really is. So, guys, Reena is a good friend, and I get to see her at these meetings where she’s often a speaker and just dives into the topics that are really important to all of us: techquity, digital innovation, and what are we doing about it. With that, Reena, tell us a little bit about why you decided to get into healthcare and why it’s important to you.
Reena Sooch:
I think for me, and for everyone, health is incredibly personal. It affects every single part of us. And it was the thing that always attracted me. I knew I was; I just had an inkling. There was a moment when I was watching Ally McBeal that I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, but after that, it was really it was all about the heart; it was all about change. And I have to say, and I’m not just saying it because today, I think techquity and health equity is at the forefront. But when I really reflect on my career coming from an Indian background, growing up in the UK, having a father that spoke broken English, having a cultural background where the language and the lexicon didn’t translate, especially in mental health, where I thought my career was going. I was training to become a clinical psychologist. I worked as a cognitive behavioral therapist in the National Health Service, and there were simply words that were used in practice that did not translate into Punjabi or Hindi. That fascinated me then, and it upset me, and it made me understand that, there’s a lot to do around culture and context. I even published a piece of work back then, which was called Oppressed Voices, which was specifically looking at South Asian women and the impact of mental health. That’s when I knew my career was going to be healthcare. Now it’s spiraled beyond mental health to thinking about health more. And then, over time, technology was the other thing that kind of my heart started to beat for. When I saw tech, it just made sense. Wow, of course, I want to track; of course, I want to understand myself. Does everything, every drug, affect us all the same way? No, it doesn’t. Surely, my background, my gender, everything like that makes a difference to how I would consume something. So the whole one-size-fits-all all bothered me. And suddenly, with technology, there was this moment where I thought, Wow, yeah, we can personalize. And that’s when the journey began. It was 2014, 2015, and coming to events like this has been expansive for me. It’s helped me understand what’s possible.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah. Thank you, Reena. And by the way, I never knew you were a clinical; what role did you start? A clinical psychologist and…
Reena Sooch:
I was training to be a clinical psychologist. And I trained in cognitive behavioral therapy.
Saul Marquez:
Wow, I didn’t know you did that. So I’m glad we’re doing this podcast, and thank you for sharing your story; this feeling of this isn’t right, and this doesn’t make sense, coupled with there’s got to be a better way and then finding it. And that’s been your journey, and I’ve seen you go through some of it, and I’ve seen some of the really great work that you’ve done. So I’m a fan. Talk to us about what you believe people should be thinking about today. What’s important in healthcare?
Reena Sooch:
I think, for me, I’ve been really focused on the clinician story. So in 2014, when there was something going on about apps and wearables, and everyone was like, everyone’s opening up a wearables unit in their company, we just, there was this hampering in the ecosystem that, Wow, okay, where’s tech going to be? What’s it going to do? And I’m, because I’ve worked historically with medicines, and a lot of the work that I was doing in research was around drug development, the clinician was always the most important because they’re the ones that are recommending, they’re the ones that are prescribing. Consumers will come and go. I mean, we all have technology in our home and there’s an evolution, but for medicine, the clinician is critically important. So in 2014, I got permission at that time to run a proprietary little study called Digital Doctor. Three Markets, US, Germany, UK, just ran a few questions, and it was one of those things when the data came, we just shared it with a few clients, it just went like wildfire.
Saul Marquez:
Really?
Reena Sooch:
Everyone was like, Give me more. Oh, okay. This is interesting. Since then, every two years, we’ve been running that study.
Saul Marquez:
Wow.
Reena Sooch:
And back in 2014, there was more doctors that believed that tech is a fad. There were more doctors that felt that it wasn’t going to play a role in clinical practice. I can tell you today that has changed. I feel we need to continue focusing on workflow, on efficiency, and integrating tech into practice because that’s when we’re going to get scale. If we do not do it at that level, which is hard, we’re not going to get the scale. And for me, what’s incredibly important is getting tech so it’s available to everyone because otherwise, it will only be for the rich, it will only be for the educated, and for those that speak English at a certain literacy level, and that is not acceptable.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, that’s so great. And just pairs well with the techquity concept. It’s equity, it’s access. Had a great conversation with a group with, its Microsoft and a couple others, that were working to put together. It’s a private-public partnership between, it’s a community-based organization, public health, and technology. And only in that way can we extend that reach. Only in that way can we provide the access that people need is partnerships, collaboration.
Reena Sooch:
Absolutely. Yeah, and that’s why things like the Health Foundation leading on building a techquity coalition is brilliant because it’s several partners coming together to have the discussion around the table. We’re all starting to open up, and we need to share with each other, right? Until we do, we’re not going to learn. And if we can come up with some cohesive guidelines or some things that help people leapfrog, the findings today that have been launched by the team led by Alexis Anderson from my team, what we’ve seen in the reports available live is that everyone in the industry, because it’s an industry benchmark survey, everyone in the industry wants to do good. They see it as something important, but the actionability is not there still. And I understand because what do you do? If I was to bring in CEOs of the top five companies, they would say, ultimately, we don’t know how else to make this work. That’s something that we have to deal with, and we have to look at.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, for sure. And by coming together, you could come up with those solutions. So everybody listening today, I want to strongly encourage you to think about what Reena is saying. We got to look across the aisle and start asking ourselves the question, What partnerships can help us use this data? What partnerships can help us identify gaps that will lead to more access, more equity, and a fully integrated health experience for the clinician, but also for the patient? Reena, talk to me about what you feel is something that’s often missed that people aren’t thinking about today.
Reena Sooch:
Something that’s often missed. Actually, what I’d say is research comes too late, and I know it’s where you are is what you know best. Obviously, my incomplete thinking is around insight.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah.
Reena Sooch:
But it astonishes me how many people come to the table with a tech solution built on such low level of insight work. And what that means is deeply understand who you’re designing for. Sit with them in their home, in their context, build so that you understand dexterity issues, cultural cross-reference issues that storytelling is so powerful and it’s underutilized in tech today. So for me, it’s a missed opportunity.
Saul Marquez:
Wow. Yeah, Reena, obviously, you guys do this with a lot of companies, a lot of leaders. If people are sitting there thinking, Oh my God, that’s me, and I better do something about it. Number one, what call to action would you give them? And number two, what would be the best way that they could get in touch with you and the team?
Reena Sooch:
So step one is collate everything you possibly can from reliable sources. So online is a rich area you can tap into, and you can; a lot of people do share online. There’s so much patient stories that are coming from, you’ve got YouTube Health, which is now specifically sharing patient influencer data, and it comes up higher on the search terms, stories in forums. That data that’s openly available, you can look at, and you can start to build out, okay, what are the needs that are coming out. And then go speak to these individuals or find people that can help you get to that. And if you, of course, want to speak to me or my team, just drop me a line on LinkedIn. Always happy to chat.
Saul Marquez:
Love it. Reena, I really appreciate you jumping on today. I always enjoy talking to you, and folks certainly give a think about what Reena shared today. It’s, I love the saying that says, When’s the best time to plant a tree? The best time was 100 years ago and the second-best time is now. So don’t wait. If you, if there’s an opportunity, take advantage of it, take action. Reena, so grateful that you came to our podcast today.
Reena Sooch:
Good to see you. Thank you.
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