How This Team is Leveraging Alexa, Google Home and More to Transform Digital Health Capabilities with Bill Rogers, CEO at Orbita, Inc.

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

: Welcome back once again to the outcomes rocket podcast where we chat with today’s most successful and inspiring healthcare leaders. I thank you for tuning in and I invite you to go to outcomesrocket.health/reviews where you could rate and review today’s guest because he is an outstanding individual and an amazing contributor to Health. His name is Bill Rogers. He is the CEO of Orbita Inc. They’re really just doing some great things with Bill a little bit on him. He’s a visionary software executive with a proven record of delivering outstanding shareholder value and improving patient outcomes. He’s done quite a bit of different things. His last gig was over at EGT Tron. He was the founder and CEO where he took all of his software expertise and leveraged it to improve outcomes. And now he’s doing that again at Orbital Inc. Orbital helps organizations in all industries leverage a voice as the next digital frontier to improve process build brands and drive commerce. So what I want to do here is open up the microphone for Bill to round out that introduction and just to welcome him to the podcast. Bill welcome.

: Hi Saul, thanks for having me today. Yeah we’re gonna we go to Chrome sessional user experience management platform. So when you think about this world of things like Amazon Alexas and Google’s. But you’re also seeing things like chat bx and these are the new way to be able to engage and interact with our patients at home in multiple different ways.

: Bill it’s definitely pervasive. I mean even the Super Bowl ads were littered with them and you know even Spoof’s Sopha off of the effects. It’s so true right. I mean it’s everywhere and now you guys are coming up with a way to analyze. Look into this. Give us a little bit more and paint the picture for the listener to understand what the capabilities are.

: Yes so it’s been when you start thinking about all the places that you can either make processes or improving engagement it’s really limited. It’s this next wave that’s happening. And so when you think about a patient that goes home they’ve just been diagnosed with diabetes. They go home instead of going home. They will have to get them in and out. They’re actually giving either a hacker or a Google hold device or even a smartphone that acts like a voice assistant. And so they can go through lesson plans day after day. What does it mean to live with diabetes and encouraging them. Because it’s the voices system. They can also ask questions. So it’s in some ways it’s a coach in some ways is a learning program.

: Very very interesting and right at the front of your Web site. Bill you have this stat that’s striking it’s by 2018. 30 percent of interactions with technology will happen through conversation. And so this is right right there in the middle of it. Tell us a little bit more about the vision behind this and where you guys see health happening.

: Yeah so you’re seeing that the major manufacturers like encounter. In Qualcomm are bringing these chipsets that voice can be everywhere. And so when you think about a device and how we can engage with a patient at home whenever customers as a company in Boston call pillow Hill will make some medication dispensing advice.

: Oh yeah. You know actually we had Aiden Feng on on the podcast not too long ago.

: Aiden’s technology is fantastic. It is. But there you have a device that does facial recognition so it knows when the patient is informed of the device. And that gives us the ability to reengage with that patient so it can start the conversation to ask the patient why are you going to take your medication. And as soon as the patient says yes it dispenses the medication but when a patient says no that’s when really any assistance starts to play a role because can that ask why. And ultimately with a platform like us that caregivers can understand why it’s we’re not taking their medication. There’s a lot of different reasons and some of them can be solved like a patient might say. I don’t want to take it because. I don’t want to pay for it if the caregiver signal that they can ultimately intervene and actually help the person to be consistent on their medication as well then the patient is that Coach works and encouraging them to do the next step that might be interacting with other health readings that are coming in there. There are and that way continues to interact with a patient.

: Yeah that’s super interesting and would you say that this type of technology is aimed more toward senior care. Is it aimed more toward everyone. Would you say there’s a niche to this.

: So I wouldn’t say there’s a niche. I will say that what we’re able to do in healthcare is leverage the fact that people like to use these devices for a lifestyle device so they want to know what the score of the game is they want to know whether they want it. They realize it’s just a lot less friction using these devices to do those kinds of activities. And so they learn how to use the device without having to be trained into how to use a medication now. And so that really helps. So let’s say there’s is a clinical trial and a clinical trial you have to do things like. Every everyday to your daily assessment and instead of going to a mobile app or writing on a piece of paper or at the kitchen table and hearing engaging with your assessment if you’re in the middle of the assessment the doorbell rings. It remembers where you use you to answer the last question the next time you interact with it it will say you want to start answering the questions again. And the particular question that you need to answer next.

: That’s pretty cool Bill and one of the things that sort of just made the light bulb go off there’s many things that technologies that are launched half the battle is adoption. And hey you guys are identifying these home devices that people are wanting to just use because they’re a lifestyle device like you called it.

: Correct and that’s part of having an omni channel approach because they’re not always going to be at home when it’s time to do like that daily assessment. And so the ability to actually use a lot of systems through plain old analog flip phones or the ability to use a chaplet on a smartphone means that that person depending upon the context of where they are can engage in their job their voice assistance for whatever they need that they’re using it for.

: Now it’s super interesting. Hey Bill can you give us an example of how orbita has improved outcomes with one of your programs.

: Yeah absolutely. And so when you think about doing so one of the organizations that we can do some work with was a company in Boston called Common North Carolinians. And so here are patients that are the sickest insects the dual eligible patients and ultimately rainin voice assistance into their homes to do things to help coordinate caregivers interact with them. The ability for them to do things that some of these patients are physically handicapped and the voice assistance is really the only way they can actually interact to schedule a right to be able to just turn on you using as a device to be a smart drone on devices like lights and things and so that can make a tremendous big difference. But another example is some of the work that we have done with the Mayo Clinic where they’re using voice technology to deliver helpful content. So just like you would go to a Web site and do searches on first day content. You can go to the Mayo Clinic. First Aid Alexa and ask any first a question and then dig deeper into understanding first day. So if you want to understand something about our burm and you wanted to drill down into treatment and symptoms and further information around that you can.

: Super fascinating and a great way to give that access where currently it’s a little cumbersome otherwise especially if a patient or a person has difficulty typing into a screen or have what have you.

: Another example of using voice assistance that’s sort of revolutionary changes in elderly care facilities and we’re doing that in a few facilities today where patients can use the device for concierge services. They want to have transportation for a ride. They want to schedule someone to come and see them and do some maintenance. They want to be able to be reminded when it’s time for their medication. And so all sorts of different kinds of services can be used in these care facilities. And ultimately though when you think about the elderly population across the United States there is these developments that are happening that work with older people and making smarter or what they would I would call the medical home and enabling it with technology like this to engage with the technology that exists in the home but also help in their care as well.

: And you know I was I was very intrigued though when you when you mentioned that the chip processors or the manufacturers are actually designing these chips now to optimize voice.

: Yes that is correct. And so what that looks like. Now they’ve come down to a single chip design which just ultimately reduces the cost of these chipsets that are coming from Intel on Qualcomm and others. And these were means that you can have multiple microphones and from that you can eliminate things like Echo and eliminate noise and the technology continues to improve. And again I think what you’ll see is we’re at a stage now which has been developing these voice assistance over the last three years. But what we’re going to be a year from now is going to be pretty amazing.

: Wow that’s fascinating and and I definitely see the steps happening and we over the holidays just got our Alexa show. And as as we talk about this and you know discuss the potential for voice recognition as well. I think you know Amazon is definitely thinking about it and they’re aligning themselves in such a way to do it and then build your company right so these are devices collecting the data. Your company makes sense of all of that and then helps gain insights out of it as well.

: Correct. What we see is a platform that enables people to build an application and then deploy it to all the different kinds of devices that exist so the Googles the Microsoft the Amazons and even custom devices so that you build that experience once and then you can broadcast it out to the different providers naturally with processors that essentially act like the web browsers of the world right. And your point about display I think there is with the introduction of the display that came from Alexa and now at CBS a number of other devices that have displays built into them. It’s voice first. But that visualization just makes it more compelling when you’re interacting with a user. So not only does the user see it you know it requests for like a medication reminders but they’ll they’ll see information on the screen that says what time where they’re supposed to take get and more information about it helping them with some choices of what they could say next to keep moving the conversation.

: Yeah you know that’s a really great point Bill and listeners if you have one of these devices I’ve always keep buying the new ones that come out. I just I’m a geek like that Bill and I’m sure you are too right. Yes. When I got this show and I’m so used to asking my Alexa hey what’s the weather or what’s these little things that I’m so used to asking. And I was just I really love the display. And then when you start thinking about what it could do for folks that are needing it for medication adherents for example what means if it shows you the color of the pill. So you take the right pill. I mean that’s fascinating.

: Correct. And again you can leverage these devices for other purposes as well. That helps them to be used in their home for example and elderly care. When children and family members for hard time interacting with someone that’s a far away of parents or grandparents and having something like that could show that you can actually do videoconferencing and literally people with out touching anything seeing people on the other side interacting it just brings value to people’s lives and feeling like there. Was a lot of them way with my mother in law interacting with her. She looked just a little bit of a distance away and you just say it makes an enormous difference. Being able to do that.

: Now absolutely it’s that social perspective of it that also helps you connect with the people that are part of your social circle.

: And so one of the core things that we continue to do is we allow you to build technology and deliver these kinds of experiences. Is how do you personalize that experience to the context of the user and so that context comes in many different ways. It could be reading the care plan of what tasks that users supposed to do to them. It could be come from the context of the information that’s collected from devices that are available so things like a lot fresher coffee for scale. But I don’t see the Internet of Things is becoming one of the greatest areas of providing context to help deliver these contextual experiences to users.

: And there’s no doubt Bill that you and your team are leveraging it in a really phenomenal way and and the insights that care providers as well as payers and industry. And of course most importantly the consumer the patient will be able to gain from it is going to be huge. So what would you say an experience or a moment where you guys had a setback. And what did you guys learn from it.

: So setbacks you always. We started the business. We looked at the Internet of Things in a way to build a connected home. And that’s where we’re going down that ranch in trying to understand what is it that really will create an engaging experience. The challenge really was is that going into all of these connected devices are great when we see ROIs and we’ve seen how voice could engage with people we needed to make a bit of a pivot and start focusing on that as part or area of where we thought we could really improve the engagement because it was that layer that truly made the difference of whether or not you could engage with the patient in a regular basis.

: At what point did you make that insight. You remember where you were what you were doing or the conversation.

: Well working with the Internet of Things and one of my colleagues Daugava sees some information about this device that Amazon was creating. You know this is an Internet of Things device we should connect listen to the experience and it was really at that moment we all started realizing and started really saying wait a second this is a game changer. This is what really will engage patients.

: That’s so awesome. And thank you for sharing. Yeah yes those conversations and those moments listeners kind of like Bill and his partner Mr. Kahla experience when they were chatting. And it’s when you open yourself up and you’re not afraid to start and you go down that path just like Bill and his team did. And then you run into that thing that is the pivot that you need to take to improve outcomes and that honest team are doing that. So congrats on that bill and kudos to you and your team for making that insight.

: Thanks.

: So let’s pretend bill that you and I are building a medical leadership course on what it takes to be successful. It’s the one on one of Bill Rodgers and so I’ve got four questions for you followed by a book and a podcast that you would recommend to the listeners.

: You ready.

: OK.

: All right. So what’s the best way to improve health outcomes and the best way to improve health comes is to actually engage and interact with the patients when they become healthy because that’s when people start ignoring them and they can slide into a situation where you have to deal with them.

: Very insightful. What is the biggest mistake or pitfall to avoid.

: The biggest mistake is believing that change can happen that health care is too slow and that it takes too long. But healthcare over the last couple years is moving at an incredible pace and I think a lot of organizations are out there in the marketplace looking to make pretty amazing changes and taking advantage of the newest technologies to assess and those are things like AI which makes what we’re doing possible and the ability to take advantage of the internet of things as well. It’s just the kind of activity that exists today.

: I think that’s such a great point. Bill and just brings to mind your perspective right. Your perspective is one of an innovator with a vision and not everybody shares that. And I think it’s very important for the listeners to really take a minute here and think about what Bill said. It’s a quote that I read like if you change the way you look at things the things you look at change and Bill’s looking at this as a man it’s moving fast and many of us me included. I I’m taking this as a personal note. I’ve got to start looking at this differently and what happens to the way you look at it will change. So Bill really insightful. Thank you for sharing that. Yes. So how do you stay relevant as an organization. Despite constant change.

: I think you always have to be out there listening and listening to your clients. And not only that but you have to look at what’s happening just outside of healthcare and where can you leverage and keep moving taking advantage of all those things to keep you relevant as well.

: What’s one area of focus that should drive everything in your organization.

Well when you think about the area of focus that matters the most. It’s your people and focusing on them listening and helping them to become successful because it doesn’t just happen with one person it’s the whole team. It’s a big team approach to this.

: A great callout Bill and definitely I think a big reason why you’ve been successful in the past and I think why it will happen once again was book and what podcasts would you recommend to the listeners.

: So I just finished the blog from Nike about shoe markets. I have heard of all. And it’s a it’s a great book. It’s a book of all the times. You basically think it’s going to fail and basically deal with it day to day feeling of hauling around this problem and solve this problem and taking each day at a time. It’s great book.

: What a great recommendation. And how about a podcast What podcasts would you recommend.

: That’s a good one. Yours.

: I love it. And you know Bill part of the reason why I that question I just started asking that question not too long ago. To the guests. I think there’s an opportunity for broadcast to be listened to more so don’t feel bad that you didn’t have one at the tip of your tongue because most of my guests don’t and so is an encouragement to the listeners and the guests to dive into the podcast because there are some really cool podcasts and healthcare and really in general so appreciate your thoughts listeners go to outcomesrocket.health/rogers as in Bill Rogers R O G E R S and you’re going to find the show notes as well as links to what we’ve discussed as well as a link to the shoe Dog and orbita, Bill’s company. And so Bill before we conclude I love if you could just share a closing thought and then the best place for the listeners could get a hold of you.

: On a closing thought. If you think of about voice and you think about where it has come in you just literally the last three years the ability to take this new way of interacting with people and taking advantage of AI. I think that if you think about those possibilities you’re going to find all sorts of things that can be created and done with it.

: Very great invitation and insight Bill. And what would you say the best place for the listeners to get in touch with you or follow you is.

Yes so if you went to www.orbita.ai you will find a link to where I am and find you on LinkedIn.

: Outstanding. So listeners they have it. Check them out at Orbit. That a I and I just want to take a moment. Again Bill to say thank you. I’m truly impressed by what you guys are up to and excited to keep up with the growth and progress that you guys make. Thank you for making time for us.

: Thanks Saul.

Thanks for listening to the Outcomes Rocket podcast. Be sure to visit us on the web at www.outcomesrocket.health for the show notes, resources, inspiration and so much more.

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