Erin Gerwick, Performance Sales & Social Media Coordinator at WAVi

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Saul Marquez:
Hey, how’s it going, everybody? Saul Marquez with the Outcomes Racket podcast. Today, I have the privilege of hosting Erin Gerwick on the podcast. She is working at WAVi Health. They are a company focused on the brain and scanning the brain to best understand that your baseline and your health. The brain is a vital organ and we have to be measuring it. We just don’t do a good enough job. And in today’s podcast, Erin is going to walk us through how they’re doing it at WAVi and what you could do as a clinician, but also as a patient and individual to best take care of your brain. She graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder, with a degree in Molecular Cellular Developmental Biology. While at Colorado University, she trained as an instructor at Pure Barre and ultimately got in touch with the studio owner. That was that’s the wife of Dave, who is the CEO of WAVi. She was hired. And while they’re a small company, they’ve been able to utilize her efforts and focus to grow sales, public relations, marketing and training. So she’s super passionate about the work that they’re doing there, as well as the science behind what’s what they’re doing to help people become the best they could be. Such a pleasure to have you here.

Erin Gerwick:
Pleasure to be here. Thanks, Saul.

So, you know, we had an opportunity to connect at the health conference in Las Vegas. Learned a ton about you guys. And by the way, for those of you listening, if you go to the show notes on today’s podcast, just go to the website, Outcome Rockets dot health. And in the search for our type in WAVi w a V.I., you’ll find a video where Aaron kind of takes me through the whole process of putting the the ECG kind of helmet on. And pretty cool stuff that they’re up to. Today we’re going to talk more about their focus on the brain and what they’re doing to make health care better. So Erin before we dive into why the in front of the what? Why there? What inspires your work in health care?

Erin Gerwick:
So I have been really interested in health care since I was teeny tiny. And it’s kind of for that same reason I feel like everybody always says right. is just simply to help people. Is what I always wanted to do. I feel like health care is kind of a field that draws the most intelligent and the most empathetic individuals. And that was a community that I always really, really wanted to be a part of. So I’m glad to be definitely working in that space now.

Saul Marquez:
Yeah, that’s awesome. Great reasons. And so let’s dive into WAVi. Tell us a little bit more about WAVi, what you guys do and how the business is adding value to the healthcare ecosystem.

Erin Gerwick:
WAViLobby has been around for 10 years. And I mean, I’m going to bring up our CEO a lot in this conversation today just because I look up to him so much. But his name’s Dave Oakley and his background is actually he’s a neutrino physicist.

Erin Gerwick:
So he’s kind of this mad scientist who went to the doctor. For routine physical. He noticed that all the measurements, all the metrics they took there pretty much from the neck down. And he wasn’t comfortable with that. right. Your brain is kind of the organ that controls everything. So as one does, he decided to invent a solution. And that’s really how WAVi was born.

Erin Gerwick:
So we’re just supposed to be this straightforward, almost easy to use, non-intimidating, super accessible platform to just provide people with information about their brain.

Saul Marquez:
Love it. And you know, the brain is one of those things that has for a long time gone without even having a vital sign. And the big question mark on that. And so tell us a little bit about how you guys work in and what gap you’re filling in health care to make things better for patients and clinicians.

Erin Gerwick:
Absolutely. So if you think about all the different reasons why, maybe you would go to the doctor. Anxiety, depression, mild traumatic brain injury, mild cognitive impairment. All of these different things. They have something to do with your brain. And no, we’re not a diagnostic tool, but we are evaluating your cognitive performance. We use something called evoked response potential. And we pretty much are just measuring. How are you responding to a signal? If you think about your day to day life, that’s pretty much how you operate. So it’s have the opportunity to pretty much evaluate that and share that information with people when they’ve never had access to it. They’re really, really hungry for this information. So even though a brain scan seems kind of vulnerable and often times people are, you know, they’re a little bit scared to learn about their brains, they’ve never had access to that information before. We can give them just a short four-minute test. That’s all it takes. And tell them a lot about what’s going on.

Saul Marquez:
Fascinating. So, you know, folks, I had a chance to take the test. Very cool. Very easy. And so, like, who needs this, Erin? And let’s talk about that from a patient perspective, but also from a care provider perspective. Who are the candidates and why are they doing this and what are they getting out of it?

Erin Gerwick:
So there’s kind of two parts to that question, right. On the patient level, it’s like everybody has a brain. So let’s evaluate it, let’s see what’s going on up there. If you think about when you go to the doctor, a lot of the vital signs, those tests that you’re doing, they are really, really quick.

Erin Gerwick:
So we need to be able to provide a very quick and straightforward test that’s going to tell you some information about your brain. Because right now, that’s the missing piece. So you’ve got that part right. Every individual, no matter what you’re doing, should probably evaluate their brain performance because it just hasn’t probably been done before. Unless you’re someone who’s gone in for an MRI or a CAT scan, something that takes a lot of money and a lot of time. So then on the practitioner side, what I love is that WAVi is a really, really nonspecific system. So many things go into impacting your brain performance, for better or for worse.

Erin Gerwick:
So that means on our end, we kind of get to be friends with everybody. That’s how I like to phrase it. We get to work with cardiologists. We get to work with concussion doctors, athletes, weight loss clinics, chronic fatigue. I mean, I could go on and on and on. And that’s just because every everything you do in life is going to impact your brain performance. And we’ve never had a quick way to say how.

Saul Marquez:
Now, that’s really great. And, you know, I just thinking about it. You know, why not have a baseline? You know, you if you take your blood exams every year to see how your cholesterol is doing, your triglycerides, you’re right. I mean, why not get a baseline for your brain? Is that type of baseline something that that you can improve upon? Tell me a little bit more about that being used that way.

Erin Gerwick:
Absolutely. So baselining is a huge portion of WAVi. We kind of work in two main ways. And that kind of principle. So we got a baseline scan. This is amazing for the year over year. Think about adding it into your physical, right. We at least want to be monitoring, make sure that everything’s either being maintained or, hey, maybe we can improve it. Every single marker we look at completely actionable.

Erin Gerwick:
We’re also really, really good at comparison. So rather than just getting this one off scan and saying, OK, yeah, my brain performance is this. We have this ability to compare you to you and follow up scans. So that’s what I love. That’s what I think is really empowering, is when we do, let’s say, a before and after some sort of intervention.

Erin Gerwick:
We do work with a cardiologist here in Denver, and he is while he scans, he realized when he was working with his patients who had suffered heart attacks, they didn’t care. They were like, well, I can I can get surgery. I’ll get a stent and we’ll carry on and life will be good. And so no one was complying to this protocol. So he brings in this wacky brain scan, shows people what’s going on. He had one person whose brain literally looked like it belonged to someone who is like 100 years old.

Erin Gerwick:
Forty five year old comes in and sees that. And they say, well, I feel fine. But looking at this data, things are not by that. I think they are. So he’s found that WAVi is really, really good way to drive that compliance with his patients. And then, yeah, as they follow his protocol, you know, better nutrition, some certain supplements. Exercise is a huge one. What do you know as their heart markers start to improve on the cardiologists end of things, So to the brain performance markers to the person. right. If they’re starting to feel better, here’s an objective way to say, look at this, you’re actually doing better, too.

Saul Marquez:
So it’s totally like it’s fantastic. And, you know, if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. And this is just a great way to do it. So it’s you guys are you guys FDA approved? Is this something that does not require that? Tell us a little bit more about that. Is it used diagnostically?

Erin Gerwick:
So we’re actually going to be the adjunct to diagnosis? Yes. Our heads up, FDA cleared. I’m on the hardware side of things so that we can be really, really confident in the quality of the EEG. Your recording. But the really sweet spot of WAVi is how we use that evoked response potential to learn more about your kind of processing.

Erin Gerwick:
So our software side of things where in our last filings with the FDA, which is exciting, but right now totally an adjunct to diagnosis because that part is not FDA cleared.

Saul Marquez:
Totally get that now. But it’s great to know that the device is.

Erin Gerwick:
And so there is so much room for research.

Saul Marquez:
All right. That’s incredible. That’s incredible. So you guys have been at it for 10 years. What would you say has been one of the biggest setbacks to what you guys have experience in a key learning that came out of that.

Erin Gerwick:
So a big step back is just trying to figure out how does this work in everybody’s clinic? Because like I said, you know, we can be friends with everybody. We can work with so many different people. But what does that look like? Because everybody that means is going to be using it a little bit differently and learning behind that and saying, OK, people normally when they hear about this, they’re like, yeah. Hand it over. I got to have this technology, which is really exciting, but it’s learning how does this work for this clinic and how are we going to maximize it for you and who you’re working with? The way that a concussion doctor is going to utilize this software is probably going to be a little bit different than someone who’s using it just as a general practitioner, right?

Erin Gerwick:
It’s that difference between a before and after intervention, you know, comparing brain performance there as opposed to that year over year nature scan. But, you know, when I look at the big picture, it makes your connections with your customers that much more in-depth because you’re learning every single facet about their clinic to make sure that this is something that is supplementing and adding to their bottom line rather than something that’s draining resources. So the end of the day, people are excited to use it.

Saul Marquez:
For sure, for sure. Now, that’s that’s that’s great and, you know, it’s understanding kind of where they sit in that continuum of care and. Exactly. And I don’t know. I mean, I guess where the biggest opportunity is for you guys to focus, right? Because you’re right. So many people can use and benefit from the technology. Who are you guys deciding to focus on up front so upfront?

Erin Gerwick:
So upfront. And that’s such a hard question because we love half of WAVi is sort of research aspect of things. right? That’s our entire back end. So we meet all these different types of people and are like, oh yeah, I wonder how you could use it. And we get really excited. But right now, you know, we are really, really strong in that kind of medical space. We are trying to grow into this more performance aspect of things. We love being there for the doctors and providing them with that last little piece of information.

Erin Gerwick:
But what’s really fun is when we can start to go into, you know, the gyms, corporate well-being, trying to think even, you know, the biohacking space is huge and people biohacking are hungry for this kind of information to just know what are they doing to their body. How is that impacting the ticker that controls it all? So long story short, everybody.

Saul Marquez:
But everybody. Yeah. So. So, like, I’m sure there’s some folks listening to this thinking, including myself. All right. How can I get one of these things and how much does it cost? You know? Because if I do want to measure my brain, it’d be great to just be able to do it at home. Walk me through that. And if that’s even possible.

Erin Gerwick:
So we do mainly sell business to business and then this is, you know, a service that people can offer to their customers. So we offer the entire system. What I love about WAVi is that we’re trying to lower this barrier. Our entire thing, our entire mission is to present. This technology with people in an accessible and non-intimidating way.

Erin Gerwick:
So the reason is we do that is we’ve got this whole system. You get your headsets, you get a laptop, you get all the software, all of the scanning goodies to go with it. It’s all in one. So that retails for about seventy five hundred dollars. And then from there, our practitioners have a lot of freedom. How do you want to price it to your patients? Like I said, everybody’s using it a little bit differently. Do you want to do it as a package for before and afters to and encourage that sort of intervention comparison? Or do you want it to just be something that people are using once a year to check in and say what’s going on?

Saul Marquez:
Yeah, so even so, so at seventy-five hundred bucks, right. I will see you definitely most likely be to be, as you mentioned, versus like a five hundred dollar device that, you know, is probably more accessible to the individual. How about a network of of of providers that use your device? Is that something you make available for individuals?

Erin Gerwick:
It is. So one of my favorite things on our WAVi Web site is to find a practitioner near you. I think it’s a tab. If I’m envisioning it correctly on the top right hand corner of our screen. What that is, it’s just going to show you providers who we work with. And they say we want as many people as we can. Come one. Come all regardless of our clinic type. So head over to w w w WAVI MEDCOM. Find a lobby practitioner near you and you should be connected to provider really, really close.

Saul Marquez:
That’s awesome. So that’s a great, great way for you folks to really find out what your brain baseline is. It’s a it’s a really neat way to do it. I’m very interested in this. The scan that we did at the at the conference was a limited scan just to kind of see how things are working. But I’m definitely going to be signing myself up. And it’s very interesting for right.. I mean, not it is. And I’m a I’m a measuring freak. Like I for fitness, I do dexa scans to better understand, hey, how we like fat content, muscle content, you know, and I mean, over the holidays, I’ll tell you, Erin, I put on ten pounds. It was bad.

Erin Gerwick:
It happens.

Saul Marquez:
but for the holidays and I kind of just ate while I stopped working with my trainer and. And but I went for my scan. And in your face right. like the baseline of where I was. And the good news is I’ve I’ve since then shed those 10 pounds. So great news. And by the way, a shout out to better health, BETR Health, who I had on my podcast, I jumped on their program eating way better. But it’s about the bottom line. Is this measurement right? And if you don’t have your measurements, you can’t get better. WAVI. It’s WAVI med.com

Erin Gerwick:
Yeah. And it’s just a way, you know. Know yourself. Know what’s going on because otherwise all you’re doing is just speculating. And that’s the same thing. You know, it’s like with working out everything or looking at with your brain. People get so intimidated and scared about the brain because so much of it is unknown. But let’s just learn. Let’s face it, kind of take a peek under the hood and move forward to figure out how to tweak your lifestyle, because all that’s all it is. Same thing with losing weight. It’s a little bit of lifestyle tweaks built up over time. Guess what? That makes a huge impact on your brain performance, especially over your life. Imagine if you got your baseline 20 years ago.

Saul Marquez:
Oh yeah. It’s crazy and I mean, I’m on your site right now. And I found three different people near me in Chicago, so. Good deal. Thank you. That’s it, folks. WAVI MEDCOM. And then there’s a there’s a little link that says WAVI find WAVI near you like like Aaron was mentioning. And there’s a way for you to do it. So baseline, it’s, it’s, it’s a great way to do it. Keep your numbers in check. What are you most excited about today, Erin?

Erin Gerwick:
This time is kind of crazy right now, right? There’s a lot of change up in the air. But what’s what’s really exciting is that over the last year, every single day my teammates and myself, we’ve been working on this project called Heart Rate Variability, and maybe you’re familiar with it. But what we’re doing is it’s just an add on to the technology we’re already offering. So as I was saying at the beginning of our conversation, you know, modern medicine is really looking at the neck down WAVi as a way to look at what’s going on from the neck up. And the way I like to think about it is heart rate variability is a really good way to look at how the mind and the body are actually talking to each other. right. bridging that gap. So that’s something I’m really, really excited to see come to fruition over the next few months. We’ve rolled out our beta tests and they’ve gone really, really well with some of our customers. One of my favorite being we work with a veterans group who focuses on PTSD before and after. So that’s how they use WAVi. So we’ve got high rate variability in there. It’s a great way to look at acute and chronic stress in the body. And I’m just really excited to see how it goes with everybody.

Saul Marquez:
So with the with the heart rate variability, Erin is it. What’s the context for? I mean, is it like variable like one month from yesterday or variable within an hour timeframe? Like, tell me a little bit about that.

Erin Gerwick:
Yes. So we look it. And keeping in mind, you know, never diagnosing or making any of those concrete statements, but we’re looking at things that might correlate with stress in your body. We’re looking at how the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous systems are talking to each other. We do this in two ways. So we’ve got two kind of qualities to our, what we call HRB, the first being acute stress. So, yes, this probably is going to change day to day. Stress changes day to day, right.

Erin Gerwick:
Yesterday, you know, maybe you sat in a lot of traffic and it kind of sucked and that metric would look different. Then on a Sunday when you may had, you know, a nice breakfast with your family, a nice long cup of coffee, you feel great. That’s going to look different. And then the other kind of quality we’re looking at is chronic stress. So over time, this thing that’s not changing day to day, deep down. What’s going on? How are we doing?

Saul Marquez:
Got it. Cool. So yes to both. It’s taking a look at different different windows of time, just best understanding irregularities and then kind of associating them to something in life that might be affecting it.

Erin Gerwick:
Well, and that’s that’s the really cool thing about WAVi is that, you know, we’re not diagnosing anything. So what’s great is that we can use it as a way to open up conversation. Hey, how are you? right. Yeah, I’m looking at these metrics. They’re not matching your baseline. It just doesn’t really seem like you. So what’s going on? Yeah. So, like I said, you know, brain scans really vulnerable. So I think in that kind of context, people do tend to open up a little bit more. And it makes for really, really powerful conversations, whether I’m doing a one off scan, even at a conference right. even when a doctor’s talking to their patient. So really, really cool.

Saul Marquez:
It is cool. Well, I love it. You know, this has been a fascinating conversation with you, Aaron. I encourage everybody listening to think about the brain as another organ that we need to get vital signs from. And WAVI Med is an option for all of us. Erin, what what book would you recommend for listeners?

Erin Gerwick:
Oh, my gosh. Well, what book would I recommend. I know I should say something about like, you know, brain performance, but my all time favorite is.

Saul Marquez:
It never has to be though.

Erin Gerwick:
I have to say my favorite book is The Life of Pi. They made a movie out of it, but the book is 100 times better.

Saul Marquez:
Really? The movie is amazing.

Erin Gerwick:
It will change your perspective on how you have relationships and you deal with challenges. It’s great.

Saul Marquez:
Amazing.

Erin Gerwick:
Everyone can read it.

Saul Marquez:
Life of Pi. There you go, folks. And you know where to go. Outcomes rocket dot health. In the search bar type in WAVi. That’s W A V.I.. And you’ll find all of our show notes, The transcript links to their Web site, as well as links to the books recommended and other resources we’ve talked about. Oh, and also the YouTube video of the brain scan Erin did for me at the health conference. This has been fun. Erin, before we conclude. I’d love if you could just here. Can you share a closing thought? And the best place for the listeners to get in touch with you for more discussion.

Erin Gerwick:
More discussion. So I’m on LinkedIn. WAVi is on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, all of the things you’ll find us at WAVI med or at WAV medical, depending on the platform. But my closing thought is just going to be that brain health in general is something that I really want to empower because I work for this company that is constantly evaluating brain performance. So keep empowering yourself. Those everyday little tweaks, they really do add up. I’ve seen so many of those cases over time. And it can be really, really powerful in how somebody feels. And definitely how their brain is taken away. So should it a little love.

Saul Marquez:
I love it. Now I take great closing thought, Erin. Really appreciate you talking to us a little bit more about brains and how we should be measuring them and the benefits that get them out of them. So thanks again for jumping on the podcast. Looking forward to staying in touch.

Erin Gerwick:
Thanks for having me. Thank you, Saul.

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