Hicham Naim is the Global Head of Integrated & Personalized Care Program at Takeda, Digital Advisory Board. He is a Pharmacist by training, he has a Doctorate Degree in Pharmacy and an MBA. He has over 20 years hands-on experience in the healthcare industry from strategy to implementation.
Hicham Naim goes by the motto — Better Health for People, Brighter Future for the World.
Summary
In this episode, Hicham Naim demystifies what is Digital Therapeutics and gives us a taste of it’s various flavors. He then elaborates on a structure that details the key attributes of digital health apps and solutions that would drive their widespread adoption. He puts himself in the shoes of a healthcare practitioner and echoes how digital therapeutics should integrate with the clinical workflows.
Key Questions
[00:04:00] How do you think of this term Digital Therapeutics? Please demystify this for us.
[00:05:48] … give us a peek into what could be the typical flow of how someone may start to use a digital therapeutic?
[00:12:00] What are the factors that may make doctors reluctant to use, not just Telemedicine, but Digital Health?
[00:28:35] … from the lens of an HCP or health care practitioner, what differences would you see between a Chemical Pill and a Digital Pill?
[00:34:36] Should they (digital health apps) be designed with a doctor in mind? Should they be designed with the patient in mind? Should they be designed with the healthcare ecosystem workflows in mind?
Quotable Quotes
[00:09:20] I think more and more doctors will think twice, especially in Neuroscience before prescribing a chemical pill. Should I try a digital therapeutics product and see first, before I use a chemical pill to treat a condition?
[00:15:05] …over a third of physicians in the ICU are experiencing digital fatigue in the first minute of EHR use.
[00:17:58] … the last report from HealthXL, where they show that only 27% of PDTs have published RCTs i.e. clinical data to validate down clinical offering, and only 10% have published economic studies. So you see there’s a huge gap between digital therapeutics products and the evidence body that is built to support those.
[00:22:21] People think that — Telehealth is like Zoom, you put a doctor behind the screen and patient from the other side and that’s it. I think it’s much more complex, because doctors need to equip themselves with new skills to understand and look to the signals from patient like body language, the words they’re using, how would they behave in front of the camera etc.?
[00:24:51] It is very important to clarify from the beginning that. AI, Digital Health solutions or technology are not here to replace doctors and nurses, but help them.
[00:34:11] We need to also bring to the table, the concept of shared decision-making. I think the doctor will, will take a decision of using a digital pill together with patient.
[00:37:16] I believe that we should couple human centered design with an ecosystem approach and start looking to, to a particular problem not only from a human perspective but also from the ecosystem perspective to ensure that the solution is not only answering and solving a problem for a particular stakeholder, but also is more sustainable and doesn’t create collateral damages.
Notable Mentions
[00:03:03] Zurich, Switzerland
[00:12:26] The 7+1 Rs of Digital Health Adoption
Relevance (relevance to my needs), Readiness (maturity, stability, evidence), Rapid (workflow, simplicity, time, user friendliness), Reimbursement (incentives), Results (evidence, patient outcomes) Resources (technologies, installation, training), Responsibilities (regulations, guidelines) + Resistance (mindset).
[00:15:30] Adam Gazzaley, Founder & Executive Director of Neuroscape
Pointers to past You+AI Podcast episodes
[00:20:30] S2-E7 Empowering builders and makers in Healthcare + AI, with Josh Case
[00:34:36] S2-E3 Entrepreneurial lessons in Digital Health, with Sven Jungmann
Connect
Website: curated.health
Clubhouse: Healthtech Lunch and Learn
Twitter: @PharmInnove
LinkedIn: Hicham Naim
The You+AI Vodcast
A companion video segment full of fun and candid moments.
Check it out here!