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Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Today, we

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Speaker 1: are witnessed to one of those rare moments in history,

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Speaker 1: the rise of an innovative technology with the potential to

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Speaker 1: radically transform business and society forever. That technology, of course,

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Speaker 1: is artificial intelligence, and it's the central focus for this

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Speaker 1: new season of Smart Talks with IBM. Join hosts from

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Speaker 1: your favorite Pushkin podcasts as they talk with industry experts

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Speaker 1: and leaders to explore how businesses can integrate AI into

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Speaker 1: their workflows and help drive real change in this new

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Speaker 1: era of AI, and of course, host Malcolm Gladwell will

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Speaker 1: be there to guide you through the season and throw

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Speaker 1: in his two cents as well. Look out for new

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Speaker 1: episodes of Smart Talks with IBM every other week on

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Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts,

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Speaker 1: and learn more at IBM dot com slash smart Talks.

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Speaker 2: Hello, Hello, Welcome to Smart Talks with IBM, a podcast

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Speaker 2: from Pushkin Industries, iHeartRadio and IBM. I'm Malcolm Glawell. This season,

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Speaker 2: we're continuing our conversations with new creators visionaries who are

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Speaker 2: creatively applying technology in business to drive change, but with

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Speaker 2: a focus on the transformative power of artificial intelligence and

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Speaker 2: what it means to leverage AI as a game changing

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Speaker 2: multiplier for your business. Today's episode is a case study

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Speaker 2: of sorts as AI expands its reach to different industries,

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Speaker 2: the healthcare profession is on the forefront of adoption. The

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Speaker 2: integration of AI into the healthcare industry is fostering a

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Speaker 2: more inclusive and efficient healthcare system. Pushkin's very own doctor

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Speaker 2: Lori Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast, sat down

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Speaker 2: for a conversation with Alice Creshy. Alice is the co

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Speaker 2: founder and the CEO of fertility care provider ovum Health.

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Speaker 2: Founded in twenty twenty three. Ovum Health consists of a

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Speaker 2: multi specialty group of board certified experts, physicians, nutritionness and

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Speaker 2: patient advocates who are passionate about helping moms to be

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Speaker 2: with pre pregnancy, pregnancy and postpartum healthcare. As an online platform,

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Speaker 2: they are able to diagnose, treat, and manage conditions from

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Speaker 2: the comfort of patients homes. Alice became an advocate for

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Speaker 2: accessible family planning when she was diagnosed with breast cancer

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Speaker 2: at age thirty one. As a healthcare activist, author, cancer

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Speaker 2: and infertility survivor. She has dedicated her life to improving

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Speaker 2: access to exceptional health care, regardless of income, insurance, religion, race, identity,

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Speaker 2: or location. Alice and Laurie discuss the barriers to healthcare access,

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Speaker 2: the ways in which AI can be leveraged to expand

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Speaker 2: the reach of healthcare providers, and how ovum healths partnership

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Speaker 2: with IBM and the use of the IBM Watson x

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Speaker 2: Assistant platform has been enhancing the patient experience. Just a

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Speaker 2: heads up before we dive in. This conversation touches on

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Speaker 2: sensitive topics such as paternal health and fertility. Please take

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Speaker 2: care when listening. Okay, let's get to the conversation.

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Speaker 3: Alice, thank you so much for joining me. To start off,

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Speaker 3: tell me a little bit about your current role.

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Speaker 4: Hi, Laurie, thank you so much for having me today.

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Speaker 4: I'm thrilled to be here. My current role is as

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Speaker 4: co founder and CEO of ovum Health. We are a

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Speaker 4: network of fertility telehealth clinics in the United States, and

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Speaker 4: really my job is to make sure that all the

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Speaker 4: people that we want to serve know that we exist

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Speaker 4: and to make sure that I create a sustainable company

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Speaker 4: so that all the good work that my clinicians are

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Speaker 4: doing really reach the millions, truly millions of people who

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Speaker 4: need us.

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Speaker 3: So your fertility journey began at thirty one when you

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Speaker 3: were diagnosed with cancer. That must have been awful. Tell

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Speaker 3: me about the days and weeks surrounding that news and

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Speaker 3: what was your life like.

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Speaker 4: Yes, the way that I've always described it is that

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Speaker 4: the news almost hit the pause button on my life.

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Speaker 4: And the extraordinary thing was that it became my full

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Speaker 4: time job just managing all the diagnostic steps involved. So truly,

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Speaker 4: for the first thirty days, I was in a vortex

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Speaker 4: of all things cancer related, and I was one of

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Speaker 4: the lucky ones. And that a friend asked me, are

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Speaker 4: you going to freeze your eggs? I would never have

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Speaker 4: even thought to ask about it had she not brought

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Speaker 4: it up. I went into the fertility clinic, and really

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Speaker 4: what was extraordinary is that the day before my appointment

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Speaker 4: at the physical clinic, I had a telephone console. This

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Speaker 4: is before the term telehealth or telemedicine was even a thing. Okay,

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Speaker 4: because it was so many years ago. She called my phone.

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Speaker 4: There was no video conferencing even invented yet. So it

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Speaker 4: was five pm on a Tuesday, and It was already

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Speaker 4: day two of my cycle, and she said to me, Alice,

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Speaker 4: if you're going to do this, you have to start

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Speaker 4: tomorrow morning at seven am. So I had less than

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Speaker 4: twenty four hours to make the biggest decision of my life.

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Speaker 4: And at the time, I had a boyfriend who was

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Speaker 4: working in the front bedroom of my home. Okay, I

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Speaker 4: walk into that room and say, okay, I'm all excited.

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Speaker 4: We have to freeze embryos. And he looked at me

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Speaker 4: and he goes, We're not going to do that. And

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Speaker 4: I said, what do you mean We're not going to

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Speaker 4: do that. He said, no, I'm not going to do

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Speaker 4: that with you. I said, why wouldn't you do that

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Speaker 4: with me? And he told me then that he didn't

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Speaker 4: think we had a future together. And in that moment,

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Speaker 4: I was on my own. So when I walked into

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Speaker 4: the fergility clinic the next morning, they handed me a

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Speaker 4: catalog of sperm donors. So can you imagine, Okay, I'm

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Speaker 4: already dealing with cancer, completely overwhelmed, and I get handed

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Speaker 4: a catalog of sperm donors and it was all these statistics.

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Speaker 4: So it looked like I was picking a basketball team

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Speaker 4: and being like, who do I think is going to

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Speaker 4: be MVP this year. And I had a friend with

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Speaker 4: me at the appointment who said, no, I think this

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Speaker 4: is going to be so much fun. And I handed

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Speaker 4: the catalog to her and I was like, great, you pick.

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Speaker 4: So part of the journey was such a massive learning

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Speaker 4: curve so fast, But going through fertility preservation helped me

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Speaker 4: focus on life after cancer. So I always fundamentally deeply

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Speaker 4: believed I'm going to get through this cancer. But I

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Speaker 4: also knew I wanted to live the life I imagined afterwards,

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Speaker 4: and that whole experience started that journey what is life

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Speaker 4: going to look like after I get through all this trauma?

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Speaker 4: But for me, I felt the fertility preservation experience was

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Speaker 4: incredibly life affirming.

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Speaker 5: You know.

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Speaker 4: I loved the self injections because it felt like I

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Speaker 4: finally was doing something for my life rather than having

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Speaker 4: the medical community do something to me.

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Speaker 3: And so talk about how that experience led you to

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Speaker 3: the founding of Fertile Action and med Answers.

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Speaker 4: Well, I literally walked out of the fertility clinic that

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Speaker 4: same day. The business manager had handed me kind of

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Speaker 4: like pushed a piece of paper across her desk to

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Speaker 4: show me how expensive the treatment was going to be.

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Speaker 4: It was a twenty thousand dollars expense, and I know

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Speaker 4: almost flipped out. I thought, Wow, am I going to

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Speaker 4: do this? And you could see the look on her face.

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Speaker 4: She almost felt devastated that in my time of need,

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Speaker 4: she couldn't just give this to me. My friend Jen

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Speaker 4: was on the phone with the only nonprofit that existed

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Speaker 4: at the time, who basically was telling her I don't qualify.

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Speaker 4: I meanwhile, was on the phone with my American Express

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Speaker 4: card getting an increased limit. So that moment was the

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Speaker 4: gate first game changer, because I walked out of the

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Speaker 4: office and I looked at my friend Jen, and I said,

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Speaker 4: we're going to start a nonprofit. We're going to fix this.

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Speaker 4: I felt offended that there would be a financial criteria

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Speaker 4: to determine who gets help and who doesn't. I think,

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Speaker 4: you're thirty one years old, you're at the prime of

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Speaker 4: your career. You're still climbing the ladder. You haven't made it.

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Speaker 4: I barely had enough years to, you know, put into

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Speaker 4: a four oh one k or an ira.

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Speaker 5: I don't have a nest egg.

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Speaker 4: You know, this was not something that I felt like

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Speaker 4: we needed to make people prove that they have financial need.

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Speaker 4: The cancer is the need, and I was offended that

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Speaker 4: insurance didn't cover it, and insurance was willing to cover

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Speaker 4: a wig, they were willing to cover reconstructive breasts, and

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Speaker 4: so it seemed that society was telling me it's more

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Speaker 4: important to us that you look like a woman when

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Speaker 4: you're done with this than actually produce offspring like a woman.

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Speaker 4: I was really disturbed by that. So that was the

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Speaker 4: first pivotal moment of starting a charity. Was because I

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Speaker 4: wanted to educate, I wanted to advocate, and.

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Speaker 3: So talk about how that passion ultimately evolved into the

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Speaker 3: launch of oval Health in twenty twenty three.

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Speaker 4: Well, what ended up happening is I was doing all

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Speaker 4: this advocacy work and all this legislative change, and I

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Speaker 4: was educating all up and down California. But I also

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Speaker 4: was witnessing the spread of misinformation on Facebook groups. At

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Speaker 4: the time, I knew a lot of clinicians and I

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Speaker 4: had them on text, and so these women were asking

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Speaker 4: questions on these groups and I was able to get

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Speaker 4: an answer within fifteen minutes from my professional network. So

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Speaker 4: I thought, Okay, well, there's got to be a better

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Speaker 4: way to do this. So with my business partner, the

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Speaker 4: illustrious doctor Santiago Munet, who's a world renowned reproductive geneticist

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Speaker 4: and researcher, I emailed him and I said, we got

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Speaker 4: to do something about this. There's got to be a

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Speaker 4: digital way to let everyone have access to the people

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Speaker 4: that he and I know, and they should be able

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Speaker 4: to ask questions in a safe, protected environment by actual experts,

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Speaker 4: not their peers pretending to be an expert. We all

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Speaker 4: have that person who's like, well, I had this experience

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Speaker 4: and is therefore my experience pertains to your experience.

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Speaker 5: And it's just not personalized at all.

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Speaker 4: So I thought, with technology where it's at, there's no

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Speaker 4: reason not to create an app that can can the

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Speaker 4: public with a trusted network of professionals. That was the

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Speaker 4: first thing that we did and we ran that for years.

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Speaker 4: So we have over ninety thousand pieces of clinically validated content,

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Speaker 4: multidisciplinary specialists who have answered patient questions as volunteers, which

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Speaker 4: is extraordinary. But what we saw in the data, because

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Speaker 4: we collected so much health information on our users, we

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Speaker 4: saw that they weren't being diagnosed with infertility, yet they

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Speaker 4: had been infertile for more than three years, and because

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Speaker 4: they weren't diagnosed with infertility, they also weren't being diagnosed

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Speaker 4: with the underlying conditions causing infertility. So to me, infertility

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Speaker 4: is a frustrating diagnosis because it's based on time. It's

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Speaker 4: not based on labs, it's not based on imaging, it's

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Speaker 4: not based on anything except you don't have the outcome

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Speaker 4: that you want in the timeframe that the professional societies

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Speaker 4: has deemed relevant. If you're under the age of thirty

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Speaker 4: five and haven't gotten pregnant the old fashioned way in

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Speaker 4: a year, you have a disease diagnosis infertility. The medical

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Speaker 4: community wasn't telling women that in the same way that

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Speaker 4: I had someone call me and say, I'm sorry to

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Speaker 4: break the bad news you have breast cancer. If we

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Speaker 4: don't know that somebody has infertility, then they're not looking

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Speaker 4: at the underlying cause. So you have women who are

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Speaker 4: trying to figure out what's going on, and they're they're

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Speaker 4: turning to Facebook groups, or they're turning to other online communities.

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Speaker 4: They're trying to take this supplement that supplement, but they're

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Speaker 4: not really going through a proper diagnostic journey. And we

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Speaker 4: wanted to solve that. So Obi guindes. Even though we

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Speaker 4: think of them as the ones that deliver the babies,

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Speaker 4: they're actually not trained infertility. They're not trained in diagnostics

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Speaker 4: for infertility, and they're not trained in optimizing fertility. And

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Speaker 4: then you have the IVF doctors that are the most

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Speaker 4: extreme treatment possible that has helped millions of babies be

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Speaker 4: born worldwide and is a wonderful treatment, but it doesn't

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Speaker 4: need to be the first line of treatment. There are

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Speaker 4: so oh many conditions that can actually be treated to

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Speaker 4: help restore natural fecundity, meaning someone's ability to ovulate on

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Speaker 4: their own at the right time of the month, to

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Speaker 4: ensure that the size of the egg is optimal, to

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Speaker 4: ensure that the timing of the egg release is optimal,

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Speaker 4: and to ensure that sperm has the best possible chance

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Speaker 4: of getting to the egg for a fertilization event to happen.

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Speaker 4: When you look at all the optimization steps that are possible,

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Speaker 4: it's a miracle that anybody gets pregnant on their own. Okay,

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Speaker 4: it really is. And I think we're all raised with

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Speaker 4: the idea that when we want to have a baby,

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Speaker 4: we think it's going to be easy and it's going

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Speaker 4: to be fine. Because we've spent all of our lives

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Speaker 4: telling young people how not to get pregnant, that we

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Speaker 4: make it seem like they're going to look at a

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Speaker 4: man and get pregnant, and that's just not what's So

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Speaker 4: we can help same sex couples optimize their attempt as well,

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Speaker 4: and that is both on the male side and on

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Speaker 4: the female side. So really, Ovumhealth was created to solve

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Speaker 4: a huge gap that exists, and it's not just in

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Speaker 4: the United States, it's worldwide between an OBIGI and an

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Speaker 4: IVF doctor, so that we can get all those diagnostics

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Speaker 4: done and then we can do medical nutrition therapy first

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Speaker 4: to start optimizing each step of the fertility process and

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Speaker 4: then use pharmaceutical solutions to kind of take over the

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Speaker 4: cycle ovulatory experience to make sure that we are helping

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Speaker 4: to craft the most effective and efficient time to intercourse

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Speaker 4: cycle possible.

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Speaker 3: So your situation was just so awful right where you

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Speaker 3: had to pay for your treatment on an MX card.

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Speaker 3: I'm curious what the current state of access is for

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Speaker 3: family building treatments in the US. Is there's still this

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Speaker 3: higher socioeconomic barrier for fertility treatment compared to other health issues.

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Speaker 4: Sure, there definitely is and it varies widely. So with

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Speaker 4: Ovum Health, we are practicing medicine in a lane that's

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Speaker 4: covered by insurance. We're not doing anything that falls outside

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Speaker 4: of your normal kind of consultative approach to accessing specialty care.

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Speaker 4: Because of this, we're covered by insurance. There are some

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Speaker 4: innovative testing platforms that are not covered by insurance, so

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Speaker 4: we work with our patients to help them with all

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Speaker 4: their out of pocket expenses. We do offer financing in house.

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Speaker 4: We offer payment plans. We try to be as flexible

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Speaker 4: as possible to make sure that there is no socioeconomic barrier.

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Speaker 4: I have one hundred and seventy six insurance contracts as

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Speaker 4: of today in eight states. I intend to be in

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Speaker 4: all fifty states by the end of next year with

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Speaker 4: insurance contracts. My hunches will have over six hundred contracts.

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Speaker 4: That includes Medicaid. So there are plenty of things that

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Speaker 4: Medicaid pays for. And it's not just our ability to

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Speaker 4: help someone have a healthy pregnancy, it's our ability to

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Speaker 4: help someone have a healthy baby, and that means that

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Speaker 4: we have to support women through the reproductive continuum. So

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Speaker 4: what Ovum is really creating is being the glue at

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Speaker 4: kind of every step of that experience for a woman

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Speaker 4: in the IVF setting. Yes, there are still huge gaps

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Speaker 4: in coverage. There are a lot of programs out there,

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Speaker 4: like Carrot and Progeny that have targeted large employer market

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Speaker 4: as a specialty insurance product. Only point three percent of

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Speaker 4: reproductive age people work for large employers, So it's really

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Speaker 4: important that we still access IVF coverage through your basic

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Speaker 4: health insurance plans like the etna's and the Blues and

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Speaker 4: the United Healthcares. That's where you still have coverage gap,

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Speaker 4: and so much of that is dependent on who your

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Speaker 4: employer coverage is through, and so much of that is

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Speaker 4: if you're self insured or if you're on Medicaid, et cetera.

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Speaker 4: So Medicaid currently doesn't cover infertility services, and Medicaid pays

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Speaker 4: for about half of the pregnancies and live births in America.

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Speaker 4: So we have to start thinking more broadly about treatment options.

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Speaker 3: And so walk us through a typical patient journey with

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Speaker 3: opum health from first contact final outcome. What are all

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Speaker 3: the ways that ovum helps them build a family.

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Speaker 5: Yes, that's a great question.

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Speaker 4: So really the first thing that we're looking at is

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Speaker 4: a diagnostic journey that we want to get people through rapidly.

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Speaker 4: So in a traditional healthcare environment, if you have to

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Speaker 4: see the number of specialists that are under one roof

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Speaker 4: at ovum, it probably would take you six months to

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Speaker 4: see all of them, and you'd have six to twelve

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Speaker 4: different appointments because that's how many specialists we're bringing onto

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Speaker 4: your case. So you initially meet with our nurse practitioner

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Speaker 4: to review your medical history. We do ask you to

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Speaker 4: fill out quite a bit of data because we want

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Speaker 4: it to be again as efficient as possible for you.

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Speaker 4: We don't want to waste your time. We want to

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Speaker 4: make sure that we are well prepared to be able

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Speaker 4: to ask all the follow up questions and review that

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Speaker 4: medical history so that we can turn around and order

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Speaker 4: your lab work right away. So typically when someone calls

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Speaker 4: in to us, we actually book four appointments for them

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Speaker 4: at once so that they don't have any delays. We

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Speaker 4: book that first visit, we book the lab appointment for

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Speaker 4: them at their local lab. After the lab visit, then

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Speaker 4: our patients get to meet with the lead clinician on

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Speaker 4: their case, and that's usually when they get an initial

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Speaker 4: diagnosis from the lab work and the history that we reviewed.

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Speaker 4: At that point, then we probably need to send them

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Speaker 4: for imaging. We need to do fallopian tube evaluation, uterinevaluation,

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Speaker 4: and ovarianvaluation, and they then get paired with a nurse navigator.

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Speaker 4: That nurse navigator's job is to help them understand what

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Speaker 4: their treatment options are going to be. The doctor had

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Speaker 4: already reviewed the treatment options. However, as we all know,

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Speaker 4: we are trying to take in as much information as

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Speaker 4: we can in that doctor visit, and then as soon

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Speaker 4: as we get in the car, as soon as we

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Speaker 4: get off the phone, we think of thirty questions to ask,

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Speaker 4: so we pair them with a nurse navigator so that

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Speaker 4: they have somebody to ask all those follow up questions efficiently.

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Speaker 4: At that point, then we lay out kind of what

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Speaker 4: the next three to four months of their life is

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Speaker 4: going to look like. In all cases, we assign them

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Speaker 4: a regil dietitian, so they have a nurse navigator that

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Speaker 4: is the glue of their case and helping to facilitate

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Speaker 4: every next step. They're assigned a registered dietitian, and they

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Speaker 4: even get a patient advocate who's kind of advocating for

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Speaker 4: their insurance, helping them understand what else they need where

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Speaker 4: they need to order it. It could be a custom

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Speaker 4: supplement list, it could be an at home continuous hormone

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Speaker 4: monitoring kit. It could be their molecular sperm testing kit

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Speaker 4: for their partner as well. So we line up kind

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Speaker 4: of the diagnostic journey first, but in a lot of cases,

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Speaker 4: we're already starting some medical nutrition therapy or medicated weight

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Speaker 4: loss or working with the registered dietitian even alongside some

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Speaker 4: of the other steps because we have some of the

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Speaker 4: diagnoses already. We know people who are insulin resistant, so

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Speaker 4: we know what kind of diet plan we need to

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Speaker 4: help them with, we know the lifestyle changes we need to.

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Speaker 5: Pair them with.

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Speaker 4: We're even adding PT into our practice so that we

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Speaker 4: can customize exercise plans specific to somebody's condition.

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Speaker 3: But opal health is also launching during this pivotal moment

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Speaker 3: in it, and so I'm curious. Was it always the

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Speaker 3: plan to leverage this technology for ovum or was it

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Speaker 3: more of an organic evolution to this point.

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Speaker 5: It was both.

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Speaker 4: It was always my intention that we needed to have

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Speaker 4: AI enabled technology to be able to scale faster and

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Speaker 4: to also be able to improve quality control across so

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Speaker 4: many states, because how do you really do that I

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Speaker 4: need to upscale all different levels of healthcare providers. Then

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Speaker 4: how do we efficiently kind of manage that clinical excellence experience?

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Speaker 4: And the only way to really do that is to

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Speaker 4: create clinical decisions support tools that everybody utilizes that are

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Speaker 4: very easy to make sure that we're managing our care

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Speaker 4: in a consistent fashion. How else could we possibly do

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Speaker 4: it state by state? You know, experience level varies, So

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Speaker 4: that was always kind of the plan. The area that

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Speaker 4: I didn't even know was possible was this area of

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Speaker 4: being able to reach the massive truly through an AI

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Speaker 4: tool through the Fertility Answers app. So when IBM approached

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Speaker 4: me for that partnership, the bells went off. I always

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Speaker 4: knew that I couldn't scale voluntary humans. I have a

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Speaker 4: network of over four hundred medical professionals across so many disciplines.

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Speaker 4: We're talking mds, genetic counselors, geneticists, psychologists, obiginnds, naturopaths, functional

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Speaker 4: medicine docs. I have about thirteen different specialties, all willing

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Speaker 4: to answer free questions. But relying on that voluntary basis

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Speaker 4: is not something that can scale. It's a beautiful thing

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Speaker 4: that they're doing, and it's created ninety thousand pieces of

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Speaker 4: clinically validated content. But we needed to move beyond kind

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Speaker 4: of the initial interaction being a human answering the question

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Speaker 4: and leverage.

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Speaker 5: AI to be able to do that.

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Speaker 4: So what was really extraordinary for me is that I

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Speaker 4: had my eyes kind of opened by IBM to see

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Speaker 4: what was possible for my practice with AI. Once that

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Speaker 4: seed was planted, then the world opened up. We have

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Speaker 4: four tools that we're working on right now. The first

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Speaker 4: has already been integrated, which is the Fertility Answers App.

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Speaker 4: So the initial experience for women and mostly women, because

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Speaker 4: they're the ones download the app, but we take men.

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Speaker 4: I promise we're not excluding them. We see both. It

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Speaker 4: takes two and they have the opportunity to access all

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Speaker 4: that content in a personalized way through the IBM Watson

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Speaker 4: Assistant chatbot, so that is incredible. We're also deploying a

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Speaker 4: revenue cycle management tool. You can imagine with all these

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Speaker 4: different contracts that I have one hundred and seventy six

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Speaker 4: contracts and eventually I'll have probably six hundred contracts. They

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Speaker 4: all have different price lists. Makes it very difficult to

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Speaker 4: forecast what's in my electronic medical record system. For that

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Speaker 4: day based on the type of insurance. Now, even within

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Speaker 4: one insurance contract, they might have hundreds of insurance plans

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Speaker 4: that have all various mechanisms for what we can expect

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Speaker 4: to build. You might have co insurance, you might have

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Speaker 4: a deductible, you might have a copay, and it varies

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Speaker 4: planned to plan. We're dealing with a level of medical

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Speaker 4: literacy in this country that is very low, and the

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Speaker 4: layperson doesn't understand their insurance all the time.

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Speaker 5: How am I.

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Speaker 4: Expected to be able to deal with truly thousands of

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Speaker 4: combinations of insurance plans based on these contracts. You have

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Speaker 4: to have AI just to tackle that big data issue.

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Speaker 5: So we have a.

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Speaker 4: Revenue cycle management tool that is also helping us with

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Speaker 4: an automated clinical workflow, and that's what a wonderful partner

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Speaker 4: we have called cloud Astra, who is also in the

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Speaker 4: IBM ecosystem. So it's incredibly exciting to know that I

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Speaker 4: can come out of a startup mode profitably because we're

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Speaker 4: deploying smart tools from the beginning. Then we also have

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Speaker 4: in development our Fertility Clinical Decisions Support tool to really

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Speaker 4: scale the clinical experience so that we're analyzing genomic data,

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Speaker 4: lab data, clinical data and even self reported data from

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Speaker 4: our users in a way that helps our clinicians know

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Speaker 4: what to do next. And that's all based on standard

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Speaker 4: of care guidelines, all evidence based medicine, but built into

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Speaker 4: a really useful tool to help them do their job

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Speaker 4: more efficiently. Recently, the International Guidelines for PCOS polycystic Ovarian

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Speaker 4: Syndrome updated guidelines. There were two hundred individual points in

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Speaker 4: these guidelines. Two hundred and that's for one condition. So

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Speaker 4: imagine you multiply that across dozens of conditions. You can't

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Speaker 4: expect a human to retain that information and to be

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Speaker 4: able to recall it right when someone's in front of them.

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Speaker 4: So tools that have IBMS AI enabled are really critical

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Speaker 4: to do an exceptional job in healthcare. And then the

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Speaker 4: fourth tool that we're creating with IBM is a medical

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Speaker 4: nutrition therapy tool so that we can scale beyond our

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Speaker 4: registered dietitians and be able to help women really optimize

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Speaker 4: their fertility, health and wellness by having personalized approach to

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Speaker 4: medical nutrition therapy.

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Speaker 5: And that also requires AI.

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Speaker 3: So when you decided to go big and introduce AI

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Speaker 3: in so many different ways to scale up your app

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Speaker 3: and your business more broadly, why did you pick IBM

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Speaker 3: as a partner?

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Speaker 4: IBM was an easy yes when we were approached about

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Speaker 4: this partnership for so many reasons. I'm not an AI startup,

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Speaker 4: I'm a healthcare startup, and it's very important that I

437
00:24:42,119 --> 00:24:45,840
Speaker 4: don't waste resources trying to figure out AI all by ourselves.

438
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 4: We needed to be very fast to market and needed

439
00:24:49,520 --> 00:24:52,919
Speaker 4: to be with a trusted partner. IBM brought that to

440
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:56,520
Speaker 4: the team right away. But secondarily, the IBM team that

441
00:24:56,560 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 4: I've been exposed to is incredible. So from a partnership standpoint,

442
00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:06,040
Speaker 4: the team has made it easy, joyful. There's some of

443
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:09,320
Speaker 4: the smartest people that I've had the pleasure to work with,

444
00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:12,360
Speaker 4: and so I think the culture of what IBM's created

445
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:16,800
Speaker 4: for startups is very unique and truly every single aspect

446
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:19,480
Speaker 4: of the team that I've worked with, from the developers

447
00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:24,240
Speaker 4: themselves that build labs, to the customer success team to

448
00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 4: my day to day team, I mean, my goodness, it

449
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:30,120
Speaker 4: is just a dream team. So IBM made it as

450
00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 4: easy as possible for me to say yes.

451
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:36,399
Speaker 2: Alice really helped open my eyes to the challenges facing

452
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:41,679
Speaker 2: providers in an industry as sensitive and individualized as fertility care.

453
00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:45,480
Speaker 2: It makes sense that scalability would be an issue, but

454
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:48,800
Speaker 2: with the help of AI, ovum Health has been able

455
00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 2: to solve a few of the extraordinary challenges of bringing effective,

456
00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:57,560
Speaker 2: affordable fertility care to the general public, from multiplying the

457
00:25:57,600 --> 00:26:01,640
Speaker 2: impact of its medical professional network to enabling more accurate

458
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:07,960
Speaker 2: forecasting of complex contracts, patients are benefiting directly and indirectly

459
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 2: from the integration of AI across the healthcare journey.

460
00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:15,239
Speaker 3: A lot of people have nuanced health questions that are

461
00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:17,760
Speaker 3: unique to them due to their own personal health history,

462
00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 3: maybe their lifestyle factors, or the specific medications they're taking.

463
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:24,520
Speaker 3: How does the Fertility Answers bot personalize all its responses.

464
00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:28,520
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question. So when we onboard our users,

465
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:30,440
Speaker 4: we do ask them to fill out quite a bit

466
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:34,560
Speaker 4: of health information, and we have ninety nine percent compliance

467
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:37,719
Speaker 4: rates on the health information that people fill out. So

468
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:41,960
Speaker 4: when you ask a question, you're asking it with all

469
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:45,520
Speaker 4: your health information already attached to it. The library of

470
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:50,960
Speaker 4: responses then shows you questions and answers of people who

471
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:54,919
Speaker 4: are similar to you. If that doesn't answer your question,

472
00:26:55,080 --> 00:26:57,800
Speaker 4: you still have a chance to route your question to

473
00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:01,199
Speaker 4: the same volunteer network of professionals that existed before the

474
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:02,040
Speaker 4: bot was there.

475
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:05,399
Speaker 3: And so some problems, especially those related to fertility and

476
00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:08,359
Speaker 3: needle care, require human to human connection, right This is

477
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:10,640
Speaker 3: what we're built for as primates, to kind of engage

478
00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:14,080
Speaker 3: with our families as the chatbot addresses such a personal

479
00:27:14,119 --> 00:27:16,080
Speaker 3: health need. How easy is it for a doctor to

480
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:18,879
Speaker 3: interject or for a patient to request care from a doctor.

481
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:22,639
Speaker 4: Very easy, and that was super important to me. One

482
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 4: of the things that I love the most out of

483
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:29,880
Speaker 4: IBM was that I had the chance to infuse empathy

484
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:33,520
Speaker 4: directly into the bot experience. I didn't want something that

485
00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:36,919
Speaker 4: sounded or came off as robotic, but it is incredibly

486
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:40,200
Speaker 4: easy and the Watson Assistant flow for someone to request

487
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:43,960
Speaker 4: that immediate human connection. We have a chat feature that

488
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:47,399
Speaker 4: gets to a patient advocate right away, We have a

489
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:49,760
Speaker 4: feature where they can route their question to that network

490
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:52,320
Speaker 4: of experts right away, and we have a feature where

491
00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:54,399
Speaker 4: they can book a console with one of our medical

492
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 4: professionals right away as well.

493
00:27:56,440 --> 00:27:59,320
Speaker 3: So you have over sixty seven thousand users now, which

494
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:01,520
Speaker 3: is kind of a meat. How do you get them

495
00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:03,919
Speaker 3: to feel the kind of trust and empathy people expect

496
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:06,639
Speaker 3: from their healthcare provider? Especially in the fertility space.

497
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 4: In our case, we have a very human brand, so

498
00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 4: from the moment that someone interacts with our content, they're

499
00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 4: already experiencing clinically validated answers in the form of video.

500
00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:21,959
Speaker 4: We don't ask people to download and register our app

501
00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:26,760
Speaker 4: upon the first touch point. We are infusing medical education

502
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:31,720
Speaker 4: into the community through video so that they can start

503
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:34,640
Speaker 4: to build that brand trust with us from the beginning.

504
00:28:35,240 --> 00:28:38,160
Speaker 4: What I've noticed is that because our brand is such

505
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:41,760
Speaker 4: human connection, we've built up so much trusts. And it's

506
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:44,560
Speaker 4: not just about the app experience. It's also how active

507
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 4: our Instagram is, where we answer live questions for people

508
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 4: in Instagram lives, so there's multiple ways for people to

509
00:28:52,800 --> 00:29:00,160
Speaker 4: get served for virtually free and an unlimited fashion. Did

510
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:02,080
Speaker 4: all the providers for them so they don't have to

511
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:04,520
Speaker 4: do that. So I think that there's multiple things that

512
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:06,720
Speaker 4: go into building brand trust, and that's why.

513
00:29:06,560 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 5: We show sort of the profile.

514
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 4: Of someone who asked a similar question already, so that

515
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 4: they can find themselves in that Oh wow, that person

516
00:29:15,760 --> 00:29:18,720
Speaker 4: who asked my similar question or almost my exact same

517
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:23,040
Speaker 4: question also is thirty seven years old, or also has

518
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 4: PCOS or also has ENDO, so there are different ways

519
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 4: that we are able to kind of get into the

520
00:29:29,280 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 4: psychology of our community to make sure that they feel heard.

521
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:36,480
Speaker 4: And I think whenever anybody feels truly heard, then that

522
00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 4: trust is possible.

523
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:42,440
Speaker 3: So this season of Smart Talks features new creators, visionaries

524
00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 3: like you who are creatively applying technology in business to

525
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 3: drive change. I know that you have a Bachelor of

526
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 3: Science in Media, Arts and Design. How does this creative

527
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:53,440
Speaker 3: background inform what you do is CEO of OPM Health.

528
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:55,479
Speaker 5: Oh, that's such a great question.

529
00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 4: They use my degree every single day and I'm not

530
00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:02,680
Speaker 4: a chickens, so I've had that degree for quite a while, Lorie.

531
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:08,200
Speaker 4: Every CEO has kind of a I would say leading

532
00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:08,960
Speaker 4: skill set.

533
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:09,520
Speaker 5: You know.

534
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 4: There are some that are leading financial type people. There's

535
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:16,480
Speaker 4: some that are leading kind of business to business salespeople.

536
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:20,320
Speaker 4: I am very much a leading marketing type CEO. So

537
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 4: for me, the patient experience, the user experience, that human

538
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 4: experience is kind of everything that I stand for and

539
00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:29,720
Speaker 4: I'm about and it must be authentic. And because of

540
00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:32,480
Speaker 4: the background that I have, I love nothing more than

541
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 4: co producing with my chief storyteller, Joshua Noonan, Who's been

542
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 4: with me forever. We love co producing content. It could

543
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:44,280
Speaker 4: be a twenty two second video that that's educational, it

544
00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 4: could be an hour long course, you know, for professionals.

545
00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:51,240
Speaker 4: And so I do feel that I bring that media,

546
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 4: arts and design background to kind of my type of leadership.

547
00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 5: And storytelling is kind of everything. You know.

548
00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:02,000
Speaker 4: Being a great story tell no matter what your brand

549
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:03,880
Speaker 4: is or no matter the type of leader you are,

550
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:06,520
Speaker 4: is the way that kind of attracts and connects people

551
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:10,680
Speaker 4: to us. And it's fortunate that social media has created

552
00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 4: this visual world that we live in and this video

553
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 4: based world that we live in as well.

554
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 3: So you're an activist for accessibility and inclusivity and healthcare.

555
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:21,640
Speaker 3: If you could look years down the line, how do

556
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:25,360
Speaker 3: you see creative applications of technology like fertility answers changing

557
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:26,680
Speaker 3: how we talk about women's health.

558
00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 4: Well, first, I think that these tools need to be

559
00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:32,560
Speaker 4: covered by insurance. So I think what is going to

560
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 4: be the game changer in the value based care market

561
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:38,640
Speaker 4: is that insurance is going to figure out that by

562
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:43,320
Speaker 4: creating a reimbursement mechanism for more digital therapeutics but also

563
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 4: for digital diagnostic tools, is going to lead to a

564
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:51,920
Speaker 4: much more cost effective healthcare society no matter what kind

565
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:54,680
Speaker 4: of insurance type or plan that we have. So on

566
00:31:54,720 --> 00:32:00,040
Speaker 4: the accessibility side, those tools are really meaningful to the future.

567
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:00,560
Speaker 5: Of health healthcare.

568
00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:04,560
Speaker 4: I would also say that technology creates a more democratized

569
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:07,840
Speaker 4: health care environment. A lot of our patients live four

570
00:32:07,880 --> 00:32:11,480
Speaker 4: hours from a type of specialist that they need four hours,

571
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:13,600
Speaker 4: you know, a lot of them are at least an

572
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 4: hour an hour and a half from a major lab.

573
00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:20,040
Speaker 4: So leveraging these types of tools gets them the answers

574
00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:23,960
Speaker 4: that they need faster, which will lead to better intervention earlier.

575
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:27,680
Speaker 4: And that's where we come down to healthy mamas, healthy babies,

576
00:32:27,720 --> 00:32:28,720
Speaker 4: make happy families.

577
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:31,880
Speaker 3: Awesome. That's a great way to end. Thank you Alis

578
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:34,280
Speaker 3: so much for being with us on smart Talks today.

579
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:36,160
Speaker 3: It is such great work that you were doing to

580
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:38,120
Speaker 3: help women in families, So thank you for all your

581
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:39,400
Speaker 3: work and thanks for our chat today.

582
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:40,640
Speaker 5: Thank you, Laurie.

583
00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 4: It's such an honor to get to be on Smart

584
00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:44,400
Speaker 4: Talks and it was a delightful conversation.

585
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:51,800
Speaker 2: That about wraps up today's episode. I want to send

586
00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 2: a huge thank you to Laurie and Alice for deepening

587
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:58,560
Speaker 2: the way I think about AI's expanding role in the future.

588
00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 2: Of healthcare. It was illuminating to hear a first hand

589
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:06,800
Speaker 2: account of how providers are already integrating the power of transparent,

590
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:13,400
Speaker 2: human centric generative AI through Watson X. It's enabling telehealth

591
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:18,040
Speaker 2: platforms to multiply their impact and is quickly becoming essential

592
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:22,480
Speaker 2: to offering comprehensive care to patients. As our conversation with

593
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 2: Laurie and Alice showed, accessibility has long been an issue

594
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:30,440
Speaker 2: facing patients, particularly in the fertility space. With the help

595
00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 2: of technology from IBM, ovum Health is meaningfully expanding its

596
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:37,760
Speaker 2: reach to women who previously may not have been able

597
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 2: to access personalized fertility care. Steps like these are helping

598
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:45,240
Speaker 2: to usher in a new age in healthcare, one that

599
00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 2: holds incredible potential for both patients and providers. Yet, as

600
00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:53,640
Speaker 2: new technology is implemented, it needs to be done with

601
00:33:53,760 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 2: responsibility and care. Using emerging technologies in sensitive feels like fertility,

602
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 2: it's the power to transform how people receive care. But,

603
00:34:04,080 --> 00:34:09,680
Speaker 2: as Alice emphasized, only if patient needs are central to

604
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:14,840
Speaker 2: how we implement solutions. Ovum Health already has over sixty

605
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:18,560
Speaker 2: seven thousand users. Just think of all the pregnancies that

606
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:21,680
Speaker 2: have been supported by the platform. And as we just heard,

607
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:25,279
Speaker 2: this is only the beginning. It's exciting to see how

608
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:28,479
Speaker 2: this new technology will continue to reach people in need.

609
00:34:29,480 --> 00:34:32,919
Speaker 2: Smart Talks with IBM is produced by Matt Romano, Joey

610
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:37,200
Speaker 2: fish Ground and Jacob Goldstein. We're edited by Lydia Jane Kott.

611
00:34:37,520 --> 00:34:42,040
Speaker 2: Our engineers are Jason Gambrel, Sarah Bruguier, and Ben Tolliday.

612
00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:47,960
Speaker 2: Theme song by Gramoscope. Special thanks to Andy Kelly, Kathy Callahan,

613
00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:51,040
Speaker 2: and the Eight Bar and IBM teams, as well as

614
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:54,840
Speaker 2: the Pushkin marketing team. Smart Talks with IBM is a

615
00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:59,440
Speaker 2: production of Pushkin Industries and Ruby Studio at iHeartMedia. To

616
00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:04,400
Speaker 2: find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

617
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:17,080
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Malcolm glam