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Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's Robert and Joe here. Today we've got

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Speaker 1: something a little bit different to share with you. It

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Speaker 1: is a new season of the Smart Talks with IBM

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Speaker 1: podcast series.

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Speaker 2: Today we are witnessed to one of those rare moments

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Speaker 2: in history, the rise of an innovative technology with the

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Speaker 2: potential to radically transform business and society forever. The technology,

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Speaker 2: of course, is artificial intelligence, and it's the central focus

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Speaker 2: for this new season of Smart Talks with IBM.

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Speaker 1: Join hosts from your favorite Pushkin podcasts as they talk

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Speaker 1: with industry experts and leaders to explore how businesses can

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Speaker 1: integrate AI into their workflows and help drive real change

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Speaker 1: in this new era of AI. And of course, host

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Speaker 1: Malcolm Gladwell will be there to guide you through the

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Speaker 1: season and throw in his two cents as well.

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Speaker 2: Look out for new episodes of Smart Talks with IBM

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Speaker 2: every other week on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

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Speaker 2: wherever you get your podcasts, and learn more at IBM

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Speaker 2: dot com slash smart Talks.

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Speaker 3: Hello, Hello, Welcome to Smart Talks IBM, a podcast from

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Speaker 3: Pushkin Industries, iHeartRadio and IBM. I'm Malcolm Glamwell. This season

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Speaker 3: we're continuing our conversations with new creators visionaries who are

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Speaker 3: creatively applying technology in business to drive change, but with

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Speaker 3: a focus on the transformative power of artificial intelligence and

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Speaker 3: what it means to leverage AI as a game changing

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Speaker 3: multiplier for your business. Today's episode is a case study

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Speaker 3: of sorts as AI expands its reach to different industries.

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Speaker 3: The healthcare profession is on the forefront of adoption. The

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Speaker 3: integration of AI into the healthcare industry is fostering a

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Speaker 3: more inclusive and efficient healthcare system. Pushkin's very own doctor

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Speaker 3: Lori Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast, sat down

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Speaker 3: for a conversation with Alice Creeshy. Alice is the co

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Speaker 3: founder and CEO of fertility care provider ovum Health. Founded

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Speaker 3: in twenty twenty three. Ovum Health consists of a multi

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Speaker 3: specialty group of board certified experts, physicians, nutritionists, and patient

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Speaker 3: advocates who are passionate about helping moms to be with

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Speaker 3: pre pregnancy, pregnancy and postpartum health care. As an online platform,

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Speaker 3: they are able to diagnose, treat, and manage conditions from

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Speaker 3: the comfort of patients homes. Alice became an advocate for

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Speaker 3: accessible family planning when she was diagnosed with breast cancer

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Speaker 3: at age thirty one. As a healthcare activist, author, cancer

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Speaker 3: and infertility survivor, she has dedicated her life to improving

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Speaker 3: access to exceptional health care, regardless of income, insurance, religion, race, identity,

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Speaker 3: or location. Alice and Laurie discuss the barriers to healthcare access,

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Speaker 3: the ways in which AI can be leveraged to expand

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Speaker 3: the reach of health care providers, and how ovum healths

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Speaker 3: partnership with IBM and the use of the IBM Watson

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Speaker 3: X Assistant platform has been enhancing the patient experience. Just

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Speaker 3: a heads up before we dive in. This conversation touches

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Speaker 3: on sensitive topics such as paternal health and fertility. Please

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Speaker 3: take care when listening. Okay, let's get to the conversation.

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Speaker 4: Alice, thank you so much for joining me. To start off,

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Speaker 4: tell me a little bit about your current role.

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Speaker 5: Hi, Laurie, thank you so much for having me today.

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Speaker 5: I'm thrilled to be here. My current role is as

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Speaker 5: co founder and CEO of ovum Health. We are a

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Speaker 5: network of fertility telehealth clinics in the United States, and

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Speaker 5: really my job is to make sure that all the

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Speaker 5: people that we want to serve know that we exist,

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Speaker 5: and to make sure that I create a sustainable company

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Speaker 5: so that all the good work that my clinicians are

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Speaker 5: doing really reach the millions, truly millions of people who

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Speaker 5: need us.

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Speaker 4: So your fertility journey began at thirty one when you

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Speaker 4: were diagnosed with cancer. That must have been awful. Tell

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Speaker 4: me about the days and weeks surrounding that news and

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Speaker 4: what was your life like.

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Speaker 5: Yes, the way that I've always described it is that

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Speaker 5: the news almost hit the pause button on my life.

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Speaker 5: And the extraordinary thing was that it became my full

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Speaker 5: time job just managing all the diagnostic steps involved. So truly,

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Speaker 5: for the first thirty days, I was in a vortex

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Speaker 5: of all things cancer related, and I was one of

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Speaker 5: the lucky ones. And that a friend asked me, are

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Speaker 5: you going to freeze your eggs? I would never have

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Speaker 5: even thought to ask about it had she not brought

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Speaker 5: it up. I went into the fertility clinic, and really

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Speaker 5: what was extraordinary is that the day before my appointment

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Speaker 5: at the physical clinic, I had a telephone console. This

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Speaker 5: is before the term telehealth or telemedicine was even a thing. Okay,

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Speaker 5: because it was so many years ago. She called my phone.

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Speaker 6: There was no.

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Speaker 5: Video conferencing even invented yet. So it was five pm

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Speaker 5: on a Tuesday, and it was already day two of

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Speaker 5: my cycle, and she said to me, Alice, if you're

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Speaker 5: going to do this, you have to start tomorrow morning

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Speaker 5: at seven am. So I had less than twenty four

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Speaker 5: hours to make the biggest decision of my life. And

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Speaker 5: at the time, I had a boyfriend who was working

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Speaker 5: in the front bedroom of my home. Okay, I walk

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Speaker 5: into that room and say, okay, I'm all excited. We

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Speaker 5: have to freeze embryos. And he looked at me and

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Speaker 5: he goes, We're not going to do that. And I said,

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Speaker 5: what do you mean, We're not going to do that?

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Speaker 5: He said, no, I'm not going to do that with you.

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Speaker 5: I said, why wouldn't you do that with me? And

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Speaker 5: he told me then that he didn't think we had

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Speaker 5: a future together. And in that moment, I was on

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Speaker 5: my own. So when I walked into the Fergility clinic

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Speaker 5: the next morning, they handed me a catalog of sperm donors.

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Speaker 6: So can you imagine.

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Speaker 5: Okay, I'm already dealing with cancer, completely overwhelmed, and I

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Speaker 5: get handed a catalog of sperm donors and it was

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Speaker 5: all these statistics, so it looked like I was picking

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Speaker 5: a basketball team and like, who do I think is

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Speaker 5: going to be MVP this year? And I had a

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Speaker 5: friend with me at the appointment who said, no, I

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Speaker 5: think this is going to be so much fun, and

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Speaker 5: I handed the catalog to her and I.

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Speaker 6: Was like, great, you pick.

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Speaker 5: So part of the journey was such a massive learning

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Speaker 5: curve so fast. But going through fertility preservation helped me

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Speaker 5: focus on life after cancer. So I always fundamentally deeply

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Speaker 5: believed I'm going to get through this cancer, but I

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Speaker 5: also knew I wanted to live the life I imagined afterwards,

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Speaker 5: and that whole experience started that journey what is life

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Speaker 5: going to look like after I get through all this trauma?

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Speaker 6: But for me, I felt.

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Speaker 5: The fertility preservation experience was incredibly life affirming.

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Speaker 6: You know.

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Speaker 5: I loved the self injections because it felt like I

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Speaker 5: finally was doing something for my life rather than having

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Speaker 5: the medical community do something to me.

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Speaker 4: And so talk about how that experience led you to

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Speaker 4: the founding of Fertile Action and med Answers.

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Speaker 5: Well, I literally walked out of the fertility clinic that

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Speaker 5: same day, the business manager had handed me kind of

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Speaker 5: like pushed a piece of paper across her desk to

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Speaker 5: show me how expensive the treatment was going to be.

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Speaker 5: It was a twenty thousand dollars expense, and I know

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Speaker 5: almost flipped out. I thought, Wow, am I going to

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Speaker 5: do this? And you could see the look on her face.

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Speaker 5: She almost felt devastated that in my time of need,

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Speaker 5: she couldn't just give this to me. My friend Jen

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Speaker 5: was on the phone with the only nonprofit that existed

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Speaker 5: at the time, who basically was telling her I don't qualify.

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Speaker 5: I meanwhile, was on the phone with my American Express

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Speaker 5: card getting an increased limit. So that moment was the

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Speaker 5: gate first game changer, because I walked out of the

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Speaker 5: office and I looked at my friend Jen, and I said,

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Speaker 5: we're going to start a nonprofit. We're going to fix this.

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Speaker 5: I felt offended that there would be a financial criteria

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Speaker 5: to determine who gets help and who doesn't. I think,

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Speaker 5: you're thirty one years old, you're at the prime of

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Speaker 5: your career. You're still climbing the ladder. You haven't made it.

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Speaker 5: I barely had enough years to, you know, put into

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Speaker 5: a four to one or an IRA I don't have

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Speaker 5: a nest egg. You know, this was not something that

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Speaker 5: I felt like we needed to make people prove that

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Speaker 5: they have financial need. The cancer is the need, and

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Speaker 5: I was offended that insurance didn't cover it, and insurance

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Speaker 5: was willing to cover a wig, they were willing to

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Speaker 5: cover reconstructive breasts, and so it seemed that society was

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Speaker 5: telling me it's more important to us that you look

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Speaker 5: like a woman when you're done with us than actually

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Speaker 5: produce offspring like a woman. I was really disturbed by that.

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Speaker 5: So that was the first pivotal moment of starting a charity,

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Speaker 5: was because I wanted to educate, I wanted to advocate, and.

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Speaker 4: So talk about how that passion ultimately evolved into the

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Speaker 4: launch of Oval Health in twenty twenty three.

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Speaker 5: Well, what ended up happening is I was doing all

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Speaker 5: this advocacy work and all this legislative change, and I

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Speaker 5: was educating all up and down California. But I also

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Speaker 5: was witnessing the spread of misinformation on Facebook groups. At

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Speaker 5: the time, I knew a lot of nisions and I

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Speaker 5: had them on text, and so these women were asking

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Speaker 5: questions on these groups and I was able to get

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Speaker 5: an answer within fifteen minutes from my professional network. So

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Speaker 5: I thought, okay, well, there's got to be a better

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Speaker 5: way to do this. So with my business partner, the

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Speaker 5: illustrious doctor Santiago Munet, who's a world renowned reproductive geneticist

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Speaker 5: and researcher, I emailed him and I said, we got

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Speaker 5: to do something about this. There's got to be a

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Speaker 5: digital way to let everyone have access to the people

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Speaker 5: that he and I know, and they should be able

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Speaker 5: to ask questions in a safe, protected environment by actual experts,

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Speaker 5: not their peers pretending to be an expert. We all

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Speaker 5: have that person who's like, well, I had this experience

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Speaker 5: and is therefore my experience pertains to your experience and

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Speaker 5: it's just not personalized at all. So I thought, with

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Speaker 5: technology where it's at, there's no reason not to create

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Speaker 5: an app that can connect the public with a trusted

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Speaker 5: network of professionals. That was the first thing that we

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Speaker 5: did and we ran that for years. So we have

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Speaker 5: over night thousand pieces of clinically validated content, multidisciplinary specialists

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Speaker 5: who have answered patient questions as volunteers, which is extraordinary.

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Speaker 5: But what we saw in the data because we collected

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Speaker 5: so much health information on our users, We saw that

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Speaker 5: they weren't being diagnosed with infertility, yet they had been

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Speaker 5: infertile for.

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Speaker 6: More than three years.

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Speaker 5: And because they weren't diagnosed with infertility, they also weren't

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Speaker 5: being diagnosed with the underlying conditions causing infertility. So, to me,

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Speaker 5: infertility is a frustrating diagnosis because it's based on time.

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Speaker 5: It's not based on labs, it's not based on imaging,

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Speaker 5: it's not based on anything except you don't have the

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Speaker 5: outcome that you want in the timeframe that the professional

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Speaker 5: societies has deemed relevant. If you're under the age of

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Speaker 5: thirty five and haven't gotten pregnant the old fashioned way

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Speaker 5: in a year, you have a disease diagnosis of infertility.

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Speaker 5: The medical community wasn't telling women that in the same

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Speaker 5: way that I had someone call me and say, I'm

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Speaker 5: sorry to break the bad news you have breast can answer.

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Speaker 5: If we don't know that somebody has infertility, then they're

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Speaker 5: not looking at the underlying cause. So you have women

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Speaker 5: who are trying to figure out what's going on, and

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Speaker 5: they're turning to Facebook groups or they're turning to other

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Speaker 5: online communities. They're trying to take this supplement that supplement,

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Speaker 5: but they're not really going through a proper diagnostic journey,

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Speaker 5: and we wanted to solve that. So obe Guindes, even

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Speaker 5: though we think of them as the ones that deliver

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Speaker 5: the babies, they're actually not trained infertility. They're not trained

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Speaker 5: in diagnostics for infertility, and they're not trained in optimizing fertility.

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Speaker 5: And then you have the IVF doctors that are the

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Speaker 5: most extreme treatment possible that has helped millions of babies

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Speaker 5: be born worldwide and is a wonderful treatment, but it

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Speaker 5: doesn't need to be the first line of treatment. There

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Speaker 5: are so many conditions that can actually be treated to

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Speaker 5: help restore natural fecundity, meaning someone's ability to obv on

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Speaker 5: their own at the right time of the month, to

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Speaker 5: ensure that the size of the egg is optimal, to

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Speaker 5: ensure that the timing of the egg release is optimal,

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Speaker 5: and to ensure that sperm has the best possible chance

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Speaker 5: of getting to the egg for a fertilization event to happen.

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Speaker 5: When you look at all the optimization steps that are possible,

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Speaker 5: it's a miracle that anybody gets pregnant on their own. Okay,

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Speaker 5: it really is. And I think we're all raised with

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Speaker 5: the idea that when we want to have a baby,

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Speaker 5: we think it's going to be easy and it's going

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Speaker 5: to be fine. Because we've spent all of our lives

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Speaker 5: telling young people how not to get pregnant, that we

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Speaker 5: make it seem like they're going to look at a

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Speaker 5: man and get pregnant, and that's just not what's So

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Speaker 5: we can help same sex couples optimize their attempt as well.

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Speaker 5: And you know that is both on the male side

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Speaker 5: and on the female side. So really, Ovumhealth was created

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Speaker 5: to solve a huge gap that exists, and it's not

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Speaker 5: just in the United States, it's worldwide between an OBEGI

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Speaker 5: and an IVF doctor. So we can get all those

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Speaker 5: diagnostics done and then we can do medical nutrition therapy

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Speaker 5: first to start optimizing each step of the fertility process,

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Speaker 5: and then use pharmaceutical solutions to kind of take over

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Speaker 5: the cycle ovulatory experience to make sure that we are

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Speaker 5: helping to craft the most effective and efficient timed intercourse

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Speaker 5: cycle possible.

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Speaker 4: So your situation was just so awful right where you

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Speaker 4: had to pay for your treatment on an AMEX card.

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Speaker 4: I'm curious what the current state of access is for

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Speaker 4: family building treatments in the US. Is there's still this

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Speaker 4: higher socioeconomic barrier for fertility treatment compared to other health issues.

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Speaker 5: Sure, there definitely is, and it varies widely. So with

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Speaker 5: ovum Health, we are practicing medicine in a lane that's

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Speaker 5: covered by insurance. We're not doing anything that falls outside

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Speaker 5: of your normal kind of consultative approach to accessing specialty care.

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Speaker 5: Because of this, we're covered by insurance. There are some

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Speaker 5: innovative testing platforms that are not covered by insurance, so

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Speaker 5: we work with our patients to help them with all

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Speaker 5: their out of pocket expenses. We do offer financing in house,

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Speaker 5: We offer payment plans. We try to be as flexible

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Speaker 5: as possible to make sure that there is no socioeconomic barrier.

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Speaker 5: I have one hundred and seventy six insurance contracts as

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Speaker 5: of today in eight states. I intend to be in

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Speaker 5: all fifty states by the end of next year with

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Speaker 5: insurance contracts. My hunches will have over six hundred contracts.

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Speaker 5: That includes Medicaid. So there are plenty of things that

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Speaker 5: Medicaid pays for. And it's not just our ability to

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Speaker 5: help someone have a healthy pregnancy, it's our ability to

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Speaker 5: help someone have a healthy baby. And that means that

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Speaker 5: we have to support women through the reproductive continuum. So

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Speaker 5: what ovum is really creating is being the glue at

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Speaker 5: kind of every step of that experience for a woman

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Speaker 5: in the IVF setting. Yes, there are still huge gaps

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Speaker 5: in coverage. There are a lot of programs out there,

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Speaker 5: like Carrot and Progeny that have targeted large employer market

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Speaker 5: as a specialty insurance product. Only point three percent of

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Speaker 5: reproductive age people work for large employers, so it's really

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Speaker 5: important that we still access IVF coverage through your basic

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Speaker 5: health insurance plans like the etna's and the Blues and

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Speaker 5: the United Healthcares. That's where you still have coverage gap,

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Speaker 5: and so much of that is dependent on who your

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Speaker 5: employer coverage is through, and so much of that is

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Speaker 5: if you're self insured or if you're on Medicaid, et cetera.

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Speaker 5: So Medicaid currently doesn't cover infertility services, and Medicaid pays

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Speaker 5: for about half of the pregnancies and live births in America.

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Speaker 5: So we have to start thinking more broadly about treatment options.

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Speaker 4: And so walk us through a typical patient journey with

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Speaker 4: ovumhealth from first contact to final outcome. What are all

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Speaker 4: the ways that Ovum helps them build a family.

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Speaker 6: Yes, that's a great question.

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Speaker 5: So really, the first thing that we're looking at is

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Speaker 5: a diagnostic journey that we want to get people through rapidly.

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Speaker 5: So in a traditional healthcare environment, if you have to

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Speaker 5: see the number of specialists that are under one roof

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Speaker 5: at ovum, it probably would take you six months to

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Speaker 5: see all of them, and you'd have six to twelve

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Speaker 5: different appointments because that's how many specialists we're bringing onto

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Speaker 5: your case. So you initially meet with our nurse practitioner

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Speaker 5: to review your medical history. We do ask you to

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Speaker 5: fill out quite a bit of data because we want

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Speaker 5: it to be again as efficient as possible for you.

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Speaker 5: We don't want to waste your time. We want to

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Speaker 5: make sure that we are well prepared to be able

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Speaker 5: to ask all the follow up questions and review that

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Speaker 5: medical history so that we can turn around and order

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Speaker 5: your lab work right away. So typically when someone calls

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Speaker 5: in to us, we actually book four appointments for them

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Speaker 5: at once so that they don't have any delays. We

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Speaker 5: book that first visit, we book the lab appointment for

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Speaker 5: them at their local lab. After the lab visit, then

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Speaker 5: our patients get to meet with the lead clinician on

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Speaker 5: their case, and that's usually when they get an initial

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Speaker 5: diagnosis from the lab work and the history that we reviewed.

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Speaker 5: At that point, then we probably need to send them

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Speaker 5: for imaging. We need to do fallopian tube evaluation, uterinevaluation,

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Speaker 5: and ovaryanvaluation, and they then get paired with a nurse navigator.

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Speaker 5: That nurse navigator's job is to help them understand what

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Speaker 5: their treatment options are going to be. The doctor had

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Speaker 5: already reviewed the treatment options. However, as we all know,

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Speaker 5: we are trying to take in as much information as

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Speaker 5: we can in that doctor visit, and then as soon

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Speaker 5: as we get in the car, as soon as we

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Speaker 5: get off the phone, we think of thirty questions to ask,

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Speaker 5: so we pair them with a nurse navigator so that

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Speaker 5: they have somebody to ask all those follow up questions efficiently.

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Speaker 5: At that point, then we lay out kind of what

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Speaker 5: the next three to four months of their life is

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Speaker 5: going to look like. In all cases, we assign them

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Speaker 5: a registered dietitian, so they have a nurse navigator that

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Speaker 5: is the glue of their case and helping to facilitate

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Speaker 5: every next step. They're assigned a registered dietitian, and they

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Speaker 5: even get a patient advocate who's kind of advocating for

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Speaker 5: their insurance, helping them understand what else they need where

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Speaker 5: they need to order it. It could be a custom

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Speaker 5: supplement list, it could be an at home continuous hormone

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Speaker 5: monitoring kit. It could be their molecular sperm testing kit

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Speaker 5: for their partner as well. So we line up kind

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Speaker 5: of the diagnostic journey first, but in a lot of cases,

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Speaker 5: we're already starting some medical nutrition therapy or MEDICATEID weight loss,

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Speaker 5: or working with the registered dietitian even alongside some of

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Speaker 5: the other steps because we have some of the diagnoses already.

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Speaker 5: We know people who are insulin resistant, so we know

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Speaker 5: what kind of diet plan we need to help them with.

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Speaker 5: We know the lifestyle changes we need to pair them with.

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Speaker 5: We're even adding PT into our practice so that we

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Speaker 5: can customize exercise plans specific to somebody's condition.

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Speaker 4: But ovum Health is also launching during this pivotal moment

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Speaker 4: in AI, and so I'm curious, was it always the

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Speaker 4: plan to leverage this technology for ovum or was it

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Speaker 4: more of an organic evolution to this point.

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Speaker 6: It was both.

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Speaker 5: It was always my intention that we needed to have

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Speaker 5: AI enabled technology to be able to scale faster and

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Speaker 5: to also be able to improve quality control across so

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Speaker 5: many states, because how do you really do that? I

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Speaker 5: need to upscale all different levels of healthcare providers, Then

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Speaker 5: how do we efficiently kind of manage that clinical excellence experience?

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Speaker 5: And the only way to really do that is to

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Speaker 5: create clinical decisions support tools that everybody utilizes that are

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Speaker 5: very easy to make sure that we're managing our care

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Speaker 5: in a consistent fashion.

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Speaker 6: How else could we possibly do it?

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Speaker 5: State by state experience level varies, So that was always.

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Speaker 6: Kind of the plan.

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Speaker 5: The area that I didn't even know was possible was

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Speaker 5: this area of being able to reach the masses truly

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Speaker 5: through an AI tool through the Fertility Answers app. So

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Speaker 5: when IBM approached me for that partnership, the bells went off.

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Speaker 5: Always knew that I couldn't scale voluntary humans. I have

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Speaker 5: a network of over four hundred medical professionals across so

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Speaker 5: many disciplines. We're talking mds, genetic counselors, geneticists, psychologists, obigiinds, naturopaths,

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Speaker 5: functional medicine docs. I have about thirteen different specialties, all

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Speaker 5: willing to answer free questions but relying on that voluntary

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Speaker 5: basis is not something that can scale. It's a beautiful

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Speaker 5: thing that they're doing, and it's created ninety thousand pieces

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Speaker 5: of clinically validated content, but we needed to move beyond

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Speaker 5: kind of the initial interaction being a human answering the

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Speaker 5: question and leverage.

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Speaker 6: AI to be able to do that.

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Speaker 5: So what was really extraordinary for me is that I

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Speaker 5: had my eyes kind of opened by IBM to see

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Speaker 5: what was possible for my practice with AI. Once that

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Speaker 5: seed was planted, then the world opened up. We have

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Speaker 5: four tools that we're working on right now. The first

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Speaker 5: has already been integrated, which is the Fertility Answers App.

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Speaker 5: So the initial experience for women and mostly women because

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Speaker 5: they're the ones download the app, but we take men.

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Speaker 6: I promise we're not excluding them. We see both.

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Speaker 5: It takes two and they have the opportunity to access

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Speaker 5: all that content in a personalized way through the IBM

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Speaker 5: Watson Assistant chatbot, so that is incredible. We're also deploying

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Speaker 5: a revenue cycle management tool. You can imagine with all

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Speaker 5: these different contracts that I have one hundred and seventy

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Speaker 5: six contracts and eventually I'll have probably six hundred contracts

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Speaker 5: they all have different price lists. Makes it very difficult

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Speaker 5: to forecast what's in my electronic medical record system for

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Speaker 5: that day based on the type of insurance. Now, even

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Speaker 5: within one insurance contract, they might have hundreds of insurance

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Speaker 5: plans that have all various mechanisms for what we can

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Speaker 5: and expect to build. You might have co insurance, you

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Speaker 5: might have a deductible, you might have a copay, and

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Speaker 5: it varies planned to plan. We're dealing with a level

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Speaker 5: of medical literacy in this country that is very low,

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Speaker 5: and the layperson doesn't understand their insurance all the time.

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Speaker 6: How am I.

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Speaker 5: Expected to be able to deal with truly thousands of

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Speaker 5: combinations of insurance plans based on these contracts. You have

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Speaker 5: to have AI just to tackle that big data issue.

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Speaker 5: So we have a revenue cycle management tool that is

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Speaker 5: also helping us with an automated clinical workflow, and that's

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Speaker 5: what a wonderful partner we have called cloud Astra, who

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Speaker 5: is also in the IBM ecosystem. So it's incredibly exciting

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Speaker 5: to know that I can come out of a startup

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Speaker 5: mode profitably because we're deploying smart tools from the beginning.

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Speaker 5: Then we also have in development our fertility Clinical decision

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Speaker 5: support tool to really scale the clinical experience so that

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Speaker 5: we're analyzing genomic data, lab data, clinical data, and even

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Speaker 5: self reported data from our users in a way that

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Speaker 5: helps our clinicians know what to do next. And that's

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Speaker 5: all based on standard of care guidelines, all evidence based medicine,

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Speaker 5: but built into a really useful tool to help them

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Speaker 5: do their job more efficiently. Recently, the International Guidelines for

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Speaker 5: PCOS polycystic Ovarian Syndrome updated guidelines. There were two hundred

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Speaker 5: individual points in these guidelines. Two hundred and that's for

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Speaker 5: one condition, So imagine you multiply that across dozens of conditions.

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Speaker 5: You can't expect a human to retain that information and

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Speaker 5: to be able to recall it right when someone's in

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Speaker 5: front of them. So tools that have IBMS AI enabled

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Speaker 5: are really critical to do an exceptional job in healthcare.

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Speaker 5: And then the fourth tool that we're creating with IBM

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Speaker 5: is a medical nutrition therapy tool that we can scale

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Speaker 5: beyond our registered dietitians and be able to help women

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Speaker 5: really optimize their fertility, health and wellness by having personalized

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Speaker 5: approach to medical nutrition therapy.

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Speaker 6: And that also requires AI.

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Speaker 4: So when you decided to go big and introduce AI

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Speaker 4: in so many different ways to scale up your app

437
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:21,399
Speaker 4: and your business. More broadly, why did you pick IBM

438
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:22,040
Speaker 4: as a partner?

439
00:24:22,440 --> 00:24:25,160
Speaker 5: IBM was an easy yes when we were approached about

440
00:24:25,160 --> 00:24:26,920
Speaker 5: this partnership for so many reasons.

441
00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:30,359
Speaker 6: I'm not an AI startup, I'm.

442
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:33,800
Speaker 5: A healthcare startup, and it's very important that I don't

443
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:37,320
Speaker 5: waste resources trying to figure out AI all by ourselves.

444
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:41,000
Speaker 5: We needed to be very fast to market and needed

445
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:44,399
Speaker 5: to be with a trusted partner. IBM brought that to

446
00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:48,000
Speaker 5: the team right away. But secondarily, the IBM team that

447
00:24:48,040 --> 00:24:53,520
Speaker 5: I've been exposed to is incredible. So from a partnership standpoint,

448
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 5: the team has made it easy, joyful. There's some of

449
00:24:57,520 --> 00:25:00,760
Speaker 5: the smartest people that I've had the play to work with,

450
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:03,840
Speaker 5: and so I think the culture of what IBMS created

451
00:25:03,920 --> 00:25:08,200
Speaker 5: for startups is very unique and truly every single aspect

452
00:25:08,359 --> 00:25:10,960
Speaker 5: of the team that I've worked with, from the developers

453
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:15,679
Speaker 5: themselves that build labs, to the customer success team to

454
00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:18,320
Speaker 5: my day to day team, I mean, my goodness, it

455
00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:21,600
Speaker 5: is just a dream team. So IBM made it as

456
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:23,320
Speaker 5: easy as possible for me to say yes.

457
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:27,879
Speaker 3: Alice really helped open my eyes to the challenges facing

458
00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:33,119
Speaker 3: providers in an industry as sensitive and individualized as fertility care.

459
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:36,960
Speaker 3: It makes sense that scalability would be an issue, but

460
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:40,280
Speaker 3: with the help of AI, ovum Health has been able

461
00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:44,280
Speaker 3: to solve a few of the extraordinary challenges of bringing effective,

462
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:49,000
Speaker 3: affordable fertility care to the general public, from multiplying the

463
00:25:49,040 --> 00:25:53,120
Speaker 3: impact of its medical professional network to enabling more accurate

464
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:59,440
Speaker 3: forecasting of complex contracts. Patients are benefiting directly and indirectly

465
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:04,520
Speaker 3: from the integration of AI across the healthcare journey.

466
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:06,719
Speaker 4: A lot of people have nuanced health questions that are

467
00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:09,240
Speaker 4: unique to them due to their own personal health history,

468
00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:12,479
Speaker 4: maybe their lifestyle factors, or the specific medications they're taking.

469
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:15,960
Speaker 4: How does the Fertility Answers bot personalize all its responses.

470
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:18,480
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a great question.

471
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 5: So when we onboard our users, we do ask them

472
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:23,560
Speaker 5: to fill out quite a bit of health information, and

473
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:27,160
Speaker 5: we have ninety nine percent compliance rates on the health

474
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:31,480
Speaker 5: information that people fill out. So when you ask a question,

475
00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:35,360
Speaker 5: you're asking it with all your health information already attached

476
00:26:35,359 --> 00:26:40,679
Speaker 5: to it. The library of responses then shows you questions

477
00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:44,920
Speaker 5: and answers of people who are similar to you. If

478
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 5: that doesn't answer your question, you still have a chance

479
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:50,919
Speaker 5: to route your question to the same volunteer network of

480
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:53,320
Speaker 5: professionals that existed before the bot was there.

481
00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:56,879
Speaker 4: And so some problems, especially those related to fertility and

482
00:26:56,960 --> 00:26:59,760
Speaker 4: needle care, require human to human connection, right This is

483
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:02,080
Speaker 4: what or built for as primates to kind of engage

484
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:05,560
Speaker 4: with our families as the chatbot addresses such a personal

485
00:27:05,600 --> 00:27:07,560
Speaker 4: health need. How easy is it for a doctor to

486
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:10,359
Speaker 4: interject or for a patient to request care from a doctor.

487
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:14,120
Speaker 5: Very easy, and that was super important to me. One

488
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 5: of the things that I love the most out of

489
00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:21,360
Speaker 5: IBM was that I had the chance to infuse empathy

490
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 5: directly into the bought experience. I didn't want something that

491
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:28,399
Speaker 5: sounded or came off as robotic, but it is incredibly

492
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:31,680
Speaker 5: easy and the Watson Assistant flow for someone to request

493
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:35,439
Speaker 5: that immediate human connection. We have a chat feature that

494
00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:38,840
Speaker 5: gets to a patient advocate right away, We have a

495
00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:41,240
Speaker 5: feature where they can route their question to that network

496
00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:43,760
Speaker 5: of experts right away, and we have a feature where

497
00:27:43,800 --> 00:27:45,879
Speaker 5: they can book a console with one of our medical

498
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 5: professionals right away as well.

499
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:50,800
Speaker 4: So you have over sixty seven thousand users now, which

500
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:53,080
Speaker 4: is kind of amazing. How do you get them to

501
00:27:53,119 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 4: feel the kind of trust and empathy people expect from

502
00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:58,119
Speaker 4: their healthcare provider, especially in the fertility space.

503
00:27:58,760 --> 00:28:01,879
Speaker 5: In our case, a very human brand, So from the

504
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:06,359
Speaker 5: moment that someone interacts with our content, they're already experiencing

505
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:11,359
Speaker 5: clinically validated answers in the form of video. We don't

506
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:13,840
Speaker 5: ask people to download and register our app upon the

507
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:19,359
Speaker 5: first touch point. We are infusing medical education into the

508
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 5: community through video so that they can start to build

509
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:27,200
Speaker 5: that brand trust with us from the beginning. What I've

510
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:30,440
Speaker 5: noticed is that because our brand is such human connection,

511
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:33,720
Speaker 5: we've built up so much trust. And it's not just

512
00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:37,400
Speaker 5: about the app experience. It's also how active our Instagram is,

513
00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 5: where we answer live questions for people in Instagram lives,

514
00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:46,560
Speaker 5: so there's multiple ways for people to get served for

515
00:28:47,400 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 5: virtually free and an unlimited fashion. We've vetted all the

516
00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 5: providers for them so they don't have to do that.

517
00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 5: So I think that there's multiple things that go into

518
00:28:56,480 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 5: building brand trust, and that's why we show sort of

519
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 5: the profile of someone who asked a similar question already,

520
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:06,280
Speaker 5: so that they can find themselves in that Oh wow,

521
00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:09,560
Speaker 5: that person who asked my similar question or almost my

522
00:29:09,640 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 5: exact same question, also is thirty seven years old or

523
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 5: also has PCOS or also has endo. So there are

524
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 5: different ways that we are able to kind of get

525
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:23,240
Speaker 5: into the psychology of our community to make sure that

526
00:29:23,280 --> 00:29:27,120
Speaker 5: they feel heard. And I think whenever anybody feels truly heard,

527
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:29,520
Speaker 5: then that trust is possible.

528
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:33,920
Speaker 4: So this season of Smart Talks features new creators, visionaries

529
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:36,880
Speaker 4: like you who are creatively applying technology in business to

530
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:39,400
Speaker 4: drive change. I know that you have a Bachelor of

531
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:42,479
Speaker 4: Science in Media, Arts and Design. How does this creative

532
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:45,000
Speaker 4: background inform what you do? Is CEO of Opum Health.

533
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:46,959
Speaker 6: Oh, that's such a great question.

534
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 5: That I use my degree every single day and I'm

535
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:53,080
Speaker 5: not a spring chicken, so I've had that degree for

536
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:59,000
Speaker 5: quite a while, Laurie. Every CEO has a i would

537
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:01,880
Speaker 5: say leading skill set. You know, there are some that

538
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 5: are leading financial type people. There's some that are leading

539
00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:08,760
Speaker 5: kind of business to business salespeople. I am very much

540
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:14,000
Speaker 5: a leading marketing type CEO. So for me, the patient experience,

541
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 5: the user experience, that human experience is kind of everything

542
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 5: that I stand for and I'm about and it must

543
00:30:19,280 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 5: be authentic. And because of the background that I have,

544
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:27,040
Speaker 5: I love nothing more than co producing with my chief storyteller,

545
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:30,719
Speaker 5: Joshua Noonan, who's been with me forever. We love co

546
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 5: producing content. It could be a twenty two second video

547
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:37,479
Speaker 5: that that's educational, it could be an hour long course,

548
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:41,440
Speaker 5: you know, for professionals. And so I do feel that

549
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:44,240
Speaker 5: I bring that media, arts and design background to kind

550
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:49,240
Speaker 5: of my type of leadership, and storytelling is kind of everything.

551
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:53,120
Speaker 5: You know, Being a great storyteller, no matter what your

552
00:30:53,120 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 5: brand is or no matter the type of leader you are,

553
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:58,000
Speaker 5: is the way that kind of attracts and connects people

554
00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 5: to us. And it's you know, fortunate that social media

555
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 5: has created this visual world that we live in and

556
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:07,040
Speaker 5: this video based world that we live in as well.

557
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:10,560
Speaker 4: So you're an activist for accessibility and inclusivity and healthcare.

558
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 4: If you could look years down the line, how do

559
00:31:13,160 --> 00:31:16,760
Speaker 4: you see creative applications of technology like fertility answers changing

560
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:18,160
Speaker 4: how we talk about women's health.

561
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 5: Well, first, I think that these tools need to be

562
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:24,040
Speaker 5: covered by insurance. So I think what is going to

563
00:31:24,080 --> 00:31:26,719
Speaker 5: be the game changer in the value based care market

564
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:30,160
Speaker 5: is that insurance is going to figure out that by

565
00:31:30,320 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 5: creating a reimbursement mechanism for more digital therapeutics, but also

566
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:38,840
Speaker 5: for digital diagnostic tools is going to lead to a

567
00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 5: much more cost effective healthcare society, no matter what kind

568
00:31:43,440 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 5: of insurance type or plan that we have. So on

569
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 5: the accessibility side, those tools are really meaningful to the

570
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:54,800
Speaker 5: future of healthcare. I would also say that technology creates

571
00:31:54,800 --> 00:31:58,080
Speaker 5: a more democratized health care environment. A lot of our

572
00:31:58,280 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 5: patients live four hours from a type of specialist that

573
00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:04,120
Speaker 5: they need four hours, you know, a lot of them

574
00:32:04,160 --> 00:32:06,040
Speaker 5: are at least an hour an hour and a half

575
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:10,240
Speaker 5: from a major lab. So leveraging these types of tools

576
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:13,360
Speaker 5: gets them the answers that they need faster, which will

577
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:17,000
Speaker 5: lead to better intervention earlier. And that's where we come

578
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 5: down to healthy mamas, healthy babies, make happy families.

579
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 2: Awesome.

580
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:23,480
Speaker 4: That's a great way to end. Thank you allis so

581
00:32:23,560 --> 00:32:25,960
Speaker 4: much for being with us on smart Talks today. It

582
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 4: is such great work that you were doing to help

583
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:29,760
Speaker 4: women in families. So thank you for all your work

584
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:30,880
Speaker 4: and thanks for our chat today.

585
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 6: Thank you Laurie.

586
00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 5: It's such an honor to get to be on Smart

587
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:36,480
Speaker 5: Talks and it was a delightful conversation.

588
00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:43,280
Speaker 3: That about wraps up today's episode. I want to send

589
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:46,240
Speaker 3: a huge thank you to Laurie and Alice for deepening

590
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:49,640
Speaker 3: the way I think about AI's expanding role in the

591
00:32:49,640 --> 00:32:53,840
Speaker 3: future of healthcare. It was illuminating to hear a first

592
00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 3: hand account of how providers are already integrating the power

593
00:32:57,520 --> 00:33:03,160
Speaker 3: of transparent, human centric generative AI through Watson X. It's

594
00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 3: enabling telehealth platforms to multiply their impact and is quickly

595
00:33:08,560 --> 00:33:13,239
Speaker 3: becoming essential to offering comprehensive care to patients. As our

596
00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:17,239
Speaker 3: conversation with Laurie and Alice showed, accessibility has long been

597
00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:21,560
Speaker 3: an issue facing patients, particularly in the fertility space. With

598
00:33:21,640 --> 00:33:26,240
Speaker 3: the help of technology from IBM, overumhealth is meaningfully expanding

599
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:28,959
Speaker 3: its reach to women who previously may not have been

600
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 3: able to access personalized fertility care. Steps like these are

601
00:33:33,600 --> 00:33:36,600
Speaker 3: helping to usher in a new age in healthcare, one

602
00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 3: that holds incredible potential for both patients and providers. Yet,

603
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:44,880
Speaker 3: as new technology is implemented, it needs to be done

604
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:50,240
Speaker 3: with responsibility and care. Using emerging technologies in sensitive feels

605
00:33:50,280 --> 00:33:54,880
Speaker 3: like fertility has the power to transform how people receive care, But,

606
00:33:55,560 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 3: as Alice emphasized, only if patient needs are central to

607
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:06,320
Speaker 3: how we implement solutions. Ovum Health already has over sixty

608
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 3: seven thousand users. Just think of all the pregnancies that

609
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:13,160
Speaker 3: have been supported by the platform, and as we just heard,

610
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:16,759
Speaker 3: this is only the beginning. It's exciting to see how

611
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:19,959
Speaker 3: this new technology will continue to reach people in need.

612
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:24,440
Speaker 3: Smart Talks with IBM is produced by Matt Romano, Joey

613
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:28,720
Speaker 3: fish Ground and Jacob Goldstein. We're edited by Lydia Jane Kott.

614
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:33,520
Speaker 3: Our engineers are Jason Gambrel, Sarah Bruguier, and Ben Tolliday.

615
00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:38,720
Speaker 3: Theme song by Gramoscope. Special thanks to Andy Kelly, Kathy

616
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:42,399
Speaker 3: Callahan and the eight Bar and IBM teams, as well

617
00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:46,239
Speaker 3: as the Pushkin marketing team. Smart Talks with IBM is

618
00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:50,239
Speaker 3: a production of Pushkin Industries and Ruby Studio at iHeartMedia.

619
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:54,720
Speaker 3: To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app,

620
00:34:54,920 --> 00:34:59,720
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Malcolm

621
00:34:59,719 --> 00:34:59,879
Speaker 3: Glad