Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and
Speaker 2: Tim Stenovek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: It is time now for the Bloomberg Business Week Women's
Speaker 1: Health segment, where we focus on key issues in developing technologies,
Speaker 1: impacting the president and future of women's health around the world.
Speaker 1: And I kind of say the world of women's health
Speaker 1: was rocked a little bit this past week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, President Trump created a potentially existential crisis for ken View,
Speaker 2: the maker of tailanol, with just three words about the
Speaker 2: company's most recognized product, he said, don't take it. The drum.
Speaker 2: Administration is linking tailanol's active ingredient, acetamnifin, to autism and
Speaker 2: urging pregnant women Carol to largely avoid the medication, although
Speaker 2: decades of scientific research have yet to identify a single
Speaker 2: case cause. Excuse me for autism.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get more though, into the bigger, broader
Speaker 1: picture of women's health. Doctor Joan Larroverer is with US
Speaker 1: Interim Chief Medical Officer at Boston Children's Hospital, Director of
Speaker 1: Innovation and Outcomes. She's also co founder and president of
Speaker 1: the NGO Virtue Foundation, which is delivering healthcare in over
Speaker 1: twenty five countries, so she has a big global perspective here.
Speaker 1: She joins us here in studio, doctor la Rover. So
Speaker 1: nice to have you here with us.
Speaker 3: How are you. I'm great, Carol, Thank you so much
Speaker 3: for having me today.
Speaker 1: There's a lot we want to talk to your in town.
Speaker 1: With everything that's going on, we're looking at global health
Speaker 1: with global leaders. I do need to ask you though,
Speaker 1: about what we got from the administration this week, the
Speaker 1: Trump administration, the president on pregnant women taking Thailand. I'm
Speaker 1: just curious what it's been like. And I know you've
Speaker 1: been in New York, but what you've been hearing from
Speaker 1: your team back at Boston Children's when it comes to
Speaker 1: this news and what they're hearing from patients and what
Speaker 1: the guidance is that you're giving them.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Carol. Well, firstly, at Boston Children's we don't take
Speaker 3: care of pregnant women. It's a children's hospital. But right
Speaker 3: this obviously encomstances compasses women and children, and I myself
Speaker 3: don't take care of autism patients. I'm a pediatric cardiac
Speaker 3: intensive care specialist, but I am hearing from my clinical
Speaker 3: colleagues that they are getting calls from families and creating
Speaker 3: confusion around this is really a challenge, and we're really
Speaker 3: sort of taking that head on in terms of addressing
Speaker 3: the questions of families as they are coming to us.
Speaker 2: One thing that we've noticed about this moment in time
Speaker 2: is and we spoke to a doctor from the American
Speaker 2: College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists earlier this week, and there's
Speaker 2: this tension between what we're hearing from professional organizations as
Speaker 2: far as recommendations go, and what we're hearing from the
Speaker 2: American government and the HHS. And it doesn't seem like
Speaker 2: that's happened in the past, where you don't necessarily have
Speaker 2: the government aligned with these professional organizations. I'm just wondering
Speaker 2: how you're thinking about this moment when it comes to healthcare.
Speaker 3: It's a challenging time for healthcare, and I think we
Speaker 3: just stick to our mission that we are trying to
Speaker 3: provide the best, safe, most effective care to children that
Speaker 3: we can.
Speaker 1: I am also curious, like we said, you're in town
Speaker 1: and we've had the benefit of talking to global leaders
Speaker 1: about some of the big issues that are out there,
Speaker 1: whether it's climate change. We've talked a lot about AI
Speaker 1: this week, but looking at healthcare from a global perspective,
Speaker 1: I want to bring you into this because you're very
Speaker 1: involved when it comes to the applications of AI in medicine.
Speaker 1: Talk to us about kind of where we are today
Speaker 1: with it and kind of where it can go.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I think we're at one of the most exciting
Speaker 3: times in healthcare. And I've been involved with AI with
Speaker 3: Virtue Foundation for fifteen years and never has it been
Speaker 3: like this moment in time because I think that the
Speaker 3: tools that are now unlocked, particularly now with GENAI, cloud computing,
Speaker 3: big data, we're seeing use cases that are much more
Speaker 3: actionable than before and at an enterprise scale.
Speaker 2: What does that mean?
Speaker 1: Break it down?
Speaker 3: Well, I can break it down in the content of
Speaker 3: what we've done with Virtue Foundation. I'm happy to talk
Speaker 3: about some of the hospital use cases too, but in
Speaker 3: terms of Virtue Foundation, fifteen years ago, doctor Ebi Alahi,
Speaker 3: my colleague was in Burundi and he was there caring
Speaker 3: for patients and had this Rika moment where He's like,
Speaker 3: we should have more granular data on the ground to
Speaker 3: understand what my eyes see and I should be able
Speaker 3: to see it here in New York to be able
Speaker 3: to action on it. And at that time people are like,
Speaker 3: what are you talking about? Right, it was very early
Speaker 3: days and we started that journey of trying to first
Speaker 3: get the granular data visualize it geospatially. But I think
Speaker 3: we've grown up as the technology has grown up, and
Speaker 3: I think key leverage points for us have been partnerships
Speaker 3: with data bricks, Data robot, Karto and I can break
Speaker 3: down one now if it's helpful, well.
Speaker 1: And talk to us about it, because you know, especially
Speaker 1: when it comes to develop the developing world, have data
Speaker 1: and information, you can assess a situation and figure out
Speaker 1: what to do. Yes, so talk to us a little
Speaker 1: bit about that. You do have partnerships with data bricks.
Speaker 1: As you said, Data Robot Cardo, what are you guys
Speaker 1: building together?
Speaker 3: We are building the marketplace for global health philanthropy. What
Speaker 3: does that mean so you can actually see what is
Speaker 3: happening in healthcare facilities and what is the work of
Speaker 3: healthcare engios on the ground in lower middle income countries.
Speaker 3: And we've used AI in particularly, we've built an enterprise
Speaker 3: grade pipeline with data bricks where we're extracting all the
Speaker 3: data that exists and co locating it to a geospatial location.
Speaker 3: So you're a hospital, a Kolubu hospital in Ghana, everything
Speaker 3: that's out there information wise is co located a geospatially
Speaker 3: to that organization, and you create this vector graph, this
Speaker 3: knowledge graph, with all these mini knowledge graphs that tell
Speaker 3: you what's happened in each of those facilities.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, this is all about
Speaker 2: improving outcomes and it's helping people live longer, healthier, happier lives.
Speaker 2: Do we have the data yet that shows that this
Speaker 2: moment in technology is leading to better outcomes?
Speaker 3: I think that's what we're on the cusp of. Would
Speaker 3: I say that we're there and it's all, you know,
Speaker 3: completely functional and moving. No, but that is the direction
Speaker 3: of travel and those are the tools that are enabling
Speaker 3: us to do so. For now, I can see this
Speaker 3: data in ways I couldn't see before. I can send
Speaker 3: the right teams to the right locations.
Speaker 2: What are the better outcomes that you that you envision?
Speaker 2: I mean, are we talking about longer life expectancy in
Speaker 2: the developing and the developed world? Are we talking about
Speaker 2: lower infant mortality?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: What are we talking about here?
Speaker 3: I think we're talking about all of it. I think
Speaker 3: eventually economic development will solve some of our problems. But
Speaker 3: in that window and time, how can we shorten the
Speaker 3: time it takes till we get really more developed healthcare
Speaker 3: in these markets. And we feel that this VF match platform,
Speaker 3: this actionable data initiative, will allow you to be able
Speaker 3: to use this information, whether you're a healthcare in GEO,
Speaker 3: whether you're a government in a country, whether you're even
Speaker 3: a corporation, to determine what you can build to accelerate progress.
Speaker 3: And we personally are using it to send medical and
Speaker 3: surgical teams to locations where the medical deserts are the
Speaker 3: large populations of patients who need that ophthalmologist or that
Speaker 3: neurosurgeon or that gynecologist, and so that the people who
Speaker 3: are doing it, like myself, there are many in global
Speaker 3: health who are doing this work, know the place they
Speaker 3: can go to be most useful to the patient and
Speaker 3: most useful in passing on skill.
Speaker 1: In just ten seconds. So we didn't really it wasn't
Speaker 1: so easy to do that before. No, no, And it
Speaker 1: was probably not unless somebody brought your attention to it, yes,
Speaker 1: or you got wind of it. And then but that's
Speaker 1: not the most productive way of doing it.
Speaker 3: Exactly. This is to create efficiency and scale.
Speaker 1: All right, Gotta leave it there, doctor lower there, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Thank you really appreciate it. Interim chief
Speaker 1: Medical Officer at Boston Children's Hospital, Director of Innovation and Outcomes, and,
Speaker 1: as we said, co founder and president of the Virtue Foundation,