IKONA, the Startup Using VR to Improve Health Literacy, Starting with Dialysis

CEO and founder Tim Fitzpatrick is leveraging the latest in neuroscience research and VR filmmaking to radically improve health education and patient confidence. 

Kidney disease is a large and growing health challenge, in the United States and globally, thanks in part to rising rates of diabetes and high blood pressure. A full 37 million Americans (15% of the adult population) suffer from kidney disease, according to the National Kidney Foundation, and in 2016, more than half a million people had to be put on dialysis at least 3 times a week just to survive. 

This represents a huge cost to Medicare ($114B in 2016) and efforts are now underway to transition dialysis patients to in-home care, a cheaper and more comfortable alternative. This need for this transition to home became even more acute during the COVID-19 pandemic, but how can resource-strapped dialysis clinics — which currently only spend a few minutes on patient education through paper pamphlets — safely and efficiently transition hundreds of thousands of patients to home care?

Levin is a former CEO of Time Warner

It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention. Jerry Levin, ex CEO of Time-Warner shares his own personal experience with dialysis. Following a severe injury from a fall, with multiple injuries he eventually was placed on hemodialysis while rehabilitating in a skilled nursing facility.  The experience was an eye-opener and less than optimal for his condition and many others.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also provided specific guidelines to address a similar deathtrap: dialysis centers, due to their comparable high volume of older patients (50% of all dialysis patients are over 65) and their history of infections are a very high risk for heightening the spread. More than 725,000 Americans suffer from kidney failure, otherwise known as end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Of these, at least 500,000 individuals are on dialysis.

Receiving home dialysis treatments in a nursing home is not something that is only available to people like me (former CEOs). It could be provided to any patient who needs it. Unfortunately, right now it’s not available to many, which is mainly a function of the red tape and bureaucracy in healthcare. Our current system is characterized by slow decision making, limited willingness to try new and innovative therapies, and stubborn adherence to the status quo of where and how healthcare should be delivered.

But there is a safer way to administer this lifesaving care, and we must urgently make plans to deliver dialysis within nursing home and long-term care facilities, and further to accelerate the provision of dialysis for those able to do it in their home. We must save our elderly and our broader population from this deadly blind spot.

Say Hello to IKONA, the Startup Using VR to Improve Health Literacy, Starting with Dialysis

Steve Case cautions digital health entrepreneurs not to build “printer drivers” | mobihealthnews

mHealth during 2012-2013 did expand exponentially as predicted by many HIT experts...Steve Case and Esther Dyson give up their recommendations regarding mobile apps and the unique characteristics which require a comparison with the growth and acceptance of other services, such as AOL.

Citing his experience at AOL, Co-Founder Steve Case told attendees at the mHealth Summit this week that entrepreneurs in new markets typically will experience three phases as a newer field like digital health matures: hype, hope, and happiness.

Hype, of course, is one of the first phases when most everyone is excited about the potential, but “revolutions happen in an evolutionary” way, Case said, they don’t happen overnight. The hope phase is when expectations crash for one reason or another and only the most passionate and committed entrepreneurs decide to stick it out. Case said at that time the passionate ones even “double down”. The happiness phase is later when things are going well and the market is relatively established.
For AOL and the rise of the internet, Case said it took 20 years for it to become established and mainstream. Even by the end of first decade, Case said it appeared that the skeptics were right — only about 3 percent of the general population was online and for only about one hour each day on average. It took that much time to get the infrastructure in place, however, and during the second decade adoption ramped up as services flourished.  Case said that by his count digital health is already about one decade in.

Widely lauded angel investor Esther Dyson joined Case on-stage at the event to help put the digital health market’s progress in perspective. She said that the entrepreneurs in this market are not “healthcare transformers” but “creators” rooting at the edges of healthcare with something new. Mobile phones didn’t compete with landlines at first, Dyson reminded the audience. What they are creating will be called “health”, she said, not healthcare.
Dyson also noted that digital health entrepreneurs are fairly different from the early PC and dotcom entrepreneurs from previous decades.
“[In digital health] it’s not just enough to change behavior, but also did it change outcomes?” Dyson asked. One of the companies in her portfolio, Voxiva, has a smoking cessation tool that “doubles the rate of quitting,” she said. That’s good, “but that’s something like 10 percent instead of 5 percent. That’s pathetic. [Digital health] still has a long way to go.”

Steve Case cautions digital health entrepreneurs not to build “printer drivers” | mobihealthnews