What you’ll get out of this episode

Listen in as host Tim Fitzpatrick chats with Jess Ackerman, VP of Strategic Partnerships and Impact at Responsum Health, about her experiences across healthcare and technology, including her path from Speech Language Pathology to patient-facing roles at health tech startups. Today, Jess leads partnerships for Responsum Health, a mission-driven digital health tech company that has built empowered, informed communities of patients with chronic health conditions to drive better outcomes and to strategically align them with resources, clinical trials and best options for their health. Responsum Health knows how to build communities, and fast.

In this episode you’ll discover:

• How Jess and her team have launched and grown communities in as little as 3 weeks alongside their sponsor partners.
• Patient communities the Responsum Health team has helped so far, including menopause, chronic kidney disease (CKD), long-COVID, glaucoma, COPD, and even rare diseases like pulmonary fibrosis and Sanfilippo syndrome.
• How Responsum reduces clinical burden and improves communication, because patients can go to their doctor with a baseline level of education. Because of this, providers can perform at the top of their license and spend more time on treatment information rather than the basics.
• How Responsum engages patients with resources and education to help prepare a baseline for those initial conversations with their care team, and how this leads to better outcomes like recruitment, adherence, engagement, and reduced hospitalizations.
• Why the greatest barrier and competition to Responsum’s mission is the status quo, and what it will take to help patients, providers, and communities thrive if we can change it.

Final Frontier - 5 Questions in 50 Seconds

1. Top Challenge: Adoption of digital health tools 
2. Top Opportunity: Meeting patients where they are
3. Tech Trend You’re Following: 
   • Using our voices as diagnostic tools
   • Power of vocal quality as a health tracker (e.g. Sonde Health)
4. Top Media Recs: 
   • The Humans by Matt Haig
   • Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult
   • Author Elizabeth Strout
   • The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeiste
5. Healthcare / Tech Leader(s) You’re Following:
   •  T-Minus 10 guests are at the top of my list! 🚀🎉

Quotables

“ Our Medicare community is quick to jump on the mobile apps and platforms. Our parent's generation between ages 70 - 80 – My mom is on her phone constantly researching and doing this and that – so I think people are judging a little bit quickly that the older population is not going to adopt the technology. I think it’s a huge opportunity because everyone has a smartphone. “

Recommended Resources

• Responsum Health
• Responsum Chronic Kidney Disease Community
• Listen to Jess on the Empowered Patient Podcast 
• Responsum Health Announces Partnership with Society for Women’s Health Research to Develop Unique Knowledge Resource for Women Living with Menopause

Join the Conversation 

Jess Ackerman on LinkedIn

“ This is my mom TODAY...She is 2 years, 3 months since her Stage IV Lung Cancer diagnosis; an "incidental finding" with NO symptoms, non-smoker, EGFR+ mutation. She was on the golf course when she received the call with the dreaded "c-word" diagnosis. Her story is both unique and like so many others with a stage IV, no symptom dx. #lungcancerawarenessmonth There has been considerable progress in reducing the burden of #lungcancer through effective #earlydetection and #precisiononcology ... and we need more! More #patientvoice. More #patientadvocacy. More integrated solutions. More focus on #patientexperience. More #access to #clinicaltrials #decentralizedclinicaltrials. My mom is strong and vibrant, in a #clinicaltrial at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute ... but DFCI cannot do it alone- in need of an ongoing holistic, personalized, integrated approach through #medtech #digitalhealth solutions.... Let's keep the momentum... Jasper Health Circuit Clinical