🚨 Nick Martin, social impact titan, one of the biggest voices out there in this space with a huge following and community, helping connect people to jobs, funding and much more. Founder and CEO of TechChange, working with funders, government and tech, and giving people the skills they need to create real impact.
We’ve talked a lot about the impacts of the USAID funding cuts on this podcast. Nick, who has worked shares his view on the impact on grantees, humans and more. We cover:
We also talked about the upcoming Global Digital Health Forum, a gathering that has been going strong for years, and why this year feels particularly important to bring people in global and digital health together. The next one at the time of recording is 3-5 December 2025, online and in Nairobi in person. If you're into Global Digital Helath and underserved communities, this is a great gathering to attend.
If you are working in this space, dealing with the uncertainty, either as an organization or an individual, then this podcast is for you.
Nick shares some of the wisdom and insights he has gained over the years, and why community across borders is such an integral part of how we shape what global digital health looks like in the next 10 years.
Check it out - share with others working in the space. Leave us a comment or review - it really helps us reach more people.
00:00 Intro : Nick's story
03:58 USAID cuts. Before, during, after : reflections from the development sector
21:13 Career transition advice
24:14 Funders need to step up more, but it's not that simple
26:34 TechChange origins
28:22 The Global Digital Health Forum : bringing people together
34:30 Fail festivals and creating the space to talk about failure
38:56 Wisdom corner : Nick's top tips
Liked this episode? What to listen to next:
- Episode 15: Implementation 101 and how to fail well
- Episode 16 : How the WHO is evolving
What to read next:
Check out my Substack : Can Global Health and Venture Capital Get Along?
About Nick
Nick Martin is the Founder and CEO of TechChange, a social enterprise that has become a leading provider of digital health training and convening solutions worldwide. Under his leadership, TechChange has trained thousands of Ministry of Health officials in more than 90 countries through flagship programs such as Digital Health: Planning National Systems, developed in partnership with USAID, WHO, and Digital Square.
He also leads the Global Digital Health Forum, the premier annual gathering for policymakers, donors, researchers, and implementers working at the intersection of technology and health. With two decades of experience in global development and public health, Nick has built partnerships with organizations including USAID, UNICEF, WHO, and the Gates Foundation. His work has been featured in outlets such as The Economist, Forbes, The New York Times, and Fast Company, highlighting his role in advancing digital health and social impact through technology.
As underserved communities go, refugees are up there as the most vulnerable.
We already have systemic and deep challenges for physical health services not being designed for displaced people, and has we rush to bolt on digital and LLMs to everything, are we stopping and thinking about the key needs of these communities?
And a word on innovation in humanitarian settings. This is not a problem that investors go for with attractive returns, or something you can meet the market where it is at. Rather, its down to governments and philanthropy to help invest in this. Aral recounts the massive challenge HERA have had to overcome after USAID funding was cut and how he has navigated and needed to prioiritize after the stop work order.
Aral is the founder of HERA Digital health. HERA have built a tool that serves Syrian refugees in Turkey - targeted initially at mothers to be and mothers with young children, who, in the mess of trying to rebuild any semblance of routine in refugee camps would miss key antenatal or child development appointments. Aral saw the problems the community were having, and as a doctor in the ER in Turkey saw the downstream effects of this.
Some key takeaways for me:
This episode is not a shiny rainbow story, but one about real struggle. Aral is still on the path of struggle and working to navigate through. If you care about what he is doing, seriously, get in touch with him.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Digital Health Innovations
05:05 The Journey of Aral Surmeli: From Medicine to Tech
07:47 Understanding Refugee Health Needs
10:13 Building HERA: The Digital Health Tool
18:23 Cultural Sensitivity in Health Solutions
28:01 Navigating Challenges in Humanitarian Innovation
30:50 Funding Dilemmas in Humanitarian Contexts
36:01 Adapting Strategies for Sustainability
44:03 The Role of Digital Identity in Healthcare
46:51 Finding Hope Amidst Challenges
48:50 Advice for Aspiring Humanitarian Innovators
About Aral:
https://heradigitalhealth.org/
Dr. Aral Surmeli is the Founder and CEO of HERA Digital Health, a nonprofit organization that helps refugee women and children access local healthcare through AI-powered digital tools. With a strong foundation in humanitarian health and digital innovation, Dr. Surmeli has led HERA to serve over 300,000 users, providing services like immunization reminders, prenatal care tracking, and digital health records—accessible even in low-connectivity settings via WhatsApp and offline apps.
HERA began its work in Turkey with Syrian refugees and is now expanding across the Middle East and Africa. The platform is open source, co-designed with local healthcare workers and refugee communities, and integrates with national health systems and NGO services.
Dr. Surmeli holds an MPH from Harvard University and is currently pursuing a DrPH at Johns Hopkins University. He is a former Innovation Fellow at Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and has been supported by organizations such as Google.org, Grand Challenges Canada, MIT Solve, and Harvard iLab. HERA was recently a finalist at the AI for Good Summit's Impact Awards, and Dr. Surmeli is an active voice on the intersection of AI, digital health, and humanitarian response
🔍 I speak with Rubayat Khan, a systems thinker, entrepreneur, and now investor at the Endless Foundation, where he is helping reimagine how global health innovation is funded and delivered.
We unpack what it means to move beyond vertical health solutions, how to prioritize innovation in an era of shrinking aid budgets, and how large language models (LLMs) might be the missing piece in unlocking integrated, people-centered care especially in low-resource settings. We also talk about the challenges, risks, pitfalls and how to think about the right counterfactuals for the context when we evaluate LLMs in healthcare.
Rubayat brings the rare perspective of someone who has been a patient, builder, and funder, and who now advocates for rethinking everything from clinic hours to global incentive structures.
🔑 In this episode:
🗣️ Key Quotes
“Most of what we call healthcare happens outside clinics. If we ignore that, we miss the biggest opportunity for real impact.”
To paraphrase Rubayat:
"A consultation with a doctor in Bangladesh averages 48 seconds. There should be little surprise that people (including Rubayat's parents!) find value and better quality information with a LLM than they would in their own contexts.
So much valuable insight for people who are building, or wrestling how to invest or fund the right interventions for last mile impact in LMICs.
🎧 Listen if you’re:
Share, subscribe, comment, leave us a 5 star review. It really helps us reach people who would find this useful.
About Rubayat
Reubayat's Substack: https://rubayatkhan.substack.com/
Rubayat Khan is a health entrepreneur and technologist from Bangladesh and currently Director of Health Programs at Endless Network, a US family foundation. Prior to Endless, Rubayat co-founded mPower Social Enterprises and Jeeon, which have both pioneered innovative models for delivering healthcare and other essential services to last-mile populations across 15 countries, currently reaching over 120 million people. Rubayat is a passionate advocate for bottom-up and user-centered thinking in global health, and has written extensively in leading global publications like the Guardian, SSIR and Frontiers in Public Health. He is an Acumen and Aspen New Voices Fellow, and is currently based in Baltimore with his wife and two children.
Your Metrics Don’t Matter If No One Gets the Message : Health Tech Comms with James Somauroo of SomX.
Listen on Apple, Spotify. Watch on Youtube.
We cover one of the most overlooked drivers of success in health innovation: communication.
Our guest, James Somauroo, has hosted over 400 podcasts and built one of the most influential media and communications agencies in health tech. His work spans startups, Big Tech, life sciences, and everything in between, helping organizations craft messages that resonate, build trust, and drive impact.
We explore why so many well-intentioned digital health projects struggle to scale. Not because the tech or evidence isn’t good enough, but because the story isn’t being told in a way people understand or care about.
🧠 What You’ll Learn:
🎧 Who Should Listen:
Anyone trying to change people's minds
📣 Subscribe, Connect & Share:
If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone trying to make their work land more powerfully — whether with partners, funders, or frontline teams. And let us know your biggest takeaway on LinkedIn
👋🏾 About Shubs
Dr Shubs Upadhyay, the podcast host is a Primary care physician who has worked across policy, AI product leadership, and evidence comms. Shubs brings clinical leadership to help founders and investors focus on and communicate real value in healthcare. Get in touch at shubs.me and hello@shubs.me
About James
James is the cofounder and CEO of SomX, a communications and creative agency for healthcare companies. He hosts The Healthtech Podcast and is the Editor-In-Chief of Healthtech Pigeon. He is an anaesthetics and ICU doctor by training, has held roles in leadership, management and innovation at NHS England, Health Education England and the British Medical Journal and previously directed two healthtech startup accelerators. He has degrees in medicine, biomedical sciences and education and is a guest lecturer on healthtech innovation and entrepreneurship at academic institutions around the world.
A conversation on the future of the World Health Organization, rethinking how we approach digital implementation and funding in LMICs, and what it really means to decolonize global health.
“Countries need to be in the driver’s seat of their own development agenda… The earmarking of assistance has to stop.”Absolutely chuffed to have had the chance to speak with WHO Director of Digital Health and Innovation, Dr Alain Labrique.
That he’s also a listener of the podcast? Even better.
Alain is an engaging storyteller, shaped by a childhood in the streets of Dhaka and decades spent advancing implementation science to reach underserved communities.
We spoke at length about the unfolding crisis in healthcare delivery in many settings that have relied heavily on development funding. While the impact on clinical services has received attention, Alain highlighted a deeper, less visible collapse: the quiet failure of digital infrastructure: servers, IT systems, and backend platforms now left unfunded and unsupported.
At the same time, WHO itself is navigating similar pressures: budget cuts, shifting priorities, and an urgent need to re-focus. Alain offers a refreshingly honest take on what comes next for WHO and how the organization can stay relevant in a rapidly changing world.
Crucially, it's inspiring to hear a leader from such an influential institution speak with clarity and conviction about shifting power, building local ownership, and rethinking how global health is funded and framed.
On our episode on AI ethics with Jess Morley, she spoke about how rhetoric shapes collective mindsets and changes behavior and markets. This conversation with Alain is, in my view, the kind of rhetoric we need more of.
00:00 Introduction and Background of Alain Labrique
12:05 Development funding cuts impact on digital infrastructure
24:01 What future funding mechanisms need to consider
27:26 The Role of Private Sector in Health Infrastructure
31:14 Responsible Partnerships in Health Innovation
33:00 The Evolving Role of WHO in Digital health now
38:21 Building Capacity and Governance in Health Systems
40:41 Navigating AI in Health Care
46:22 Learning from Failures in Health Initiatives
50:27 Advice to Founders building in Underserved Communities
Implementation. What does it mean? Why is it hard? How do we get it right?
Failure. Are we, in Global Digital Health, thinking and acting in a way that doesn't help us move forward?
Caroline Perrin, Director of the Geneva Digital Health Hub joins us on the Global Perspectives on Digital Health podcast to share her views on this.
This episode is for the people doing the work to ensure digital health tools actually work for people.
It's about the messy realities - people, process, managing change and looking to constantly improve as our assumptions get updated. How to work through the hard, day to day challenges towards real outcomes for people experiencing and delivering care.
We hear about:
Links:
Chapters (with quick links)
00:00
Introduction to Digital Health and Geneva Digital Health Hub
07:40
Understanding Implementation in Digital Health
12:22
A community of implementors
20:09
Approaching Implementation as Founders and Developers
26:19
Monitoring and Evaluation Challenges
32:45
Future of Digital Health in Underserved Communities
35:31
Navigating Uncertainty in Digital Health Projects
38:45
Rethinking Success and Failure in Health Evaluations
45:46
The Need for a Paradigm Shift in Global Health
49:53
Creating Safe Spaces for Sharing Failures
54:04
Building Communities of Practice for Learning
57:30
Finding Hope in the Face of Challenges
About Caroline
Caroline Perrin is the Executive Director of the Geneva Digital Health Hub (gdhub) and has over 15 years of experience in digital innovation, programme management and multi-stakeholder collaboration. She specialises in using technology to improve the efficiency, sustainability and impact of health care.
With a PhD in Global Health, a Master's in Information Systems Management, and a Bachelor's in Business Administration, she has led large-scale digital health initiatives and worked with governments, international organisations, and the private sector to drive innovation and policy alignment.
Previously, she was a project manager for the RAFT telemedicine network and the Geneva University Hospitals eHealth and Telemedicine Service, focusing on the development and evaluation of digital health solutions to strengthen health systems. Caroline is passionate about bridging technology, strategy and policy to create scalable, high-impact solutions.
Help GPODH grow
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Find out more about me and read my Substack: https://shubstack.substack.com/
A healthtech investor's view on healthcare in Africa in the next 10 years.
If you’re building or investing for impact with underserved communities in Africa, this episode is for you.
Rowena Luk has walked the talk. She is the ‘OG’ of creating visibility on digital health in Africa, and has built and scaled for impact in over 40 countries on the continent, and has now scaled her own impact to support founders through her VC firm Africa Health Ventures.
This episode covers so much, especially the challenges that Africa faces through development aid funding cuts.
Rowena is bullish about where healthcare in Africa can get to, and makes a measured and compelling case for why this is a real moment to turn crisis into opportunity, and how the right mindset from VCs can help create resilient businesses that can scale and realize real health outcomes.
I’ve often been vocal and skeptical about how hyper-fixated our industry is on financial aspects of value, and we discussed this at length.
Rowena definitely altered my perspective.
My highlights:
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Digital Health in Africa
04:36 Rowena's Journey in Digital Health
06:43 The Investing landscape in Africa
13:19 The case for VC investment over philanthropic funding
20:47 Reimagining healthcare in Africa : building resilient health systems
26:00 Do VCs see value beyond financial returns?
29:08 Myths and Realities of Investing in Africa
36:14 Understanding Investment Biases in Africa
38:39 Identifying Market Needs and Product Diversity
40:44 Evaluating Healthcare Solutions and Market Readiness
42:22 Spotlight on Innovative Startups
46:26 Learning from Past Experiences
51:56 Key Tips for Building in Underserved Communities
54:30 Getting Started with Impact Investing
54:54 The Future of Healthcare in Africa
Additional Resources
If you're a healthcare founder, investor, or donor in Africa, check out the Africa Health Ventures monthly newsletter. It includes grant and investment opportunities, events, deals, notable startups, and industry news. Subscribe at AfricaHealthVentures.com/Newsletter.
About Rowena
Rowena Luk is the Managing Partner of Africa Health Ventures, a pan-African seed fund investing in healthcare innovations that will dramatically improve access and quality of healthcare on the continent and around the world. She is a healthtech founder, entrepreneur, and software engineer. She has deep experience scaling healthtech in 40 countries across Africa, including products adopted at national and international scale. Previously, Rowena was a Director at Madiro, an impact fund investing in healthcare in Africa; CSO at Dimagi, a social enterprise deploying digital health to 130 countries, and founder of a digital health nonprofit in West Africa. She hosts the Africa Health Ventures Podcast and lives with her family in beautiful South Africa.
Practical breadth and depth on the global state of regulation from someone at the cutting edge of regulatory policy.
Shubs welcomes Hugh Harvey, founder of Hardian Health and a regulatory expert in digital health. Shubs and Hugh discuss the complex landscape of medical device regulation worldwide, with emphasis on how these frameworks impact digital health innovation in low and middle-income countries (LMICs).
Guest Background
Hugh Harvey is a former radiologist who transitioned to the digital health industry. After working at Babylon Health and serving as Clinical Director at Kheiron Medical (where they secured Europe's first CE mark for a deep learning-based breast cancer detection device), Hugh founded Hardian Health to help companies navigate regulatory pathways for AI and digital health solutions.
Key Discussion Points
The Global State of Medical Device Regulation
Challenges for Digital Health Innovators
Practical Guidance for Digital Health Companies
What Regulators Could Do Better
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Background
07:05 The State of Regulation in Healthcare
09:57 Why so regulated?
13:03 Global Perspectives on Regulatory Approaches
21:51 Harmonization of Global Standards
24:59 Recommendations for Regulators
38:48 Regulatory strategy for founders: The Driving Analogy
50:03 What if there is little or no regulatory enforcement where I operate?
51:57 The Five Stages of Regulatory Grief
55:59 Hugh's spicy takes 🌶️
Key Quotes
Hugh provides a compelling case for embracing regulatory requirements as not just necessary obligations but strategic advantages. While acknowledging the challenges of navigating complex regulatory landscapes, particularly for innovators working in regions with limited frameworks, he offers practical guidance on approaching compliance as a foundation for long-term success in digital health. You can find Hugh and his work at hardianhealth.com
💕 If you found this podcast episode helpful, please leave a comment, give us a 5 star review and share with your colleagues and people who would find this useful. It helps us reach the people who are implementing and could find this useful in creating an impact with digital health in LMICs. Check out the Substack here
Dr. Smisha Agarwal (Johns Hopkins University Global Center for Digital Health Innovation) joins me to unpack some hard truths on the Global Perspectives on Digital Health podcast.
🛑 Why global health systems remain fragile
📉 How digital tools often scale without legitimacy
📊 What’s wrong with our fixation on "did it work?" and significance values
🔁 And how global health is stuck in systems that haven’t evolved
💬 “We’re brought into a system of aid and global development that has stopped questioning how things were done. And the world has progressed, but our field hasn’t.”
🔑 But Smisha also offers a way through:
- Thinking differently about evaluating system level impact
- The work of the Oxford Open Health Journal to increase visibility and representation of people's research in LMICs
👉 If you work in digital health, research, policy, or global development this is for you.
About Smisha:
Dr.Smisha Agarwal, PhD, MPH, MBA, BDS is the Director of the Center for Global Digital Health Innovation and Associate Professor in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She brings expertise in advancing primary health
care through strengthening community health systems and leveraging innovative technological solutions including digital devices. A part of her research has focused on using predictive analytics and machine learning algorithms based on routine monitoring data to enhance our understanding of quality of care, create safety nets to care for high-risk populations and improve effectiveness of reproductive health services.
Over the last two decades, her research has been leveraged by normative agencies like WHO to develop guidelines on national digital
transformation, donors to guide investments in primary health care, and governments to develop their national digital health strategies. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford Open Digital Health Journal.
Bringing research to implementation.
Shubs is joined by Lucy Cesnakova from DiMe in this quick dive into an important piece of research bringing insights to advance digital solutions that serve mental health, DiMe's work here was great here because Lucy and the team intentionally sought out input from different countries, access levels and other demographics across the ecosystem. It's great that the Wellcome Trust funded this work. And more of this type of research would clearly be, ahem, welcome.
Why should I listen?
This will be useful if you are building solutions with underserved communities in mental health and applies both to high income and LMIC settings.
If you are researching digital endpoints and biomarkers in mental health or involved in health system transformation for mental health this is well worth a listen.
We cover the big commonalities across all geographies, plus what we can learn about local nuances as well as some key a-ha moments Lucy and the team gained.
Check out my substack for my written reflections on this episode.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to DiMe and Lucy's work
03:57 Current healthcare context
06:01 Methodology of Research and Data Collection
08:27 Key Findings: Universal Commonalities in Mental Health Technologies
16:04 Unique local insights
Here's the full report: https://datacc.dimesociety.org/mental-health/
DiMe society:https://dimesociety.org/
About Lucy:
Lucy Cesnakova, MS, is a Program Lead at Digital Medicine Society (DiME).
At DiME Lucy has led several projects in the space of digital measurements and technologies for health: a flagship pre-competitive collaboration project to advance the digital measurement of nocturnal scratch; an initiative that explores path forward for sensor-based digital health technologies for mental health; or recent work on use of patient-generated health data in development of medical products and health technologies.
At DiMe she works with industry, patient organizations, regulators, clinicians and payers to create resources that will improve adoption of digital technologies in research and care. In the past, Lucy has led technical development of digital endpoints or other software solutions as a product lead.
Special bonus episode. This is a shortened version of the episode with Jess Morley, focusing on ethical approaches and takeaways relevant for digital health companies.
How do you move from having ethical approaches as 'nice to haves' to actually getting prioritised.
It can be tough when good intentions rub up against business realities.
Jess shows how you can avoid getting your initiative or feature getting kicked down the roadmap.
People who will find this useful:
Product managers and product leaders
Design/UX folk
Software engineers
Clinical safety officers
Clinicians working at digital health companies
Quality assurance and regulatory professionals
Founders
Operations leads
Making Ethics Actionable.
What can the UK’s AI Action plan reveal about the state of ethics in the digital health industry?
If you are a health system leader or government entity, how do you elevate ethical approaches in your ecosystem? What levers are available?
And for the builders: product leaders, founders, clinicians at health tech companies, software engineers, designers, QA folk: how to negotiate and advocate for ethical approaches against business realities in the current climate?
We cover all of this, as well as Jess’ super hot takes on the UK govt AI action plan, Ethics 101 for vendors, researchers and policy folk, AND what leaders in LMIC settings can take away from all of this.
Jess Morley of the Digital Ethics Center at Yale also previously worked with NHSX and also on the Goldacre review in 2022. She has deep expertise on ethics and policy and some really unique insights.
Links to stuff we discussed
UK Govt AI opportunities action plan
Jess' linkedin article with commentary on the action plan
🎙️ New Episode: Connecting Global & Local Perspectives in Digital Health Implementation
In this special episode, we close out the year with two fantastic guests: Rigveda Kadam, Digital and AI Lead at FIND, and Andrew Muhire, Chief Digital Officer at Rwanda's Ministry of Health.
Building on the innovator insights in Rwanda from our previous episode with Dr. Jana Alagarajah, this discussion dives into the critical connection between product development partners and ministries of health to create conditions for successful digital health implementation.
From Rwanda’s patient-centered approach to FIND’s global perspective across LMICs, we explore:
✔️ How Rwanda balances top-down mandates with frontline adoption to foster trust.
✔️ Tackling antimicrobial resistance with clinician decision support as a case study.
✔️ Using systems thinking to measure success in evolving interventions—Andrew’s "contribution lines" approach is a must-hear!
✔️ Rigveda’s wishlist for the ecosystem: from WHO priority areas to better alignment on patient journeys.
Tune in for an inspiring conversation on infrastructure, policy, and trust—key elements for making impactful digital health innovations stick.
FIND: https://www.finddx.org/
Some resources mentioned:
About the guests:
Riveda Kadam: Experienced global health strategist with expertise in digital health, AI, and public health programs, driving impactful innovations and policy alignment.
Andrew Muhire : Chief Digital Officer at the Rwanda Ministry of Health
Implementing a digital mental health solution in Rwanda.
What does real, meaningful co-design look like?
What does it mean to truly engage with a community to develop a solution they actually use and that addresses their problems?
What incentives and mindsets allow us to, instead of 'driving' a certain technology into a context, stop and listen, and go in with no pre-conceived notion of what would be built?
How do we get procurement and policy to really value and elevate equitable solutions?
These are some of the great questions we covered in the latest podcast episode with Dr Jana Alagarajah. His wide experience, and work implementing a digital mental health tool with young people in Rwanda gives us some great talking points. Jana shares what he learned working with people and community leaders, as well as carers, and how they approached co-design and evaluation.
We also talked about his insights from working in partnership with UNICEF, USAID, the King's Fund and Health Foundation.
Dr Jana Alagarajah (MD MPH): Digital mental health specialist, UK-trained public health doctor, and psychiatrist co-designing equitable and impactful digital health innovation in Africa with young people as Technical Lead at YLabs. Partnering with UNICEF, USAID, and Gates Foundation, he leverages digital tools to strengthen health systems.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janaganalagarajah/
YLabs: https://www.ylabsglobal.org/
Grand Challenges Canada: https://www.grandchallenges.ca/
Key Resources:
Overview
We are joined in this episode by Ruchit Nagar, the CEO and Co-Founder of Khushi Baby. For his efforts to deliver scalable public health impact, Ruchit has been recognized as a Forbes 30 under 30 leader in Health Care, a World Innovation Summit in Health Young Innovator, and a Distinguished Young Alumnus by by the Yale School of Public Health
This episode covers into the role of India's Community health workers, or Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs). We hear from Ruchit's experience implementing with Khushi baby the challenges of integrating technology to support health workers.
Ruchit also gives us a lowdown on India's digital public health approach and shares his key learnings and insights for people looking to implement tech in rural areas.
We get into the challenges in policy, the data infrastructure layer and the importance of funding for sustainable health initiatives. Ruchit also emphasizes the need for better support and resources for ASHAs, the impact of technology on healthcare delivery, and the necessity of aligning incentives to improve health outcomes.
Chapters
00:00 Intro
03:53 Khushi baby origins
05:10 Challenges in Community Health Delivery
07:18 The Role of ASHAs in Healthcare
12:28 The Need for Integrated Solutions
14:14 India public health digital ecosystem 101
19:51 When "too much digital" gets in the way of good care
22:28 Pitfalls in funding and investment approaches
23:20 The 3 I's that drive implementation success
31:56 Leveraging Data for Health System Strengthening
35:53 Challenges in Health System Integration
41:35 Measuring Impact and Effectiveness
47:44 Aligning Incentives with Ground Realities
53:56 Navigating Quality, Evaluation and Regulatory Challenges
56:48 Future Directions for Khushi Baby
01:02:02 Ruchit's top takeaway for developers
References
Khushi baby website
Book reference: Poor Economics by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo
TB free India 2025
Like what you hear? Follow us. I'd love your feedback on what you found valuable, and what you want to see. Comment on youtube, and follow the page on linkedin.
Want to share your story? Get in touch.
Episode 6: What can we learn about creating real impact for underserved communities from The Kingdom of Eswatini, a tiny country enveloped by South Africa?
Join us on the latest episode of the Global Perspectives on Digital Health podcast where we hear from Executive Director of The Luke Commission, Echo Vanderwal about the way that set up healthcare services for those who needed it most and added digital in a way that enabled healthcare workers to deliver compassionate, high quality care.
If you want to see how to create real impact for patients who have real transportation barriers rurally, then hear about what the Luke commission have done with :
Or if you want to learn how they:
There’s so much insight packed into this episode - it was energising to record it to say the least and I’m really inspired by the work and impact they have had.
If you are a healthcare leader, developer or working to create impact for the people rurally, you have got to give this one a listen and share it with others who might benefit from Echo’s insights.
Links:
https://www.lukecommission.org/
https://www.luvelo.org/
Episode 5: What is the right approach for regulation and evaluation of digital health technologies?
In this conversation, Shubs Upadhyay interviews Stephen Gilbert, a professor of medical device regulatory science, about the challenges and successes of digital health regulation and implementation.
They discuss the need for flexibility in regulation, the importance of feedback from clinicians and patients, and the evaluation of digital health technologies. They also explore the concept of suites or groupings of digital devices and the need for regulatory approaches that acknowledge their flexibility. Gilbert emphasizes the need for regulation to adapt to the changing landscape of digital health and to ensure that it is fit for purpose.
Stephen also talks about what health system leaders, policy makers and developers can learn from the challenges of the DiGA fast track reimbursement framework in Germany, the PECAN framework in France and what is coming in the UK. As well as calling out the stark differences in approach from the FDA and the EU, Stephen helps understand the deeper reasons for the different approaches.
On evaluation of effectivenss, Stephen emphasizes the importance of integrating different technologies into a cohesive system rather than treating them as isolated tools. The discussion also highlights the role of regulation in facilitating interoperability and promoting the use of digital technologies in healthcare.
A great section on the need for long-term thinking on exactly how we want to transform healthcare delivery, setting clear goals, and continuous feedback loops is emphasized, along with the recognition that digital transformation in healthcare requires investment, embedding and time to get back the ROI.
Takeaways
Links to papers mentioned:
Paper on regulation, reimbursement approach: flexible groupings
Paper on regulation, reimbursement approach: flexible suites of technologies
A/B testing framework mentioned here
Stephen Gilbert, Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, Dresden University of Technology (Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Digital Health), leads a multidisciplinary team specializing in regulatory science for medical devices and in vitro diagnostic devices. With over 15 years of expertise in clinical research, computational biology, and regulatory science, he is committed to advancing digital health innovation and governance.
Episode 4: Creating real impact with AI in isolated communities
In this episode, Dino, a pioneer in the digital health landscape, shares his insights on how digital solutions and AI are revolutionizing the healthcare industry. He discusses the critical challenges such as overcrowded healthcare facilities and the urgent need for support for healthcare professionals. Dino’s extensive work at Audere focuses on utilizing digital tools to improve healthcare delivery and outcomes, particularly in underserved communities.
Key Topics:
Impactful Insights:
Links
Episode 3: How do we meaningfully bridge policy and real impact at the last mile of healthcare.
Shubs Upadhyay interviews Bilal Mateen, Executive Director of Digital Square at PATH about digital health challenges and successes in underserved communities. They explore the importance of safety, regulatory considerations, and the need for inclusive data sets and data infrastructure. The discussion also covers the role of community health workers and the impact of AI and large language models in healthcare.
Addendum : [As of October 2024 Bilal is now Chief AI Officer at PATH]
Key Topics:
Chapters:
Links:
Episode 2: Practical Solutions to Health Data Poverty
In this episode, we continue our exploration of health data poverty, showcasing a team that's making a real difference based on the issues discussed in Part 1 with Dr. Xiao Liu.
We're thrilled to have spoken with Prof. Alexandre Filho, a Professor of Machine Learning in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He shared insights on how his team has been maximizing the impact of data-driven technology in Brazil. Prof. Filho's remark, "The world is becoming more like Brazil," sets the stage for a discussion on what the global community can learn from Brazil's approach to data diversity, especially in serving underserved communities.
Key Topics:
Guest Bio:
Alexandre Chiavegatto Filho is an Associate Professor of Machine Learning in Healthcare at the Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of São Paulo. He directs the Laboratory of Big Data and Predictive Analysis in Health (Labdaps), which includes a team of 30 researchers focused on developing AI algorithms to improve healthcare decisions.
Find the team's work on Google Scholar
