Achieving Better Global Health Through Data Science

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2:30Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio. It is time now for the Bloomberg Business Week women's health segment where we focus on key issues in developing technologies impacting the present and future of women's health around the world. And I got to say, the world of women's health was rocked a little bit this past week. Yeah, President Trump created a potentially existential crisis for Kenview, the maker of Tylenol, with just three words about the company's most recognized product. He said, don't take it.

3:07The Trump administration is linking Tylenol's active ingredient acetaminophen to autism and urging pregnant women, Carol, to largely avoid the medication, although decades of scientific research have yet to identify a single case cause, excuse me, for autism. All right, let's get more, though, into the bigger, broader picture of women's health. Dr. Joan LaRover is with us, Interim Chief Medical Officer at Boston Children's Hospital, Director of Innovation and Outcomes. She's also co-founder and president of the NGO Virtue Foundation, which is delivering health care in over 25 countries. So she has a big global perspective here.

3:40She joins us here in studio. Dr. LaRover, so nice to have you here with us. How are you?

3:45Dr. Joan LaRovere:I'm great, Carol. Thank you so much for having me today. There's a lot we want to talk to. You're in town with everything that's going on. We're looking at global health with global leaders. I do need to ask you, though, about what we got from the administration this week, the Trump administration, the president on pregnant women taking Tylenol. I'm just curious what it's been like. And I know you've been in New York, but what you've been hearing from your team back at Boston Children's when it comes to this news and what they're hearing from patients and what the guidance is that you're giving them.

4:15Dr. Joan LaRovere:Absolutely, Carol. Well, firstly, at Boston Children's, we don't take care of pregnant women. It's a children's hospital. But this obviously encompasses women and children. And I myself don't take care of autism patients. I'm a pediatric cardiac intensive care specialist. But I am hearing from my clinical colleagues that they are getting calls from families. And creating confusion around this is really a challenge. And we're really sort of taking that head on in terms of addressing the questions of families as they're coming to us. One thing that we've noticed about this moment in time is, and we spoke to a doctor from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists earlier this week.

4:58And there's this tension between what we're hearing from professional organizations as far as recommendations go and what we're hearing from the American government and the HHS. And it doesn't seem like that's happened in the past where you don't necessarily have the government aligned with these professional organizations. I'm just wondering how you're thinking about this moment when it comes to health care.

5:20Dr. Joan LaRovere:It's a challenging time for health care. And I think we just stick to our mission that we are trying to provide the best, safest, most effective care to children that we can. I am also curious, like we said, you're in town and we've had the benefit of talking to global leaders about some of the big issues that are out there, whether it's climate change. We've talked a lot about AI this week, but looking at healthcare from a global perspective, I want to bring you into this because you're very involved when it comes to the applications of AI in medicine. Talk to us about kind of where we are today with it and kind of where it can go.

5:54Dr. Joan LaRovere:Absolutely. I think we're at one of the most exciting times in healthcare. and I've been involved with AI, with Virtue Foundation for 15 years. And never has it been like this moment in time, because I think that the tools that are now unlocked, particularly now with Gen AI, cloud computing, big data, we're seeing use cases that are much more actionable than before and at enterprise scale. What does that mean? Break it down. Well, I can break it down in the context of what we've done with Virtue Foundation. I'm happy to talk about some of the hospital use cases too. But in terms of Virtue Foundation, 15 years ago, Dr.

6:39Dr. Joan LaRovere:Ebi Alahi, my colleague, was in Burundi. And he was there caring for patients and had this Rika moment where he's like, we should have more granular data on the ground to understand what my eyes see. And I should be able to see it here in New York to be able to action on it. And And at that time, people are like, what are you talking about? Right. It was very early days. And we started that journey of trying to first get the granular data, visualize it geospatially. But I think we've grown up as the technology has grown up. And I think key leverage points for us have been partnerships with Databricks, DataRobot, Carto.

7:20Dr. Joan LaRovere:And I can break down one now if it's helpful. Well, and talk to us about data, because, you know, especially when it comes to the developing world, if you have data and information, you can assess a situation and figure out what to do. Yes. So talk to us a little bit about that. You do have partnerships with Databricks, as you said, DataRobot, Cardo. What are you guys building together? We are building the marketplace for global health philanthropy. What does that mean? So you can actually see what is happening in healthcare facilities and what is the work of healthcare NGOs on the ground in low and middle income countries.

7:56Dr. Joan LaRovere:And we've used AI. In particular, we've built an enterprise grade pipeline with Databricks where we're extracting all the data that exists and co-locating it to a geospatial location. So you're a hospital, a Corlebu hospital in Ghana. Everything that's out there information-wise is co-located geospatially to that organization. And you create this vector graph, this knowledge graph, with all these mini knowledge graphs that tell you what's happening in each of those facilities. At the end of the day, this is all about improving outcomes and it's helping people live longer, healthier, happier lives.

8:37Do we have the data yet that shows that this moment in technology is leading to better outcomes?

8:43Dr. Joan LaRovere:I think that's what we're on the cusp of. Would I say that we're there and it's all, you know, completely functional and moving? No. But that is the direction of travel and those are the tools that are enabling us to do so. For now, I can see this data in ways I couldn't see before. I can send the right teams to the right locations. What are the better outcomes that you envision? I mean, are we talking about longer life expectancy in the developing and the developed world? Are we talking about lower infant mortality? Like, what are we talking about here? I think we're talking about all of it. I think eventually economic development will solve some of our problems.

9:24Dr. Joan LaRovere:But in that window in time, how can we shorten the time it takes till we get really more developed health care in these markets? And we feel that this VFMatch platform, this actionable data initiative, will allow you to be able to use this information, whether you're a healthcare NGO, whether you're a government in a country, whether you're even a corporation, to determine what you can build to accelerate progress. Yes. And we personally are using it to send medical and surgical teams to locations where the medical deserts are, the large populations of patients who need that ophthalmologist or that neurosurgeon or that gynecologist.

10:11And so that the people who are doing it, like myself, there are many in global health who are doing this work, know the place they can go to be most useful to the patient and most useful in passing on skill. And just 10 seconds. So we didn't really, it wasn't so easy to do that before. No, no. And it was probably not unless somebody brought your attention to it. Yes. And, or you got wind of it and then, but that's not the most productive way of doing it.

10:34Dr. Joan LaRovere:Exactly. This is to create efficiency and scale. All right. Got to leave it there. Dr. Lou Rivera, thank you so much. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Interim Chief Medical Officer at Boston Children's Hospital, Director of Innovation and Outcomes. And as we said, co-founder and president of the Virtue Foundation.

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