Minnesota podcast is providing patient-centered insights into health care industry

NINA MOINI: Well, between Mayo Clinic, the U of M Medical School, and companies like GM, it's no secret that Minnesota is a hub for medical startups and innovation. But it often takes years for new treatments and practices to hit the mainstream.

That's why two people in the health care industry started a podcast to inform patients and medical providers about the cutting edge medicine coming out of the state. It's called Patient Innovations. And the hosts of the podcast, Rashmi Kandwal and Mary MacCarthy join me now. Thank you both for your time today.

MARY MACCARTHY: Thanks for having us.

NINA MOINI: Absolutely.

RASHMI KANDWAL: Thank you, Nina.

NINA MOINI: Absolutely. Rashmi, I'd love to start with you. So you are with an organization, Health Care Minnesota. Would you tell us a little bit about the focus of the organization, and how it led you to want to make this podcast?

RASHMI KANDWAL: Sure. HealthcareMN is a nonprofit based here in Minnesota. And our work focuses on accelerating health innovation. And that we do through hosting events throughout the year. We do pitch forums.

We do events that are focused on innovation themes like AI in health care. We do panels, and fireside chats, and a bunch of other things. And last year, we wanted to start also focusing on the patient side of things, which was not our core focus initially. And that's how the podcast came to be.

Initially, we were doing a blog post where we would highlight startup stories and founders. And Mary and I came together to do this podcast together. And it was her idea to also shine a light on the patient side of things, to humanize health a little bit, and also highlighting the groundbreaking work that's happening in our state.

So that's how Patient Innovations was born, where each month, we bring in three guests, and we talk about health innovation from three different angles, focusing light on the patient sides, where we talk about different health conditions.

And then, we also bring a clinical piece, bringing in physicians who talk about treatments and the innovations happening. And then, the third guest is a health care innovator or research foundation that talks about what's the latest and greatest in this space.

NINA MOINI: All right. So Mary, would you tell us a little bit about your background as well, and why you thought of this idea.

MARY MACCARTHY: Sure. So I have to say, I started my career at Minnesota Public Radio working in HR--

NINA MOINI: Oh, wow.

MARY MACCARTHY: --some 37 years ago.

NINA MOINI: Awesome.

MARY MACCARTHY: Yeah, a long time. Yeah, so it's a bit of a thrill to be on this show with you. Thank you for inviting us.

NINA MOINI: Absolutely.

MARY MACCARTHY: Yeah. So after MPR, I worked at many of Minnesota's leading corporations, including 3M, and Medtronic, and the University of Minnesota. But I was always called to the venture capital, venture startup space. And it just took a while for my career to actually bring me to where I am today.

I'm COO of a medical device imaging startup now, and coach a lot of CEOs, focusing mostly on women and underrepresented CEOs, to help them navigate the regulatory requirements and the business requirements to launch a successful startup in Minnesota, to add more jobs to the state, and bring more innovation, more quickly.

So I'm thrilled to do this podcast with Rashmi. And we just celebrated about 1,100 podcast downloads so far for Patient Innovations. So we're getting some really nice listenership.

NINA MOINI: I can't say that I've ever heard of a podcast where you bring all these people into one room, the provider, the doctor, the patient. And I haven't heard much from patients in this type of a setting. Mary, why was the focus on advocacy for patients important to you?

MARY MACCARTHY: Because all innovation should start with the patient. And most of it does. What are the patient needs? What are the gaps between what is available on the market and what best serves the needs of the clinician and the patient?

So by focusing, initially, on the patient story, we get to hear what were the symptoms you had? What was your patient journey through the health care system? What does the outlook look for today? But we really spend a lot of time talking about hope. Why is hope important? What are you hopeful about?

And I can't tell you the number of times I've actually had tears in my eyes listening to the patients tell about their journey, and then being so thankful that we have researchers across the state who are devoting their time and precious energy to researching what is the root cause of this, and how can we best diagnose and then treat those patients?

NINA MOINI: Rashmi, Mary mentioned hope. I'm curious to know what else that you hope that patients listening can get out of this podcast, even if you're listening to a topic that does not apply to you? I don't have that disease or whatever, but people could still take something away from the conversation. What do you hope that is from the patients' perspective?

RASHMI KANDWAL: Our hope is even if, like you said, you don't have that disease, but maybe a friend does, maybe somebody in your family does. So our hope is probably somebody who needs it, maybe you are able to send it to them, forward it to them, or also just learn not about just only the patient stories, but also about the innovations that are happening, maybe not today.

Diabetes, for example, we did an episode on. And we talked about this latest innovation that's coming to the market. So probably down the line, more people would want to know about those innovations happening.

And also giving-- so this is a space where we are giving platforms to all the three different areas of the patient stories and the voices to the physicians also. There are so many amazing hospitals. We have worked with physicians on this podcast. We brought in physicians from Mayo, at CMC, University of Minnesota Medical School, and Fairview.

We don't get to hear what these doctors are doing. And so getting in that angle, some of the physicians, when they come in, they're just excited to share the stories because most of the time, they spend treating the patients in closed rooms.

So just talking about their challenges or just talking about what they would want to see, what needs to change, that's also uplifting to hear. So it's just bringing in voices from these three different perspectives on one platform is what is exciting for us.

And hopefully, it gives hope to not just only the patients about the latest innovations happening, but also to the startup community in general, hearing and listening about different stories from people who are innovating out there. And maybe, it energizes them to do more in the space.

NINA MOINI: Sure. And I'm curious to know, Mary, if there was hesitation for medical professionals or different stakeholders to come on the podcast and share? Were people nervous at first? What's been the reaction?

MARY MACCARTHY: From the patient perspective, it has been relatively easy to find a patient because the researchers understand the value of getting a patient in to talk about their journey so that they will refer a patient to us to appear on the podcast.

For researchers, it's a way for them to, of course, highlight their particular practice. But they also use it a little bit for their own marketing as they wish. And then, for the funders or the startups, they're getting a little publicity about what they're up to and how they're contributing to the overall health care industry.

But one of the most important and satisfying parts of this is how beneficial it has been to the patients to tell their story and to help other patients that may have recently been diagnosed or are struggling with that same challenge medically.

For them to use their voice and their learnings and give hope to others has been-- we keep getting messages from patients that have been on the show about how meaningful it was for them to tell their story and to contribute.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. And Mary, I'll just ask you the last question here. You mentioned how nice it is to just be able to share a story. But for patients listening, do you have an overall or overarching piece of advice about just advocating for themselves in the medical world?

MARY MACCARTHY: Oh, my goodness. That is definitely one thing we hear over and over again from patients, and clinicians, and startups is that you really do have to advocate for yourself. There's a lot of information you can find online about particular indications. And there are Facebook groups that you can go to for specific things that you might have.

But we hope that this little podcast will help humanize and make people feel less alone if they have these particular conditions, and know that there are resources that they can go to for more information, like the American Diabetes Association, the Parkinson's Association.

All of those people have appeared on the podcast. And they're very generous with sharing the resources that are available to patients who have been diagnosed and their families.

NINA MOINI: All right. Mary and Rashmi, thank you so much for your time and for sharing your work with us. I really appreciate it.

RASHMI KANDWAL: Thank you.

MARY MACCARTHY: Thank you so much. It's been a delight.

NINA MOINI: That was Rashmi Kandwal and Mary MacCarthy, the hosts of the Patient Innovations podcast from HealthcareMN.