My mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer a few years back. Having been with her through 3 major surgeries, then getting her stabilized, building a recovery plan through 4 rounds of chemo (1 specifically centered around a clinical trial) gave me first hand exposure of some glaring gaps and critical needs that exist within our healthcare. These gaps were not unique. Similar needs existed in other chronic illness areas, such as parkinson's and multiple sclerosis.

Healthcare services were meant to be built around the needs of people and their communities, yet much of our current conversation in healthcare is around medicine and efficiencies in therapies. Payers, Providers and LifeScience firms, Policy Makers and Regulators all claim and strive to deliver a more "patient-centered" healthcare system. In my experience patient centricity was very elusive. Empowering the patients and their care takers and pulling them in, to play a much stronger role is still required.

Current health systems are already under so much pressure, they are unprepared to cope with the growing aging population. To alleviate some of this pressure, I see a need to incorporate patients and their care takers into the conversation. We need to reduce the overwhelming and daunting tasks for families,

• • Improving their access to clinicians and information when coordinating patient's interactions.

  • Bringing greater amount of counseling to be conducted, training families to support patients for a better integration in care.

  • Continued personalized care with tools and content for managing their recovery, post-discharge.

We need to recognize that greater efficiencies and cost savings can be achieved much quicker for healthcare networks if they utilize this model.

Outcome: Launched UrHealth.ai - empowering patients and their families to manage their chronic illnesses better. Partnered with a major provider group in India.