On this latest episode, we were joined by Joep De Groot, chair of the board at health insurer CZ in the Netherlands.

Joep is very much aware of the limitations of traditional healthcare, especially from a patient perspective. He discerns two major issues:

• Healthcare can be woefully inefficient at times. A common root cause in this case, is the immobility of data. Joep recalls speaking to a diabetes patient, who had to stand in line at the hospital for bloodwork a few times a year as a result of that, when a local clinic could have done the job just as well.
• Healthcare in its current state often fails to properly support patients throughout their journey, both from an educational as well as a psychological standpoint. As soon as people leave the hospital or GP practice, it feels like they're on their own again. Accessibility remains to be an issue for people as well. Joep believes digitalization is the way to go.

Joep has been working on pushing the envelope himself, with the release of multiple applications for the Just ecosystem, a digital-first health insurer by CZ. With several dedicated apps for coaching, physiotherapy and primary care, Just aims to bridge healthcare and insurance altogether.

On this episode we were joined by Isabelle Kenyon and Kim Boyd, two women leading by example to transform the way people receive healthcare.

Isabelle and Kim are at the helm of Calibrate, a virtual care platform designed to help people with weight loss, and take the willpower factor out of the equation.

Calibrate considers obesity an illness and it should be treated as such. But in the analog world, many patients receive generic advice and are then left to their own devices to lose weight. Thus, reducing the weight loss process to a matter of calorie deficits and willpower.

In other words, it's apparent that there isn't really an issue with the quality of care itself, but rather with the way it's delivered to patients. Impersonal, irregular, impractical.

Isabelle witnessed this discrepancy first-hand when she suffered a spinal fracture back in 2015.

Calibrate challenges this status quo by taking the virtual route to increase the accessibility of care and coaching.

Subscribers receive:

• Doctor-presrcibed GLP-1 medication
• Bi-weekly video coaching
• A personalized, holistic curriculum
• Guaranteed medical coverage

This approach allows patient to apply much more gradual changes to their diet thanks to the consistent follow-ups. It also helps them take accountability through coaching sessions and the online community. Small wins add up to big wins over time!

Huge thanks to Isabelle and Kim for joining us this episode. And hats off to them for leveraging technology to empower patients at scale; that's just the thing we love to see.

Western medicine as we know it can successfully treat an abundance of medical conditions, especially in emergency situations. When the root cause is very specific like a broken arm, the treatment is straightforward.

But when the condition is less black and white, especially in the case of chronic illnesses, you might feel left to your own devices sometimes.

Because when the answer comes down to making dietary or lifestyle changes, who’s gonna be there for you every step of the way?

The healthcare professionals themselves are not to blame, they simply lack the bandwidth or resources to provide holistic care over long periods of time.

This episode of our Digital Health Podcast features André Sommer, co-founder of Cara Care. They strive to empower patients suffering from chronic digestive illnesses, and support them on their journey.

To achieve that, they’ve built a mobile companion app that creates a care plan for you, supported by real, in-the-loop experts. In a nutshell, Cara Care creates a tailor-made experience for people with IBS, IBD, GERD, and dyspepsia.

Listen to the full episode to hear André’s story of how Cara Care came to be!