In the magazine, “The 10 Most Impactful Healthcare Solution Providers of 2019,” we have featured the companies which are helping the industry to become smarter and more efficient by providing their out-of-the-box solutions and services. These companies include, Camomile Healthcare Ventures, Canadian Plasma Resources, Conversa Health, and Medbelle. We have also explored how these companies are benefiting the various parts of the pipeline. https://www.mirrorreview.com https://blog.mirrorreview.com

4. EDITOR’S LETTER
he healthcare industry is not only growing in terms of size,
Tbut is also becoming smarter by instilling latest technological
advancement into all its processes. This is benefitting both
patients—for getting more comprehensive treatment in lower costs,
and care providers—in terms of better communication with patients
and increased profits due to minimizing costs due to streamlined
processes. This swift and positive transformation within the industry
can be credited to innovators who are introducing new practices and
healthcare organizations, who are openly accepting these innovations
for their processes.
In the magazine, “The 10 Most Impactful Healthcare Solution
Providers of 2019,” we have featured the companies who are helping
the industry to become smarter and more efficient by providing their
out-of-the-box solutions and services. These companies include,
Camomile Healthcare Ventures, Canadian Plasma Resources,
Conversa Health, and Medbelle. We have also explored how these
companies are benefiting the various parts of the pipeline.
On the cover of this issue, we have featured Trisotech, a company
disrupting the Healthcare Information Technology Market by
empowering the development of visual shareable clinical guidelines
and pathways to tear down the wall that exists between clinicians and
informaticians. We have also interviewed, CEO & CTO of Trisotech,
Denis Gagne, who has thoroughly explained us the difficulties in the
traditional systems, and how he and his team are positioned to
eliminate those complications.
To give an insightful overview of the current trends and advancements
in healthcare, we have also included experts' views on current scenario
and well researched articles written by our editors.
Deepali Sarwade
Editorial Coordinator
Healthcare In
The Midst Of A
Transformation

5. CREDIT PAGE
Mirror Review Media & Tech
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Maharashtra- 411057
+1 (850) 564-8517 info@mirrorreview.com
www.mirrorreview.com
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Mirror Review magazine may be reproduced, published or used in any
manner without prior written consent from the publisher. The team of
Mirror Review Magazine has made every effort to ensure the accuracy of
the content. The publisher assumes no responsibility of any part of the
content of any advertisement in this publication, including any errors and
omissions therein.
F O L L O W U S
mirrorreviewofficial
MirrorReview1
mirror-review
mirrorreview
Publisher :
Editor-in-Chief :
Archana Ghule
Vikram Suryawanshi
Editorial Coordinator : Deepali Sarwade
Vidya Joshi
Rakesh Mahto
Shubham Biradar
Balkishan Dalai
Project Managers : William Taylor
Joseph Thomas
Vinayak Todchetwar
Pandurang Kulkarni
Art Director :
Visualizer :
Graphic Designer :
Vinod Alhat
Mark Davis
Sumit Bonage
Aniket Diwane
Sakshi Bendre
Head of Distribution
& Production : Aakash Mahajan
Head of Operations : Robert Smith
Research Analysts : James Adams
Advertising : Maria Smith

6. the Disruptor!
Giovanni Letellier
Founder & CEO
SiO Digital
Andrea Calcagno
CEO
Cloud4Wi.
Empower Personalization
Garnering Customer Insights,
Respecting Privacy
Where To Begin If You
Want To Deploy AI In
Your Business Operations
Experts Corner
Cover Story
10
1830

7. Camomile Healthcare Ventures
A Tech-Driven Advisor Helping Healthcare
Organizations To Make Better Decisions
Canadian Plasma Resources
Saving Lives In Canada And Across The
Globe With High-Quality Plasma
Conversa Health
Transforming The Healthcare Experience With A
Care Management Virtual Health Assistant
How Smart Farming Is
Renovating Traditional
Farming Methods
And Tools
Smart Vision Health Dash
Do You Know About
A Disease That Is As
Lethal As Alzheimer’s?
Articles
Key Source International
Providing Clinical Desktop Security And
Infection Control Solutions
Medbelle
Rebuilding The Healthcare Experience To Provide
An Exceptional Level Of Patient Care
16
28
38
22
34
26 32

10. Trisotech is disrupting the
Healthcare Information
Technology Market by
empowering the development of visual
shareable clinical guidelines and pathways
to tear down the wall that exists between
clinicians and informaticians. To enable
this disruption, Trisotech offers clinicians
a simple to use modeling environment
where workflows and decision logics are
visually created by the Subject Matter
Experts (SME) themselves. This puts
clinicians squarely at the heart of the
solution.
Denis Gagne CEO & CTO of ,Trisotech
sees software interoperability, evidence-
based medicine, and automatable
clinical guidelines as three of the most
critical and challenging areas that need
improvement in the HIT industry. These
are also the most prominent changes that
took place in the industry during the last
couple of decades. Clinical practice is
widely based on data and analytics. Care
providers are incorporating more and
more data into their day-today clinical
operations and decisions, which is now
referred to as evidence-based medicine.
This allows clinicians to make critical
decisions not only based on millions of
previous cases but also to achieve better
and more precise results.
the Disruptor!
Cover
Story

11. Trisotech is committed
to providing an
interchangeable and
interoperable future
based on visual clinical
models!
The Wall
Informaticians stand on the other side of the wall, as data accessibility is the main issue that they must address to make the
clinicians the center piece of the solution. The systems that most care facilities use to store patients' information are called the
Electronic Medical Records (EMRs). The problem is that these systems are known to be closed to other systems that might
want to interact with their data, which makes data accessibility limited or even impossible.
The obvious solution is to make this data accessible to other computers and networks and thus create an environment for the
Clinical Decision Support system. However, this can be taken a step further by making the information consumable by
computers. The combination of the standard-based process and decision modeling techniques makes it possible to create
models that completely translate the guidelines into visual diagrams and thus make this data widely available to computer
systems. Trisotech views sharable clinical pathways and guidelines as reusable knowledge artefacts that can interact with
their global information environment via modern healthcare standards such as FHIR and CDS Hooks. These high valued
artifacts can then be adapted and customized to the local reality of the organization that adopts them. Informaticians can
integrate this new component within their IT environment thus tearing down the wall and changing the future of healthcare
informatics.

12. A Great First Step
Denis Gagne is an active contributor to the Object Management Group BPM+ Health taskforce. Trisotech has shown interest
in the HIT industry sector after his participation in the development of Field Guide to Shareable Clinical Pathways. The Field
Guide positions the HIT industry and technology implementation as follows:
“Despite major increases in the power and flexibility of computing there remains a gap between our ability to implement
technology and our ability to understand how that technology will impact the performance of care. Synchrony between
information flow and the appropriate workflow of clinical care is a key principle for usability efficiency, and care quality.
When HIT design decisions are not based on improving the efficiency and quality of clinical health care, the resulting
solution can rearrange clinical workflow by accident rather than by design. This Guide aims to make an explicit,
understandable connection between HIT and the methodical improvement of clinical health care.”
In support of these lofty goals, Trisotech provides a clinician-friendly modeling environment that creates standard-based
models. These visual models have the unique characteristic of being interpretable both by clinicians and machines, making
them fully automatable. Trisotech’s modeling environment allows non-technical users to create automatable clinical
guidelines. Their modeling tools enable simple and easy creation of process and decision models.
The environment is designed in such a way that every resource can manage their own responsibilities inside the models, as
well as initiate the DevOps process with one-click conversion to microservices. The company offers the so-called Trisotech
Service Library that makes the generated microservices readily accessible. IT staffs can use this tool to access the full API
invocation template of auto-generated service endpoints (including CDS Hooks) for external system integration. Keeping in
mind that Trisotech’s main goal is improvement of patient care, they offer flexibility by allowing organizations that create the
automatable clinical guideline to choose between using the entire models or invoking the microservices within their existing
systems.
Trisotech’s Digital
Enterprise Suite brings
strategy, design and
technology together
providing your
organization with insight
for gaining competitive
advantage.
Cover
Story

13. Trisotech is taking on the HIT Market
Growth, development, and improvement are Trisotech’s
main goals in every sphere of their business, from
technology implementation to partnerships. Trisotech
managed to establish a presence on the market despite
much bigger competitors. They’ve accomplished this by not
only leveraging their knowledge and expertise in Business
Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), Decision Modeling
Notation (DMN) and Case Management and Modeling
Notation (CMMN) but also by driving the technology to the
point of automation. This results in lowering barriers to
entry for their clients by making the modeling visual and
clinician friendly. When you couple that with state-of-the-
art automation you get a huge leap that is disrupting the
norms of the HIT Industry. Denis Gagne says, “Working
with Colleges of Medicine and large Health care providers,
we have been enabling them to understand and embrace the
value of visual clinical guidelines and pathways. When they
couple these visual models with micro-services and further
automation, we pave the way for the intelligent clinical
processes, integrating intelligent decisions and case
management.”
Having in mind the growing maturity of the market,
Trisotech is expected to grow rapidly and internationally
thanks to its successful SaaS model. The company already
has plans to expand their markets in Europe and Asia
through healthcare innovations as part of the BPM+ Health
initiative by the Object Management Group. When it comes
to Trisotech’s vision of the future of healthcare, they predict
that it will be driven both by leveraging data to enable fast
and efficient methodical improvement of care, and the
ability to relate it to interoperable Health IT systems.
Why is Trisotech a contender?
Trisotech is disrupting the Health Information Technology (HIT) market by tearing down the wall that exists between
clinicians and informaticians. To enable this disruption, Trisotech offers clinicians a simple to use modeling environment
where workflows and decision logics are visually created by the Subject Matter Experts (SME) themselves. By using
international modeling standards, Trisotech ensures that the resulting visual models are not only understandable by clinicians
but are also interpretable by machines. These automatable pathways and guideless becomes key components of the HIT
architecture of the future.
Trisotech views sharable clinical pathways and guideline as reusable knowledge artefacts that can interact with their global
information environment via modern healthcare standards such as FHIR and CDS Hooks. These high valued artifacts can
then be adapted and customized to the local reality of the organization that adopts them.
The future of the HIT industry is boundless and evolving. According to Gagne, “Trisotech is committed to providing an
interchangeable and interoperable future based on visual clinical models!”
Trisotech is led by the
original core
management team,
innovating to
transform the DNA of
the organizations of
the future.

14. Don’t Miss an Issue
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15. Company InfoCompany Name
3M Healthacre
Mike Roman,
Chairman & CEO
Global leader offering medical, dental and orthodontic solutions, health
information, food safety and drug delivery systems.
www.3m.com/3M/en_US/health-care-us
ACCOLADE
Rajeev Singh
CEO
Accolade is a personalized health and benefits solution that dramatically
improves the experience, outcomes and cost of healthcare for employers,
health plans and their members.
www.accolade.com
BASEHEALTH
Dan Hoemke
CBO
BaseHealth is the first predictive health analytics platform that is evidence-
based and data-driven without reliance on retrospective claims and ICD data.
www.basehealth.com
Camomile Healthcare
Ventures
Raghava Rao
Co-Founder & CEO
Camomile Healthcare Ventures is one of the fastest-growing and largest
healthcare strategy and implementation consultancy organizations.
www.camomilehealthcare.com
Conversa Health is helping healthcare organizations overcome these
challenges by providing them a conversational platform to communicate with
and monitor their patients.
www.conversahealth.com
Grifols is a global healthcare company founded in Barcelona, with more than
100 years of history, dedicated to improving the health and well-being of people
around the world.
www.grifols.com/en/home
With a primary focus on serving healthcare, Key Source International (KSI) has
transformed what was once a vessel for germ and bacteria growth into an
intelligent healthcare tool.
www.ksikeyboards.com
Medbelle is offering the first digital healthcare hospital platform that is user-
friendly, cost-effective, and ensures it is easy for providers to navigate the
patient’s treatment journey in order to deliver customized care.
www.medbelle.com
Trisotech is disrupting the Healthcare Information Technology Market by
empowering the development of visual shareable clinical guidelines and
pathways to tear down the wall that exists between clinicians and
informaticians.
www.trisotech.com
Canadian Plasma
Resources
Dr. Barzin Bahardoust
Co-Founder & CEO
Canadian Plasma Resources (CPR) is a pharmaceutical manufacturer licensed
by Health Canada and certified by the European Union (EU) and the
International Quality Plasma Program (IQPP).
www.giveplasma.ca
Conversa Health
West Shell III
Co-founder, CEO,
& Chairman,
Grifols
Tony Procaccio
Vice President Operations
Key Source International
Philip Bruno
CEO & President
Medbelle
Daniel Kolb &
Leander De Laporte
Co-Founders
Trisotech
Denis Gagne
CEO & CTO

16. Digital transformation has revolutionized every industry, in
healthcare specifically, technology is helping us live
longer and lead safer, healthier, and more productive
lives. This has resulted in healthcare services being taken out of the
confines of the hospital walls and integrated the care delivery with
user-friendly and accessible devices. With the help of devices like
smartphones and tablets, patients and doctors can communicate
efficiently and discuss the patient’s health status. Despite such
solutions, there are still many challenges faced by healthcare
entities.
Today, there is a need for a dedicated framework for
communication between different stakeholders and regulations.
Moreover, the increasing complexity of diseases is affecting
healthcare organizations to deliver better care at a lower cost. The
quantum of healthcare information is increasing year-over-year by
48 percent. This data is poured from new research, electronic
medical records, imaging, wearables, and epidemiological
monitoring, along with all the environmental factors that affect
health.
With a vision to be the industry’s most-respected, future-focused,
data-driven provider of end-to-end healthcare solutions, Camomile
Healthcare Ventures is overcoming these aforesaid issues by
expanding its horizons to offer compelling technology-based
solutions to transform healthcare organizations in emerging
markets.
A Boutique Healthcare Advisory Partner for Healthcare
Organizations
Headquartered in India, Camomile Healthcare Ventures is one of
the fastest-growing and largest healthcare strategy and
implementation consultancy organizations. The company’s mission
is to help healthcare organizations make distinctive, lasting, and
substantial improvements in their performance. To achieve this, it
is providing them with the information they need to make data-
driven decisions. Camomile’s core values symbolize its passion
and dedication towards bringing up a change that the healthcare
industry needs. These core values ensure that it maintains an
independent perspective, observes the highest ethical standards,
and conducts business with absolute integrity. Along with these, it
delivers sustainable value and excellence to its clients and
A Tech-Driven Advisor Helping Healthcare Organizations
To Make Better Decisions
Camomile Healthcare
Ventures:
We combine deep
business insights with the
understanding of future
healthcare needs that
would impact the industry
and business models.
Co-founder & CEO
Raghava Rao
16

17. advocates a caring meritocracy for patients, employees,
partners, and other stakeholders.
Being a boutique healthcare advisory partner, Camomile offers
comprehensive solutions that are focused on three key areas:
Strategic advisory and direction setting, Operational design
and implementation and IT design & transformation. Since its
inception, the company has been working with leading
organizations across the private, public, and social sectors.
These organizations include McKesson, Bank of America
Merrill Lynch, Manipal Hospitals, Care Hospitals, Tata Trusts,
Government of Andhra Pradesh, and others.
Camomile’s Unique USP
In the healthcare industry, many organizations provide
solutions similar to Camomile. To stay ahead and differentiate
itself from competitors, the company focuses on its USP,
which is blending its deep domain expertise with technological
know-how. Specialists and teams at Camomile are conscious
of all constraints in the existing hospital workflows and have
tested and offered alternatives solutions that:
Ÿ Require minimal training,
Ÿ Reduce the turn-around time (tat) of processes,
Ÿ Automate non-value added activities,
Ÿ User-friendly and improve utilization, and
Ÿ Are compatible to practices in India.
This uniqueness can be witnessed in the company’s excellent
offering of Management Information System (MIS) developed
for the Department of Medical Education, Government of
Maharashtra, and Tata Memorial Hospital. This system enables
each college to document various initiatives that are being
undertaken to build their capacities to offer comprehensive
cancer care. It also enables sharing of best practices, treatment
protocols, and others between various institutions.
Building Future-Forward Innovative Services in the
Healthcare Sector
The influx of technologies like AI, big data, IoT, robotics, 3D
printing, etc. is transforming the healthcare industry into a
completely new one. Today, healthcare payers and providers
are turning to information and analytics to obtain insights into
how they can enhance services while lowering expenses. The
Co-founder and CEO of Camomile Healthcare Ventures,
Raghava Rao believes that these technologies will play a
transformative role in enhancing different deliverables in the
healthcare sector. Therefore, Camomile is working on several
healthcare initiatives to help healthcare organizations achieve
the best results. This includes Hospital.AI, e-ICU services,
Oncology Information System, Business incubator
management, and Distraction-free driving initiative.
Improving Employee Performance via Training, Forums,
Workshops & Brainstorming Sessions
As the market and technology landscape changes very quickly,
it becomes extremely important to have updated information
on industry, technology and its applications as well as the right
skills to manage all the operations. Camomile understands the
significance of having aforesaid assets and strongly believes in
hiring and retaining the best talent. The company recruits
talented individuals from the globally ranked Ivy League
schools such as Harvard University, Imperial College London,
IIM’s, TISS, Manipal University and other top institutes.
Moreover, Camomile’s employees spend more than 50% of
their time in learning new skills, gaining knowledge, and
understanding problems in the industry. To further enhance
their skillsets, they attend forums, workshops, and converse
with industry experts more than thrice in a week, making the
learning much more productive. As a result, they are able to
solve the industry’s problems in unique ways.
An Accomplished Leader behind the Success of Camomile
Healthcare Ventures
Raghava is an accomplished leader in the global healthcare
space and has held senior management and Board positions in
various Indian and Multinational healthcare companies. He co-
founded Camomile with the focus on advising Healthcare
CEOs and Board of Directors on transformation and value
creation. Under Raghava’s leadership, the company has
become one of the largest and most influential healthcare
consulting companies in India and the Asian region. To further
improve Camomile’s capabilities, the accomplished CEO with
his skilled team collects data from partners and clients around
the globe, as the availability of data is extremely low in Indian
healthcare. Then, they pursue deep data integration with the
obtained data to bring out solutions that help transform
processes.
Presently, the company is deploying its expertise to develop
AI-based technology products that improve operational
efficiencies and clinical outcomes. The team of Camomile is
also in the process of collaborating with hospitals and other
partners for feeding their AI. Their AI products utilize machine
vision and cognition, image analytics—pattern recognition and
search by fragments, decision management, and text analytics
and NLP. Through other deep learning techniques like batch
normalization, long short term memory, learning rate
annealing, etc., they are delivering outputs much better than
those in the market.
17

18. Experts Corner
18

19. 19

22. In the past few years, the treatment of rare diseases and
the development of biologic-based therapies have gained
considerable attention. More particularly, the plasma
protein industry has been growing quite rapidly where the
overall market doubles every 7-8 years, and by 2023, it is
expected to reach $45 billion. Previously, a large portion of
raw material used to come from the blood sector in the form
of recovered plasma. However, with the rapid development in
the demand for plasma proteins and stable or declining use of
fresh blood products at the hospitals, there is an increasing
demand for source plasma. More than ever, the plasma
required for manufacturing the therapies for patients is
supplied by the commercial source plasma industry.
Moreover, almost 80% of plasma required by the
fractionation industry worldwide is supplied and gathered by
the US today. Dr. Barzin Bahardoust, the Co-founder and
CEO of believes thatCanadian Plasma Resources (CPR),
depending on one country is not sustainable and may prove
hazardous to the security of supply for patients. Through
CPR, Barzin and his veteran team are trying to make Canada
a global contributor of plasma-derived products.
A Visionary Leader Improving the Integrity of Canada’s
Healthcare System
Barzin targeted the plasma sector to reduce Canada’s
dependency on other countries for products made from
plasma, primarily the U.S. Currently, Canada imports roughly
around 80% of its blood plasma needs from the US. These
figures clearly show that the manufacturers of the plasma-
based products heavily depend on plasma collected from
foreign donors and more specifically on US source plasma
collection companies. To address this issue, Barzin with his
seasoned team is endeavoring to expand the global collection
of plasma and ensuring the long-term security of supply for
patients in Canada and around the world through their plasma
Saving Lives In Canada And Across The Globe With
High-Quality Plasma
Canadian Plasma
Resources:
At Canadian Plasma
Resources, we believe
in our motto of Give
Plasma, Give Life.
Co-founder & CEO
Dr. Barzin Bahardoust
22

23. collection facilities in Canada. As the CEO, Barzin
manages the executive financial and operational aspects of
his business. The visionary leader and his team are
developing or adopting the latest technologies used in the
Plasmapheresis industry in both hardware and software.
With this, they are ensuring high productivity of staff and
reducing donation times for their generous donors.
Striving to Become a Global Contributor for Safe and
Quality Plasma
CPR is a pharmaceutical manufacturer licensed from
Health Canada European Union (EU)and certified by the
and the . ItInternational Quality Plasma Program (IQPP)
is a source member of the Plasma Protein Therapeutics
Association (PPTA). The company strives to become a
global contributor for safe and quality plasma supply as
well as wants to increase the local production capacity in
Canada. It collects quality plasma from healthy donors
and uses it for further manufacturing to treat a variety of
health conditions. The Canada-based company handpicks
its donor through certain criteria, rigorous screening, and
testing. If a donor tests are positive for infectious disease,
then all of the plasma he/she has donated previously is
isolated and removed from the production batch.
Providing Training Programs to Enhance the
Employees’ Professional Development
As a prominent plasma-based products manufacturer, the
CPR team consists of a range of well-versed scientists and
healthcare professionals. To ensure plasma donors’ and
products safety, the company offers comprehensive
training programs to its employees according to their
positions. These training programs help employees and
new recruits to deliver high standard products, improve
their professional development, learn new skills, and
reach their long-term career goals. Furthermore, its team
approach at the collection facilities and the in-depth
training programs has greatly helped them in improving
their performance.
Testing Criteria and Compensation for Donors
The plasma collected from healthy donors is used to
manufacture plasma proteins. These in turn are utilized to
treat rare diseases and conditions, some of which are even
life-threatening. Therefore, healthy donors are selected for
donating their plasma. By following the four layers of
screening, CPR ensures that the donors are in a healthy
state while donating their plasma during every visit:
Ÿ The donor must meet the basic donor eligibility
criteria.
Ÿ The donor must pass the health history and current
health review criteria on the donor questionnaire.
Ÿ On the first visit and every 16 weeks, the donor must
pass extensive screening including serum protein
evaluation.
Ÿ The donor is tested for the specific transmissible
disease markers using the latest technologies.
CPR also checks donors against the National Donor
Deferral Registry to ensure that donors are healthy and
clear of any diseases such as HIV, hepatitis B or C. For its
plasma donors, the company offers in thecompensation
form of Donor Value Card, which is credited after each
donation. In addition to this, it has created a Super Hero
Rewards loyalty program for all the plasma donors.
Working on Innovative Projects
CPR’s vision is to increase plasma production in Canada
and to reduce dependency on foreign source plasma. To
achieve its vision, CPR has acquired approval from
Health Canada to allow its donors to safely donate more
plasma. In Canada, for the first time, donors can donate
plasma twice a week and 104 times per year. In a week,
donors can donate plasma again as long as it is two days
apart. From CPR’s viewpoint, it is removing the last
advantage US companies have over them. Currently, the
company is developing an entirely paperless blood bank
information system, which will make the process much
more efficient for its donors and staff members. It is
planning to expand its network of collection centres in
Canada from 2 to 10 in the next three years. Moreover,
CPR is also preparing to collaborate and develop different
plasma collection projects in jurisdictions outside of
Canada and mainly in the Americas, Central Europe, and
Asia.
23

24. How
Is Renovating Traditional Farming Methods And Tools?
In the hyper-digital environment, individuals are using
electronic devices to stay connected with each other.
The state-of-the-art technologies like artificial
intelligence (AI), internet of things (IoT), machine learning
(ML), big data, virtual reality (VR), etc. are disrupting
various industries and transforming their traditional models
into digital ones. Farming is one of the old forms of
agriculture. This industry has witnessed some major
technological transformations over the last few decades.
From handheld tools and horse-drawn plows to machinery
and chemical fertilizers to sensors and drones, traditional
farming evolved and shifted towards technology-driven
processes. Today, by using numerous smart agricultural tech
innovations, farmers have gained better control over
growing crops and maintaining livestock. This is a result of
integrating AI, cloud, and IoT-powered systems in farming
better known as Smart Farming.
What is Smart Farming?
Smart Farming is a combination of modern information and
communication technologies (ICT) with traditional farming
practices to enhance the quality and quantity of agricultural
products. Currently, a number of technologies are used to
digitize the farming processes including sensors and
actuators, robotics, GPS, big data, drone, etc. By adopting
smart farming, farmers can reduce the additional costs,
increase crop yield, improve the production of crops, and
lessen labor. Now that we have learned about what smart
farming is, let’s take a look at its following applications.
Applications of Smart Farming
Ÿ Crop Management Devices and Livestock Farming
In traditional farming, farmers need labors for handling
crops and livestock. As a result, they waste resources on
unnecessary things. But, with IoT-powered system, the
farmers can gather data specifically related to crop farming
like temperature, rainfall, soil quality, etc. At the same time,
they can monitor the health of livestock and adjust their
nutrition accordingly. Through the analyzed data, they can
identify whether the animals are sick or not as well as
monitor crop’s health and nutrition needs. If animals are
sick, they are isolated from others to prevent the spread of
disease. If plants are not well, then additional nutrition can
be supplemented to them. In this way, farmers can manage
their field activities smartly and efficiently.
Ÿ Use of Agricultural Drones
Presently, farmers with their labors monitor the farm.
However, they can gain better insights about their fields
through drones. During the flight, the drones collect
multispectral, thermal, and visual imagery. From this,
farmers will receive the foresights on the plant health
indices, plant counting and yield prediction, plant height
measurement, nitrogen content in wheat, drainage mapping,
weed pressure mapping, and so on. As a result, they would
be able to focus on the lacking areas of their fields.
Smart Vision
24

25. Ÿ Implementing Automation in Smart Greenhouses
Traditional greenhouses regulate environmental parameters
through direct action or a method of proportional control
that often leads to a production failure, energy loss, and
increased labor costs. However, IoT-driven greenhouses
smartly scrutinize and control the climate, which in turn
removes human intervention. This can be further improved
by integrating the system with cloud technology so that the
generated data can be saved and processed at the same time
in the cloud-storage. As a result, it will save time and cost.
Ÿ Automatic Planting and Seeding
In farming, sowing seeds is a tedious and difficult task.
With advanced seeding machines or robots, the task of
sowing seeds becomes easier. The seeding machines or
robots come with geomapping and sensor data. This data
consists of soil quality, density, moisture, and nutrient levels
so that the seeds can grow in a health environment. Using
this data, the machines or robots can plant the seeds in
appropriate and conditioned places to grow healthily.
Ÿ Automatic Watering and Irrigation
A widespread irrigation method known as Subsurface Drip
Irrigation (SDI) allows farmers to control when and how
much water their crops can take. By incorporating these
SDI systems with smart IoT-enabled sensors, farmers can
continuously track moisture levels, plant health as well as
intervene only when it is necessary.
Top 5 tips to consider before implementing smart
farming
Smart devices and technologies have numerous ways to
help farmers increase their farm’s performance and revenue.
However, farmers face different set of challenges while
thinking about investing in smart farming. Therefore, it
becomes necessary to consider following 5 tips before
implementing smart farming
Ÿ Farmers need to focus on what type of hardware will be
required for collecting their farms’ data.
Ÿ They will require powerful data analytics capabilities.
Along with this, predictive algorithms and machine
learning will be needed for obtaining actionable insights
based on the collected data.
Ÿ The purchased hardware should be durable and easy to
maintain. Otherwise, farmers will need to replace the
sensors more frequently.
Ÿ Remote access to the farms’ data will be available
through smartphone and desktop computer. Therefore,
they must know the nature of the applications.
Ÿ The system should be secured and safe to use so that
there should be no possibility of data hacking.
In short, modern technologies such as AI, ML, IoT, and
cloud computing are expected to advance the development
along with introduction of more robots powered by AI into
farming. However, there is still a lot of room for
improvement in farming. In the upcoming years, the
farming tools and models will completely embrace the
digitization. In the coming days, smart farming will play a
significant role in delivering more productive and
sustainable agricultural products, which will be based on a
resource-efficient and precision approach.
25

28. The evolution of technology is transforming the way the
healthcare industry operates and delivers care. The current
system is more effective, efficient, and flexible than ever
before. However, there are a few challenges that the healthcare
stakeholders are currently trying to overcome with the help of
technology and innovation.
The rapid surge in the cost of primary care, lack of access due to
the financial burden of physical proximity, poor shared
understanding of health resulting in low adherence rates, and
unnecessary readmissions are some of the complicated issues that
need to be given great thought.
Moreover, it is no secret that the administrative burden is mounting
on healthcare practitioners and payers, and the disconnected loop
is creating hindrances for everyone to communicate. Conversa
Health is helping healthcare organizations overcome these
challenges by providing them a conversational platform to
communicate with and monitor their patients. They offer an
artificially intelligent (AI) conversation-based Virtual Health
Assistant (VHA) in order to solve complications by enabling
seamless communication between patients and care providers.
The company focuses on eliminating tangled issues arising due to
the current visit-centric mode of treatment, which is being operated
majorly through static portals and telephonic approach. With these
traditional practices, patients are unable to experience the ongoing
and personalized support and guidance they need to make better
decisions to self-manage their care. Believing that better
conversation leads to better care, Conversa transforms this
inconvenient, expensive, and unsatisfactory user experience into a
smart and convenient relationship.
Benefitting all the Facets of Healthcare
With the Conversa Conversation Platform™, the company aims at
benefitting all the parts of the healthcare ecosystem. Consumers
and patients can reduce the cost of unnecessary face-to-face visits
and acquire a better understanding of their treatment and health
plans, while communication with their caretakers helps to achieve
shared decision-making. Furthermore, the increase in access to
appropriate services and scope for self-management can be
achieved by this solution.
Transforming The Healthcare Experience With A
Care Management Virtual Health Assistant
Conversa Health:
By building the right
solution for the market,
we've made conversation
a cornerstone of
healthcare experience.
Co-founder, CEO, & Chairman
West Shell III
28

29. Care providers on the other hand typically rely on the
information collected during infrequent and episodic
interactions to manage the health of their patient populations.
Using Conversa, providers can deliver care while reducing in-
person visits, capture and analyze valuable patient generated
health data, handle continuous risk stratification, reduce
administrative burden, and simplify in-hospital
communication.
For pharma organizations, Conversa helps to increase clinical
trial participant engagement and retention, encourages
medication adherence, provide patient support, and promotes
ongoing symptom management.
Lastly, payers can enjoy the benefits such as personalized
health plan assistance, smart triage of queries, augmented
consumer engagement and retention, consistency of claims and
transparency all of which help in scaling care management
capabilities.
The Team and Their Achievements
Market success is almost guaranteed when a well-thought
solution is backed up by a well-versed team. The talented team
of Conversa is dedicated to transform the healthcare industry
and is led by the Co-founder, CEO, and Chairman, West
Shell III. West is a 5-time startup CEO having excellent skills
in business strategy, product management, e-commerce,
mobile devices, and enterprise software. West and his team
promote a vibrant culture that is fun, compassionate, and
strives to deliver a solution that truly makes a difference in
healthcare.
Prior to Conversa Health, West led several successful
companies including Pacific Marketing Group (PMG),
Netcentives, Sapias, and Healthline Networks.
Under his leadership, Conversa has been a recipient of several
prestigious awards including Top Patient Relationship
Management Solution by Chilmark, and Top Patient
Engagement Solution by IDC Research. West, his co-founder
Dr. Philip Marshall, and the Conversa team are enabling better
care by making patient-provider communication meaningful
and transforming healthcare from reactive and episodic to a
new relationship that is proactive, continuous, collaborative,
and personalized.
Delivering Personalized Care
Knowing that every patient is different and has a different set
of healthcare requirements, the team of Conversa has built a
platform that satisfies every patient’s distinct healthcare
requirements. The conversational platform includes a
taxonomy-driven patient profile, that automatically calibrates
the timing, priority, and sequencing of modules of the
conversation content delivered. As no two patients are alike,
the conversational AI-powered platform intelligently learns
and identifies profile-based patterns. While learning, the
platform dynamically adjusts and improves what is asked and
said and which data is to be collected from each patient during
each conversation.
Conversa’s Conversation Platform™ is meeting each
individual’s needs with automated and personalized
conversation experiences that lead to more meaningful patient
relationships, effective population management, and
ultimately, better clinical and financial outcomes. The company
has an extensive library of over 700 “clinically-intelligent”
conversation programs including asthma, chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease (COPD), congestive heart failure (CHF),
diabetes, hypertension, joint replacement, and many more.
This conversation platform enables patients to stay in touch
with their doctor or healthcare provider with personalized
conversations regarding their medical plan or history.
Additionally, it also integrates biometric data from wearable
devices into EHR systems and other enterprise applications.
With Conversa Health’s Conversation Platform™, healthcare
providers receive data in real-time, allowing more informed
allocation of resources and ongoing adjustments to care and
treatment plans as needed.
Crafting the Future of the Healthcare Sector
The healthcare industry is rapidly evolving the way healthcare
services are offered to customers. Personalized, consumer-
friendly and automated patient experiences are also
transforming the patient-provider relationship. Through this
redefined relationship, Conversa is seeing the healthcare
industry reach unprecedented levels of continuous and
collaborative healthcare, which will ultimately deliver better
care at a lower cost.
Conversa is helping propel this transformation, and is well-
deserving of this Top 10 Most Impactful Healthcare Solution
of the year recognition.
29

30. In today’s age of chatbots, pop-up boxes, and email
marketing, it’s all too easy to think that the best
way to gain insights into customers is through
digital platforms. This simply isn’t the case, particularly
for brands that operate offline.
While online tools certainly have their benefits, brick-
and-mortar businesses are missing out on tremendous
opportunities by not using their physical locations to
grow and enrich their customer database.
But here’s the good news: thanks to advancements in
mobile, connecting with customers in a physical location
— be it a retail store, a shopping mall, a hotel, a bank, a
museum, a theater, or a restaurant — is easier than ever.
With the right tools and best practices, brands can use
guest WiFi to gain customer insights and enhance
experience across the physical and digital worlds,
digitally delivering a much more personalized
experience. This, in turn, will open the silos of the offline
and online ecosystems, and create a holistic and
interactive communication channel. It’s the most
accurate and best way to listen to the voice of the
customers.
Here’s how.
Empower customers to intentionally share their data
It’s not about providing customers with a general free
guest WiFi. Brands must strive to deliver an AI-powered
first-class experience to customers who opt-in to their
services. When using data to enrich their customer
database and profiles, brands should go beyond simply
asking for their customer’s contact info. They need to
empower customers to proactively share their
information.
Information that’s intentionally provided by the customer
is called zero-party data, and it’s something that every
modern brand should strive for. Having zero-party data
means that brands no longer have to guess or infer what
customers need, since the information is coming straight
from the customers themselves.
Zero-party data enables brands to cultivate stronger and
more direct relationships with their customers, which in
turn leads to better personalization.
Social login is a valid method for gathering zero-party
data. It’s also preferred by the majority of customers —
60% according to a study by Annex Cloud —
particularly when accessing WiFi through a mobile
device. As such, brands should give customers the option
Empower Personalization
Garnering Customer Insights,
Respecting Privacy
Experts Corner
30

31. to login using social networks such as Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, etc.
In addition to paving the way for better customer
experiences, social login enables brands to build a
trusted relationship with their customers who are open to
sharing their personal details with their favorite brands,
such as their gender, age, location, etc. As a result,
brands will continuously feed their CRM, creating richer
customer profiles and highly tailored customer
experiences.
Gather insights into offline customer behaviors
Using guest WiFi brands can also get to know their
customers through their offline behavioral characteristics
such as locations visited, date of each visit and related
dwell time. It also lets brands predict behavior patterns
such as the probability of a customer returning to the
location in the next 30 days. These metrics can be quite
valuable not just from an operations standpoint, but also
for the purposes of personalization.
For instance, implementing in-store WiFi enabled The
Prada Group to transform the customer experience in
more than 600 locations across the globe by creating new
customer profiles and assigning a digital identity to a
guest’s device upon their initial login.
When the customers subsequently visit any store, the
network can then recognize their device, associate it to
that individual, and trigger notifications (i.e., an email or
text message) welcoming them back and promoting a
new item they’d likely be interested in. Sales associates
can also be notified when a returning customer walks in
so that they can provide the customer with the attention
they need.
These types of specialized services help The Prada
Group to better personalize the experience for their in-
store customers, in turn boosting loyalty and build
stronger relationships.
“Cloud4Wi’s solution enables us to understand who our
customers are and how they behave in the stores while
respecting their privacy. Thanks to this in-depth
knowledge, we will be able to deliver compelling and
much more personalized experiences.” Lorenzo Bertelli,
Owner and CDO Prada Group.
Offer tremendous value to your customers
One of the best ways to empower customers to share
more about themselves is to use their data to deliver
tremendous value. Enticing offers and exclusive content
can be effective in getting guests to log in through the
location’s guest WiFi and provide their details.
Exclusive promotions work great, particularly in the
retail sector. In addition to getting customers to opt-in to
the retailer’s services, such offers can also drive sales
and conversions.
31

32. lternatively, brands can provide location-based services
A
and content to their customers. Gruppo FS Italiane, for
instance, offers a navigator, timetables, travel assistant,
and a point-of-interests map to station visitors. This is
also a perfect fit for shopping malls.
Getting the most out of customer insights
Brands that want to get the most value out of their
customer insights should strive to “connect the dots”
between multiple data points and channels.
For instance, they can analyze their location analytics
together with POS data to deeply understand on-site
traffic and conversions. They can further integrate all
that data into their mission-critical systems (e.g., CRM,
CDP, etc.) to get a complete, 360-degree view of
customers as they move from one channel to the next.
This way, they can engage with individual customers
across multiple channels to personalize their experience
based on their online and offline behaviors.
Here’s a scenario of how an integrated 360-degree
customer profile would work. Say, a shopper — let’s call
her Ashley — walks into a fashion boutique to look at
some accessories. Ashley connects to the in-store WiFi,
allowing the retailer to log her visit.
Ashley leaves without buying anything, but after a few
days, she receives an email from the boutique promoting
one of the products that she was interested in.
At that point, Ashley decides to swing by the store to
purchase the item, and when she walks in, the retailer’s
WiFi network immediately recognizes her and notifies a
sales associate. Armed with this information, the
associates welcome Ashley into the store and offers a
personalized shopping experience.
Ashley ends up buying the item, and after a few days,
receives an email from the retailer asking her to review
her experience with the sales associate. Entirely pleased
with the service that she received Ashley gives the
associate top marks.
The example above illustrates the value of having a
cohesive view of the customer journey. By integrating
their physical and digital ecosystems, brands can get to
know their customers better and offer unparalleled
experiences that drive loyalty and sales.
In today’s hyper-competitive market, lackluster and
impersonal customer experiences just won’t cut it. In
order to thrive, brands must continuously engage with
customers in ways that are relevant to them.
5 questions to determine if your personalization
capabilities match your goals
The first step in delivering a personalized experience
that balances value and noninvasiveness — and a
crucial preparation before selecting technology partners
— is for retailers to establish what they want to
accomplish with their personalization strategy.
Answering these questions can help:
Ÿ What is the customer’s need for personalization,
versus what can the retailer presently achieve with its
technology capabilities?
Ÿ What kind of data should retailers collect from
customers, and when should they be collecting it?
Ÿ How can retailers collect data without being creepy?
Ÿ What are the main goals/customer metrics retailers
should strive for as a result of personalization
initiatives?
Ÿ What are appropriate vehicles for personalized
messaging, such as text messages, emails and push
notifications, and what level of customer comfort is
necessary for retailers to deploy each?
Cloud4Wi helps companies do all that and more, through
a robust application suite that lets brands gain
actionable customer insights. to learn moreGet in touch
or view our success stories.
32

34. CEO & President
Philip Bruno
The healthcare industry continues to face a multitude
of challenges. Breaches are widely observed in the
healthcare sector and can be caused by many
different types of incidents. These incidents involve
credential-stealing malware, an insider who either
purposefully or accidentally discloses patient data, or
involve lost laptops or/and other devices. As healthcare
possesses millions of private patient records today, data
security is a major challenge which needs to be addressed
promptly.
Additionally, other key challenges the healthcare sector is
facing are prescription abuse and hospital-acquired
infection. These pain points are creating havoc in the
industry which leads to fraud, prescribing errors and
reduction in care quality. Witnessing such circumstances,
healthcare institutes and organizations are turning to
technologies for the ideal solution. To efficiently fulfill this
need, steps in toKey Source International (KSI)
continuously inform clients of the significance of
overcoming aforementioned issues. The company’s mission
is to empower healthcare to save patients’ lives, increase
productivity, and protect consumer data by providing high
quality, innovative clinical desktop security, and infection
control peripherals.
Converting the Conventional Keyboard to a Multi-
Faceted, Intelligent Medical Tool
KSI is celebrating its 40th year of delivering quality
technology to end-users around the world. The company’s
value statement ‘Patient lives depend on our technological
ingenuity’ reflects its pioneering spirit and strong technical
expertise honed over the past four decades. The clinical
desktop security provided by the company’s durable, cutting
edge products keeps pace with the ever-changing needs of
global users seeking secure, compliant and scalable
Providing Clinical Desktop Security And
Infection Control Solutions
Key Source
International:
We educate healthcare
customers that the out-of-
the-box keyboards they're
using are bad for patients,
bad for healthcare's
bottom line.
34

35. solutions compatible with their risk assessment and
cybersecurity strategies. For infection control and patient
health information security, KSI integrates fingerprint
biometrics, RFID card reader technology, sonar walk-
away presence detection, and a software-driven keyboard
cleaning system that controls infection at the clinical
desktop into a single device.
Furthermore, the Oakland, CA-based company’s award-
winning LinkSmart™ cleaning button with San-a-Key®
software is recognized by the American Hospital
Association (AHA). This software is a game-changing
innovation, preventing infection at the clinical desktop
and holding the promise of saving many patient lives.
Integrated dual-factor authentication makes this award-
winning software an ideal germ-fighting device that
delivers the ultimate in foolproof security.
Medical Grade Security Keyboards
With a primary focus on serving healthcare, KSI has
transformed what was once a vessel for germ and
bacteria growth into an intelligent healthcare tool. The
tool ensures that the clinical desktop is no longer a vessel
for germ and bacteria growth that causes hospital-
acquired infections, or an avenue for data breach that
violates patient confidentiality. KSI keyboards can be
easily disinfected with germicidal wipes throughout the
day by pressing an integrated button that temporarily
disables keys. These keyboards accompanied with
companion software help hospital administrators know
when, where and by whom all keyboards are cleaned.
As for data security, the impactful healthcare solution
provider has developed solutions for password
replacement using biometrics, near field communication,
contact-less smart cards, legacy HID badges as well as
auto locking desktops used when a user walks away from
their workstation. As a result, KSI prevents unauthorized
access to patient health records and electronic
prescription platforms. This highlights that KSI
keyboards play a significant role not only in protecting
patients’ health data but also their lives. The company’s
healthcare customers recognize the effectiveness of its
top-selling products in protecting the clinical desktop.
By using these products, customers experience better
security with this infection control solution.
Happy and Satisfied Employees Increase Customer
Satisfaction
Employee performance is critical to the overall success
of the company. Therefore, KSI has developed a robust
employee development program that contains cross-
training and tuition reimbursement. The company looks
after employees’ development, both as individuals and
professionals in their chosen fields and offers
incentivizes based on meeting performance goals. KSI
knows that exceptional service is a key driver of
customer satisfaction and retention. So, it ensures that all
employees are happy and well-trained to deliver stellar
customer satisfaction.
Building Strong Relationships to Expand Into the
SAP Marketplace
In the future, KSI will soon join hands with a new
technology partner to promote its ability to better secure
SAP workstations. With the rise of SAP, it has been seen
that the use of HANA ERP has grown significantly in
recent years. With data breach now a high-profile issue
embedded in the public’s awareness, SAP consumers
will benefit from KSI’s multifactor authentication
solutions. KSI’s association with SAP allows expansion
into new verticals and the development of new
relationships around the world.
Listening to the Voice of Customers to Serve Better
Leaders play the most important role in the growth of an
organization; their vision is what makes the difference.
Philip Bruno, the CEO and President of Key Source
International, guides his team of seasoned professionals
where they need to go and informs the vision for what
comes next. He ensures that KSI not only remains
relevant within the healthcare industry but also continues
to surpass competing technologies through innovation.
Together with the skilled team, the CEO listens to their
clients’ pain points and looks for more detailed
information to deliver world-class solutions. The thought
leader states that their best solutions are borne of
listening to the customer and listening will always be
part of the KSI business model.
35

38. The modern healthcare landscape is shifting towards a
more digitized, consumer-focused, and globalized
direction. Today, consumers have grown accustomed
to interacting with digital platforms on a daily basis and
therefore expect the same high-tech services in healthcare
too. Additionally, the advances in medical technology have
resulted in more pleasant patient experiences and less
expensive treatment prices, and an influx of day-case
facilities competing in the market. Along with this, the tech
wave is creating innovative tools that improve outcomes and
processes. However, adapting and utilizing these novel tools
is not easy for healthcare providers.
To overcome this challenge, is offering the firstMedbelle
digital healthcare hospital platform that is user-friendly, cost-
effective, and ensures it is easy for providers to navigate the
patient’s treatment journey in order to deliver customized
care.
Exceptional Co-founding Duo of Medbelle
In spite of the advancements in medical technology, there has
been a huge gap in the services offered by healthcare
providers. The lack of digitalization and consumer-focus in
healthcare were the key reasons why Daniel Kolb (Co-
founder & Managing Director) and Leander De Laporte
(Co-founder) established Medbelle together in 2016. In the
initial days, the co-founders worked as a team of two: Daniel
built the provider network while Leander called the patients
and wrote the code himself. Today, Daniel and Leander are
passionately focused on building and supporting a strong
team that is working to achieve the vision of the company as
quickly as possible.
The Dream Team at Medbelle
Under the guidance and mentorship of Daniel and Leander,
the team at Medbelle is currently working on strategic and
Medbelle:
We are rebuilding the
healthcare experience
from scratch to provide
you with the outstanding
level of patient care
we would love to
experience ourselves.
Daniel Kolb
Co-founder &
Managing Director
Leander De Laporte
Co-founder
Rebuilding The Healthcare Experience To Provide
An Exceptional Level Of Patient Care
38

39. organizational projects along with taking key steps to
strengthen their network that has vastly grown. The
dynamic duo and their skilled team are rebuilding the
healthcare experience from scratch to provide clients with
the outstanding level of patient care that they would like
to experience themselves. With the first digital hospital
platform, a patient can enjoy a smooth, pleasant journey
while allowing the doctors and surgeons to focus on
providing them with outstanding medical and surgical
care. Even though the team at Medbelle has grown, the
co-founding duo is very much involved in making critical
operational decisions and examining their outcomes
closely.
What makes Medbelle Remarkable?
At Medbelle, the team strives to create a world in which
all patients can navigate their treatment journey digitally
and receive personalized care at the click of a button. The
company is very much aligned on a quadruple aim of
enhancing patient experiences, improving overall
population health, reducing costs, and improving the
work-life balance of healthcare providers. The unique
qualities that make Medbelle the best medical provider in
the UK are as follows.
Ÿ The Medbelle Family: The brightest minds in the
industry are united on this platform and they have an
insatiable passion for building the best possible patient
experiences. The team is comprised of healthcare
professionals, engineers, and entrepreneurs that are
st
striving to bring healthcare into the 21 century.
Ÿ Rethinking Healthcare Technology: Currently,
healthcare is dominated by an array of out-dated
systems and processes that focus on the provider rather
than the patient. Re-thinking the patient journey from
scratch helps Medbelle build an entirely new platform
that provides an easy-to-use, integrated experience for
both patients and providers.
Ÿ Patient Care and Medical Quality: The core of
Medbelle can be summarised by its relationship with
its patients. Patients are considered the highest
priority. This focus helps establish and provide an
experience that people love whilst ensuring that they
receive the highest quality medical care.
Overcoming Healthcare Challenges by Offering
Unique Services
Medbelle closely works with the UK’s most experienced
surgeons to provide high-quality procedures and personal
guidance. As the first digital hospital, it builds the
technology that enables outstanding patient care from start
to finish, thereby leading to more pleasant, more
transparent, and more efficient patients’ journeys.
The Medbelle team ensures each patient receives a
seamless healthcare experience with a unique personal
touch all whilst reducing the cost. The impactful digital
healthcare platform allows hospitals and specialists to stay
focused on their expertise and treat patients to increase
their utilization, even in an increasingly competitive
environment. Medbelle essentially takes care of building
the technology, the personalized care processes, and
ensuring the quality of “Excellence Network”. The
aforementioned tasks are attained by successfully
cultivating a perfect mix of providers, including both
overnight and day-case facilities, to provide the best
possible treatment for any patient.
Currently, Medbelle is focused on growing and helping
even more patients. Its latest developments include
building & launching its “Excellence Network” for
orthopaedic surgery. Impressively, many market players
have already shown interest in this program.
Taking a Closer at the Future of the Healthcare
Industry
According to Leander, the future healthcare industry will
focus on digital patient experiences and value-based care,
including better incentivisation of prevention and quality
outcomes, while hospitals unbundle into specialized
treatment centers.
39

40. Do You Know About
A Disease That Is As
Lethal As Alzheimer’s?
Health Dash
40

41. As the world is shifting towards advancements in the
healthcare technology, scientists are discovering
new diseases every day. Many researches and
experiments are being conducted in thousands of institutes
and research centers only to find out new possible diseases
which are altering human existence for centuries.
Recently, Mayo Clinic researchers have discovered a
disease that is as fatal as Alzheimer’s disease. Known for its
lethal fact, Alzheimer’s is considered very dangerous for
survival. About a decade ago, Mayo Clinic’s researchers
went to Alzheimer’s Disease Research Brain Bank that has
been collecting brains from patients with Alzheimer’s
disease and mild cognitive impairment. The researchers
actually identified patients that had died and were
pathologically confirmed to have a high probability of
Alzheimer’s disease. In this process, they identified 342
brains with the same disorder and then decided to ship them
down to Mayo Clinic Jacksonville, laboratory of Dr. Dennis
Dickson for further diagnoses.
Moreover, these brains were then sectioned into groups by
the researchers. They thought that dead brains were
probably affected first by the protein they were interested in
studying in Alzheimer’s disease known as TDP-43. In the
process, they sectioned the region of the brains into slides
known as the amygdala to those 342 cases. These 342 cases
were then immunostained to see if the protein was present
in the amygdala region or not. Scientists were surprised
with the result showing presence of TDP-43 in 195 cases.
To find where and how much protein was present in those
342 brains, they sectioned 14 additional regions that had
thousands of slides for characterization.
Is the newly found disease as deadly as Alzheimer’s?
Alzheimer’s is inevitably irreversible and progressive brain
disorder that slows down and then destroys the memories. It
is currently the sixth leading cause of death in the United
States, but recent studies indicate that the disorder may rank
third, just before heart disease and cancer. To know the
exact reason behind how a newly discovered disease can
mimic Alzheimer, researchers at Mayo Clinic examined the
segmented 342 brains and found the presence of Alzheimer
disease pathologically. Further, brains were separated into
two different groups; one group of patients that did not have
the protein TDP-43, and another group of patients that did
have this protein. The difference researchers noticed in the
group that had the protein was small-sized brains as
compared to the other group. The observed size-deformity
of brains recognized as the cause of a type of dementia;
memory loss, inability to perform daily routine, etc., which
were previously mistaken as the symptoms of Alzheimer’s.
Now, the interesting aspect of the study was that the
particular group of patients who had Alzheimer’s disease
according to definition but when died, they were normal.
Researchers found that the missing protein TDP-43 caused
their death. The disorder has recently been recognized for
the first time when researchers have come to a consensus
and called dementia; LATE (limbic-predominant age-
related TDP-43 encephalopathy).
The similarity that blurs the lines inside a brain
People always compare Alzheimer’s as the aging effect.
The most general symptom of Alzheimer’s is difficulty in
remembering things. It affects individuals differently based
upon other symptoms such as difficulty in completing tasks,
trouble in speaking, misplacing things, and trouble with
visual perception. It is the most common type of dementia,
but researchers have found other types that may be similar
but act different inside the brain.
Alzheimer’s is the accumulation of thin-flat proteins called
beta-amyloid, and tangles, consisting of a different protein
called tau in the brain. However, in the case of LATE,
patients have a submission of a different protein, called
TDP-43, which is misfolded in shape and deposited layer-
by-layer inside the brain. The third protein (TDP-43) plays
a major role in Alzheimer’s disease pathology. In fact,
people whose brain is TDP positive are 10 times more
likely to be cognitively dysfunctional at death as compared
to those who did not have the protein. It shows that TDP-43
has the potential to overpower what has been termed as
resilient brain aging. It means people can have the
Alzheimer’s pathology, the two proteins-beta-amyloid and
tau, and they can still be normal but missing of the third
protein-TDP-43, is no way normal and can cause
catastrophic changes in behavior.
To conclude, LATE is one of the common age-related
diseases that can mimic Alzheimer’s disease. Both are
complex and unpromising to cure but current approaches by
neurologists, scientists, and healthcare policy makers are
focusing on people to maintain mental health, manage
behavioral symptoms, and exercise healthy lifestyle. In the
coming years, researchers hope to develop therapies
targeting patient’s genetic and cellular mechanisms so that
the actual cause of the disease can be prevented.
41