Pharmacy Career, Resource & Training with Kavita Nadan

Managing Health Outcomes with StrongRoom AI

March 17, 2023

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In this episode of Pharmacy View Podcast’s Pharmacy Career, Resource & Training, host, Kavita Nadan, Pharmacist, and Founder at Locumate, is joined by Max Mito, the Co-Founder / CEO at StrongRoom AI and Dr Craig Nossel, Chief Executive Officer, Carenomix & Co-founder, Evia Health. Listen in as the conversation takes us through how both Max and Craig met to how, along with their team, they have changed the game with innovative tech and medication management to a future that holds much more promise.

Max talks about being with StrongRoom AI their whole professional life, having co-founded it with Christopher Durre. Craig, on the other hand, started with a dream to specialize in paediatrics to ending up as the head of Vitality Wellness, an incentive-based global wellness company. Craig who strongly believes that no meeting should be turned down met Max and the rest, as they say, is history.

Pharmacy View Podcast · Episode 69 Managing Health Outcomes with StrongRoom AI

When asked about what has made StrongRoom AI successful, Max attributes it to:

Having started young and having had the patience to work through the problems
Working with different mentors
Being supported by the wider community
Finding and working with the right people

Answering the same question, Craig credits the success to

People
Purpose
Process

Talking about how StrongRoom AI works to support Pharmacists to strengthen the Health Care System, both Max and Craig emphasise the need for data literacy among the Pharmacists so that people are active and not reactive participants in the change process. Their tool is designed to provide additional data in an easy to understand way so that it then aids the understanding of trends. In simple term, their tool analyses all the data within any Pharmacy; it is a dynamic solution so that Pharmacists understand what they have and where the opportunities lie. The tool is also customer centric as it makes more services readily available to the community and helps access the otherwise underserved client base.

Furthering how users can access it, Max explains the pretty straight-forward system:

An existing StrongRoom customer can simply activate the module then and there. They will also get a trainer.
If you are not using StrongRoom AI already, a desktop version of the module can be installed in your Pharmacy. Additionally, there is a cloud version that can be accessed.
If you have branch offices, there’s a head office view that allows you to consolidate all data and set some benchmarks across your branch offices.

Essentially the module draws data from all relevant sources and helps identify what areas need more focus and why, among endless other uses. So long as the users are open to learning and improving, they would be empowered and proactive in dealing with problems much more efficiently than done currently.

Craig says how it is an exciting time for the Pharmaceutical industry and they are thrilled to be playing in the space. They believe that technology providers and companies can play a critical role in bringing about a lot of positive change so long as they understand their clients’ needs. They emphasize the need for data literacy and customer engagement as being key to making the needed impact.

When asked about their advice for new entrants to the industry, Max says

Be tenacious and disciplined
Be creative and open-minded
Always stay humble

Answering the same question, Craig adds:

Age should not be a barrier, on either extreme
Be passionate about whatever you do
Surround yourself with the right people
Do your homework; there is no short-cut to success

Topics Covered

How did Max start StrongRoom AI?
Craig’s Background
How did Max and Craig meet?
The path to success for Max and Craig
Challenges Faced
How data is collected and used
Key takeaways

Key Quotes (Time Stamps)

“I studied medicine. Then my aim was: I wanted to specialize in paediatrics and I was going to go to the US to specialize. And during that time when I was doing my exams, I was offered a position at a health insurance company. I thought that I’ll do that for a few months, and then ended up being there for almost 21 years.” (3: 43 – 4:02) – Dr Craig Nossel

“A big passion of mine is around chronic disease management and adherence and all these sorts of challenges that we face. And to have the opportunity to work with someone with such drive and intelligence was a stick for me. And that’s really how we connected.” (4:57 – 5:14) – Dr Craig Nossel

“But I mean, my side of the story was that actually, one of our investors was like you should really meet Craig. And I know you’re probably going to ask this question later on, but I remember we met at a cafe in St Kilda, the first time I met Craig. And then, after that initial meeting, we were talking about how to use data in a way that is very that would be very interesting. And then essentially, I kept catching up with Craig. And then, here we are today on a podcast to discuss the work that we’ve done since the two years we originally met.” (5:18 – 6:04) – Max Mito

“On my end, the support network that we’ve or that StrongRoom has experienced through our wider community has really that a really integral part of us succeeding. I mean, my background is in economics and history while Chris’s is more in data analytics and computer science. So, we don’t come from a medical background. So, I think, one of the big contributors to us being successful was that we started very young and we had the patience to work through the problem. So, it took us maybe three years initially to get our initial concept up and it changed through many different iterations. But we were very lucky to have different mentors.” (6:39 – 7:23) – Max Mito

“We had maybe four employees at the start of Covid and as we came out with it with about 30 to 40 employees. But the challenges were about finding ways to be adaptable while scaling as quickly as possible. And that’s been a very challenging and painful time. So, finding the right people, making sure that people are adapting quickly enough: that’s really been my biggest challenge, today. It is less so on the technology side.” (8:00 – 8:28) – Max Mito

“People, Purpose, and Process are what I think have been very valuable for me.” (8:42 – 8:49) – Dr Craig Nossel

“I think, particularly in the health care space, we often are not trained to work as teams; in these multi-disciplinary teams and that appreciation of how much we learn from other people. And I think that’s certainly an important way of going forward and a lot of it is happening; and that it’s not just the doctor, just the Pharmacist, just the social worker, but how we come together. Ultimately this is about patient centricity and patient outcomes and having a diverse team and diverse skills. It’s what’s going to crack it, including the technology teams, the data teams, and things.” (11:28- 12:04) – Dr Craig Nossel

“In Australia, our chronic disease has a massive impact on health and productivity. But I think 37% of hospitalizations are linked to people with chronic conditions, cardiovascular disease, about a third of us, got hypertension or hypercholesterolemia, and diabetes, about 1.7 billion. Don’t quite know the exact numbers; and mental health issues. And we know medication as well as lifestyle plays a critical role in managing that. The challenge is that in many of these conditions, we feel okay and in fact the medicine makes us feel worse in the condition in many instances. So, hypertension is called the silent killer for a reason. We feel fine and then it hits us. And so, taking medication, going each month and collecting medication and adherence and there are multiple aspects of it, but it’s a challenge for people. And clearly the Pharmacists, the ones dispensing, are in a perfect position to be supporting patients in this chronic disease journey as we have an older population, the prevalence of chronic disease starts to increase and we have just seen still about 50% of people aren’t getting the medicine or aren’t taking the medicine properly, which is a key philosophy within StrongRoom of how do we support this with data and technology.” (15:23 – 16:45) – Dr Craig Nossel

“And my background really is in the behavioural economics side. So, how do we change behavior? It’s one thing to have the data and the insights, but what can we do to nudge people, and incentivize people? How do we communicate to people in a way that, uses the data and then automates and facilitates some of that? So, that was kind of a really big problem that we’ve got to solve. And people are doing things in the space. We’re not the only ones. But I think, as Max said, and they’ll talk through the detail, I think that the type of data analytics, the use of AI, and the amazing team that Max has got combined with sort of these simple-to-use personalized interventions, we think will have a significant impact on the whole ecosystem. And so, the patient benefits, the Pharmacist benefits, and importantly, society benefits.” (16:46 – 17:43) – Dr Craig Nossel

“And so, the Pharmacist is now empowered with very powerful communication tools that are targeted based on what the issue that we predict is causing poor adherence or compliance. I think that’s another component of bringing all those things together. And as with any sort of data, as we collect more data, there are tests and learning that will take place almost in real time because there’s no perfect system. But as long as we open to learning and improving, we’re going to create something that’s a lot more valuable than what currently exists.” (25:15 – 25:50) – Dr Craig Nossel

“And I know I’ve talked little for quite a bit, but one of the most interesting case studies we’ve seen come up is that there is a direct correlation rate between conducting a medication review and the number proportionally to the patients in the Pharmacy to adherence rates. And what’s really interesting is that for the Pharmacies that are doing the professional services, the adherence rates are 20 to 30% higher than for Pharmacies that aren’t doing it. So again, looking at the business case study for that, in that instance, the one that isn’t doing anything, not only are they not getting that fee from the seventh CPA, but they’re actually losing out because patients are deciding to go elsewhere that has better service. And then, if you’re looking at Pharmacies that are well run, doing all these professional services, they’re getting rewarded a lot more than just the professional services that they’re providing to that individual. And oftentimes we’re seeing in our discussions that that sort of economic calculation has not been put into consideration as well. So, again, that’s what this tool helps to bring to light very quickly.” (29:47 – 31:00) – Max Mito

“This is me being more critical of my own industry rather than that of the Pharmacists. But I think that the technological backbone sitting behind Pharmacies is just not quite there yet to facilitate this value-based care that they’re really striving to achieve. So, I think over the next 18 to 24 months, we are going to probably see quite a few tools such as the one we are talking about today: strong analytics coming up; and I think, we’ve always talked about personalization and being able to understand data a little bit more.” (34:18 – 35:01) – Max Mito

“I think I would love to be playing in the Pharmacy space right now. Well, I think it’s an incredibly exciting time, and not that it’s going to be easy and nothing’s easy, but I think it will bring a lot of change and the ability to embrace technology. I think that technology providers and companies need to understand their clients really well.” (36:30 – 36:56) – Dr Craig Nossel