A Tech-Driven Approach to Preventing Amputations with Dr. Jon Bloom, co-founder and CEO of Podimetrics

[00:00:01] This podcast is produced by Outcomes Rocket, your healthcare-exclusive digital marketing agency. Outcomes Rocket exists to help healthcare organizations like yours to maximize their impact and accelerate growth. Visit outcomesrocket.com or text us at 312-224-9945.

[00:00:25] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket. So excited that you joined us. For another awesome episode, because today I've got an extraordinary leader in healthcare. His name is Dr. Jon Bloom. He's a board-certified physician and entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in healthcare delivery and tech development.

[00:00:51] We actually shared a period at Medtronic slash Covidian. He is the co-founder and CEO of Podimetrics now, a company that he started in 2011 while a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I'm excited to dive into this because they're doing a lot for high-risk diabetes patients, for veterans, and they've received many recognitions.

[00:01:16] Among that, Deloitte's recognitions for 150 fastest-growing companies in North America. Such a pleasure to have you here, Jon. Thanks for joining. Thrilled to be here today. Oh, my gosh. So, look, you know, to kick things off, I always think it's great for us to cover inspiration in healthcare. What inspires your work in the business? Gosh, I think it's just a huge problem that really still gets you out of bed every single day.

[00:01:43] Of course, the patient we care for, this patient at risk of diabetic foot complications. I had seen this patient in my medical training. Even when I was a resident, I could spend whole days doing nothing but amputations. And then, you know, when I was briefly practicing, although, again, I got obsessed by this problem, so I didn't practice for too long. Again, I could spend whole days on this problem. It just seemed like it was one where we were finding out about this way too late. Could we just try to define early signs and maybe there's simple things we can do?

[00:02:13] That's it. That's what's behind it. It's just a big, thorny problem that feels like it shouldn't be here. And that's causing real pain in the community across the U.S. Yeah, it's a big issue. And so let's dig into it. Tell us about Podometrics. What's the business? What do you guys do? How is it different? And why does it matter? Well, you know, there's about 37 million Americans right now with diabetes. I'm just looking at the U.S. presently. And about 5% of these patients are going to get a diabetic foot complication. Typically, it's an ulcer.

[00:02:43] It's a wound that can get infected and can lead to amputation. And this small population can cost, it's been estimated to cost over $100 billion every year in direct expenditures. Super expensive. And the worst is you get an amputation. It's been at least suggestion in literature that your fiber mortality is as high as 70%, which puts it higher than most forms of cancer. So these are very complex patients. And it's an inflammatory bomb that goes up in the foot. And this is not a benign procedure we have to do. The key, again, is trying to do early intervention.

[00:03:13] And what we're trying to do is create that through getting advanced tech in the home and then very personalized virtual care to wrap around it. And we start with caring for the foot. But when you have this opportunity, there's so much more of this patient that you can lean into to care for. The system itself, the hardware is an FDA-cleared smart mat. It's got a bunch of sensors across the top. And then we have this team of largely nursing staff that can then take these data, working under the direction of their clinician, do very simple offloading protocols.

[00:03:42] Basically, have the patient in this moment of risk walk less for about two weeks to try to prevent this whole cascade from occurring. And I find that with this personalized support, we can intervene enough to prevent much of the costs. And of course, these devastating complications. And in one trial we showed, we're able to prevent amputations by as much as 70%. We're also able to address, look for problems in mental health and social determinants of health.

[00:04:08] It's been a wonderful thing to finally start to see the needle move and to be in this home and to be able to be a good partner for this patient where I think we as a healthcare system have really struggled. Yeah, no, I really appreciate that, John. And there's these moments then that come up that if the right level of intervention is introduced, you can avoid the catastrophic things like amputation. Is there anything that can lead to reversal in these types of conditions?

[00:04:37] And maybe not. I'm just curious. Such a good question. You know, I think the physical changes that have now put you at risk of diabetic foot, these have been accumulated over many, many years. We think about now atherosclerosis that have created pretty tight vessels into the feet, nerve damage. You can't feel any sort of painful signal that would warn you to change behavior. Right? Pain is actually a wonderful gift if we think of it that way. So you've lost your alarm system. Of course, all these other, you know, your heart's been often compromised.

[00:05:06] These are largely permanent effects. So our job is not to, as a healthcare system, as a technology, hopefully we're going to learn how to reverse some of these effects. But in that meantime, can we be there and notice these moments of increased risk and then reverse you out of that increased risk to prevent acute complication on top of chronic disease? And if we do that, reverse those moments of acute risk, then yeah, we can keep our patients at a healthy baseline and they can live the life that they want on their own terms. That's great.

[00:05:35] No, I really appreciate that. And this is more like me, like wishful thinking, right? Like always thinking like, where can this go? But man, I mean, if you're preventing amputations by 70%, I can't imagine some of the stories. Or do people even realize that, John? Like, do they realize that they were just spared of an amputation? Or is it more like, I'm just going to continue living? Yeah, it's funny. It's like, do you recognize something that didn't happen? Right.

[00:06:03] And if we're able to prevent an amputation, the patient, yeah, you often don't. So many of our winds are very silent. They just didn't happen. And so you have to, you know, to really see the impact, you have to, for the patient, they have to connect what had life been like and what is it like now? And for populations, you got a control group and show that it's different. And that's critical for control. But yeah, it's tough. I'll tell you the one story though, that was probably the most dramatic and actually wasn't related to the foot. You know, we were beginning to monitor this patient and they suddenly stopped using it.

[00:06:31] So typically we'll reach out to them and just make sure everything's okay. We had to leave a voicemail on this patient's fine because he wasn't present there at the time. Thankfully, he called us back the next day and then he told the nurse that was caring for him that actually the pain in his limb had become too great. You know, sometimes he can be painful diabetic neuropathy. That he had just lost his will. It wasn't worth it. He wanted to let us know that he was going to take his life. Oh my God. What's amazing, of course, is we were able to activate MS, get him the support he needed.

[00:07:00] And thankfully he's still with us. But I thought about this case that he didn't call his provider that he was in this type of trouble. He didn't call his son who did everything for him. Didn't call anyone you would have thought of it. He called us and we had this magical moment to now care for this patient well beyond their foot. Like sure, we're in that home because we were trying to care for the foot, but you get this opportunity to... I think about this patient a lot. Like just responsibility. It's a privilege to get to take on. And this is a complex patient.

[00:07:29] And sometimes it's not the foot where you can have your biggest impact. And I'm so thankful he's still with us. That's awesome. Well, I mean, that's just super impactful, John. And look, for everybody listening and watching us, who's your end customer? Like who do you serve in the healthcare ecosystem? Our customer is the insurance, can be the payer who pays for care. Sure. Or we can provide them good savings. But we have to serve every part of the ecosystem, as you can imagine. First and foremost, it's the patient. We got to make sure that we work well for them. They will use our system for years on out.

[00:07:58] So like you got to make sure you solve it for the patient. But you also have to make sure for the provider that it's an almost essential zero lift to them. They're so busy. When I was a provider, if they gave me another dashboard, I would scream. I couldn't handle all the dashboards. We have to build it to be so seamless. So it's tough. It's one of those that you have to kind of acknowledge and sell for everyone. But ultimately, it's the insurance company, the payer that pays for the system. Got it. So you're working with payers. And obviously, payers are insurance companies, the government, right? You guys are doing some good work with the government.

[00:08:28] It's been one of our most meaningful clients to date is the Veterans Health Administration. I grew up in the VA with my dad, a Vietnam veteran. He was an Air Force pilot. And just quickly, I remember seeing all these patients with missing limbs. And I used to think it was combat trauma. And it wasn't until medical training, he realized that that's diabetes. It's devastating our veterans, particularly our Vietnam veterans. And to be able to get a chance to serve them who served us, who took such good care of us,

[00:08:57] it is an amazing thing beyond that it's been the most meaningful partnership I've ever had. That's so great. Right. What's one thing most people don't know about the problem you solve, you and your team? I mean, I kind of just alluded to the thing about it. It's that diabetic foot ulcers, this rather unsexy complication. That's the number one cause of amputations in the US and probably in the world. A single one can cost as much as 100K. It gets the same amount of airplay as other ones.

[00:09:24] And yet it drives dramatic costs, dramatic morbidity, mortality. And so it's a sneaky killer, unfortunately. Yeah. Thankfully, you guys have found a way to prevent it. No, as best we can. I think we still have more work to do and it's going to take a village. It's more than just us. We all have to work together to try to get the care to this patient when they need. Yeah. No, it's great. I love the work. It's meaningful. And look, on the building businesses side of things, it's always fun to learn from successful people.

[00:09:52] What would you say is your favorite business resource or business hack that you'd recommend to our listeners and why? Someone actually asked me this recently. And the biggest thing has been journaling. Like as you think about trying to be super intentional in all the decisions you got to make in career, in life, and why suddenly want to be a physician and then from them get into med tech, be a comedian from there to go to business school and eventually be an entrepreneur instead of, I always thought I was going to be a VC.

[00:10:22] It was always just trying to write down like what was most important to me and what was this life I wanted to live and what are the values that gave me the most meaning? And then it gave me a really nice compass. And then I'd say further, you get kicked in the teeth in a startup. It's tough. Yeah. And so having this thing that I just keep coming back to every day that says like, here's why it's so important and why it's so important that journaling was, it's sometimes hard to just sit down and start putting stuff on paper, but it has been huge in my life. My gosh.

[00:10:52] That's awesome, John. Yeah. I love that. I'm a big journaler too. And especially with those tough moments, I learned the four A's, the four A's that I learned on the journaling are acknowledge, accept, act, and attack. Mm-hmm. And like, to your point, the acknowledge and the accept are those things that you really just have to stomach sometimes, get after it. And your journaling habit, I'm sure has gotten you through some tough ones. There's such good ownership in the way that you said that too.

[00:11:22] Like acknowledge and accept doesn't mean you have to accept that this is the way it has to be, but here's the reality of it. So what are we going to do and how do we attack it? And it's a beautiful sense of ownership and all that's around you. It's, I hadn't thought of it in that type of a piece, but yet that's so true. Like what's really going on? What's here being in some ways at peace with the reality of it. And then, but we can make a difference. We can change it. I love that idea. I learned it from a mentor of mine, Brandon Dawson, great business builder, also a journaler like yourself.

[00:11:52] And so it just made me think of it, but I love that folks take a note from Dr. Bloom here. And if you haven't been getting through your thoughts strategically, open up that journal. Your next breakthrough is probably a sentence away. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Well, look, John, this has been an incredible opportunity to connect with you. You've built an incredible business that's helping so many people.

[00:12:19] What's the best place our listeners could get in touch with you if they want to learn more or payers that may want to engage? For me, LinkedIn is probably the easiest way to just quickly get me. But for our company and all the work that we're doing, our website, podometrics.com is a great resource and allows you to get right to the people who can offer the most help. Amazing, John. Really appreciate that. Folks, make sure you check out our show notes where you'll get Dr. John Bloom's LinkedIn.

[00:12:47] Also a link to Podometrics, his company. He's the chief executive officer there and just grateful that he joined us. So appreciate everybody being in to take action because this is something that's preventable. And Dr. Bloom, thanks for joining us. This is a true pleasure. Thanks for having me.

[00:13:15] This podcast is produced by Outcomes Rocket, your healthcare exclusive digital marketing agency. Outcomes Rocket exists to help healthcare organizations like yours to maximize their impact and accelerate growth. Visit OutcomesRocket.com or text us at 312-224-9945.