Healthy Conversations

In recognition of Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, today we’re re-releasing a special two-part episode with Dr. Seth Feuerstein, a psychiatrist and researcher who’s made the study and treatment of suicide his life’s work. Dr. Feuerstein is the CEO of Oui Therapeutics, which is building life-saving digital therapeutics to help in preventing suicide. He and our host, Dr. Daniel Kraft, have a wide-ranging discussion about ...

If you look around, you’ll probably notice that the U.S. population is getting older. In fact, one in five people will be retirement age by 2030. And the latest Health Trends Report, The Future of Healthy Aging, quotes the U.S. Census Bureau that three out of five people over the age of 65 manage two or more chronic conditions. “If we go back maybe 60 years or so, 40% of health care in America was delivered at home. Today ...

Primary care is the backbone of the health care system. So the question is, how do you keep the primary care system itself healthy? That’s the timely topic of this Healthy Conversations episode, where Sree Chaguturu, MD, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for CVS Health, addresses the challenges of delivering the right care at the right time, and in the right place. As he puts it, “Almost 80% of individuals...

While the health care industry can be challenging, with complex regulations and long-established bureaucracies, an innovative company called Redesign Health is working to transform it from within. Redesign Health is one of a number of organizations that received fresh funding last fall to boost health care startups from CVS Health Ventures, a unit of CVS Health which focuses on data-driven medicine and digital health inves...

How are we doing right now in terms of mental health in the United States?  According to Dr. Taft Parsons III, the Chief Psychiatric Officer at CVS Health, the situation is alarming: “Before COVID, we already knew that there was more need for mental health services than there were clinicians. And so we have seen an increased demand across all age groups, across all demographics taking place over the last couple years.” In ...

Genomics may seem like a field of study with minimal impact on our daily lives. But not for much longer — and certainly not to Dr. Deepak Srivastava, a cardiologist and president of the Gladstone Institutes. Rapid technological advances in this field are starting to surface across health care with significant and promising benefits. “The new world,” says Dr. Srivastava, “is going to be one where, as we identify the known g...

It’s been more than 20 years since the human genome was first sequenced.  And now, a new version that’s been updated with 47 men and women of diverse origins, including African Americans, East Asians, West Africans, and South Americans, among others, promises to benefit all people, regardless of their race, ethnicity or ancestry. This new version, called the “pangenome,” was announced earlier this month by the National Hum...

Are Americans underestimating their mental health struggles? A new study from CVS Health and Harris Poll found that nearly three in four Americans describe their mental health as “excellent” or “good,” and only one in 10 say their mental health has gotten worse in the last year. Yet nearly 60% of physicians report declining mental health among their patients. Why aren’t more people willing to talk about their feelings of a...

A recent CDC study reported that one in 36 children in the United States is diagnosed with autism. Today’s guest, Temple Grandin, is one of the country’s most renowned voices on autism with an incredible ability to open up and share her perspective on the world with us. A professor of animal science at Colorado State University, Grandin has been a pioneer in improving the welfare of farm animals for decades. She is the aut...

In part two of our conversation on clinical trials, we hear from two people directly involved in the effort to expand access to clinical trials in underserved communities. “There are challenges across the board, both in getting patients into studies and also getting them to stay in studies — what’s called retention,” says our first guest, Josh Rose, Vice President and Head of Clinical Trial Delivery, Site Solutions and Str...

Today, in the first of a two-part episode on increasing diversity in clinical trials, we hear from Dr. Owen Garrick, Chief Medical Officer of Clinical Trial Services at CVS Health. The unit, launched in 2021, is creating a network of clinical research sites by equipping certain HealthHUB and MinuteClinic locations with the staff and resources needed to conduct complex clinical trial protocols. The goal is to expand access ...

In part two of our conversation about the Clinical Entrepreneur Programme from England’s National Health Service, our host, Dr. Daniel Kraft, continues his discussion with Dr. Tony Young, the program’s founder. They talk about a number of innovations brought about through the program, including two aimed at addressing health disparities. CardMedic uses a collection of “digital flashcards” to help improve communication betw...

Clinicians are problem solvers by nature but taking an idea for a new innovation from concept to commercial market is not a skill widely taught in medical school. In 2015, England’s National Health Service (NHS) launched a Clinical Entrepreneur Programme to help provide just that type of knowledge and expertise. Our host, Dr. Daniel Kraft, speaks with Dr. Tony Young, the founder of that program who is an avid entrepreneur ...

One in four people in the U.S. has been diagnosed with a gastrointestinal (GI) condition, says the co-founder and CEO of Oshi Health, Sam Holliday. The patient journey to diagnosis is costly and long—often two to four years—and filled with tests, examinations and waiting rooms. Oshi Health is a startup and CVS Health Ventures partner that uses an integrated virtual care model to scale access to care and innovation for pati...

In Part 2 of the Healthy Conversations discussion with Dr. Brennan Spiegel, professor of medicine and public health at Cedar Sinai Health System, gastroenterologist, and VR pioneer, lets us peak into the future, and see some of the many ways VR is getting “real-er” – as he puts it: “You can experience life as someone with a disability, or as a different race, or with certain physical or visual handicaps. And that can give ...

In the first of a 2-part episode on Healthy Conversations, Dr. Brennan Spiegel, a professor of medicine and public health at Cedars-Sinai Health System, gastroenterologist, and VR pioneer, discusses the exciting possibilities of virtual reality in terms of its affecting the human mind, as well as chronic diseases. As he puts it, "Rather than always bringing patients to the clinic, what if we can bring the clinic to the pat...