March 30, 2023 • 23 mins
Talking about the climate crisis is like taking our planet to the doctor for a checkup. Ignoring the symptoms puts our health and well-being at risk and leads to even heftier healthcare bills that we cannot afford to ignore.
Join Nazish Riaz, Partner at Engagys, and host Shiva Mirhosseini as they discuss the healthcare impacts of the climate crisis and its disproportionate impact on marginalized communities around the globe.
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Episode Transcript
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Shiva (00:09):
Hi. Welcome to Paving the Path. I'm your host, Shiva,
Meera Saini. People know me as a customer experience champion
and a digital executive at Fortune 50 companies. I plan
on paving the path in my show with women game changers,
thought leaders and executives touching the entire spectrum of digital
transformation in healthcare. Join me in exploring the digital renaissance
(00:33):
that's shaping healthcare today and forever changing the future of
wellness care and health. Welcome to another episode of Paving
the Path, where we explore the intersection of technology and healthcare.
Today we are discussing the climate crisis and its impact
(00:53):
on healthcare and the US healthcare ecosystem. Talking about the
climate crisis is like taking our planet to the doctor
for a checkup. Ignoring the symptoms puts our health and
well-being at risk and leads to even heftier healthcare bills
that we cannot afford to ignore. That's why I'm dedicating
today's episode to examining the impact of the crisis on
(01:15):
healthcare and its rising costs. To put things into perspective,
the CDC has identified various domains of concern, including air quality,
extreme heat and vector borne diseases, each having significant effects
on both health care and costs. According to the CDC,
healthcare costs will be increasing to $2 annually by 2030
(01:37):
and $14 billion annually by 2050. So join us as
we discuss these challenges with healthcare industry experts and explore
the solutions to mitigate these impacts. Today we are joined
by Nasir Riaz, a healthcare technology partner at Engages, a
leading consumer engagement consulting firm. Nasir has been working in
(01:58):
healthcare for 15 years, partnering with plans, providers and health
tech companies to improve healthcare consumer engagement. Her passion for
climate crisis has led her to volunteer roles with the UN,
non-profits and NGOs working on policy change and advocacy related
to the climate crisis and its disproportionate impact on marginalized
(02:20):
communities around the globe. She has facilitated workshops and forums
at the UN conferences for the non governmental track. I've
known Nazis for years and I'm fascinated by her knowledge
of the US healthcare ecosystem, but probably more importantly, by
her dedication to learn about the climate crisis and informing
the rest of us about how to cope with the
(02:42):
new reality that's upon us now. Welcome. It's great to
have you with us. We have quite a bit to cover,
so I'd love to jump right in. Perhaps to start with,
please tell us a little bit about yourself. What led
you to your current roles, especially interest in climate change
and climate leadership and volunteering roles that you have right now?
Nazish (03:05):
Happy to. Well, a little bit background about me. I
was born and raised in Pakistan and I like to
tell this story to everybody that I grew up right
next to a freshwater stream, which I played in and
hung out with my friends around that freshwater stream. But
about ten years ago, I visited that town and that
(03:27):
water stream is not there. And that is one of
the reasons why I started thinking about or working within
the climate area. And with regards to the health care
work that I'm doing, in a way both climate and
(03:49):
health care impact humans. And I think that's the key
for me, where I want to work in fields that
impact human lives. People like me, you, everybody else around us.
And my involvement with United Nations is mostly related to
(04:12):
my work around the advocacy and education of the how
climate crisis is impacting people who are marginalized. For example, women, children,
people in Global South, people in the United States of
(04:33):
America who live in the areas where the environment already
is degrading heavily and what kind of impact it has
on their daily lives, or I should say our daily lives,
including ourselves. And that's the kind of work that I
do with the various NGOs that I volunteer for. We
(04:57):
go attend the. You may have. Heard about the climate
change conferences known as cops. We attend with United Nations,
go there and across people around the globe meeting people,
sharing ideas, learning about the solutions and what people are
doing and what we are doing collectively to move forward
(05:20):
on this work.
Shiva (05:21):
Yeah, I mean, it's just listening to you, I'm reminded
of it takes a village to do anything, but when
it comes to climate, it takes the whole world to
really unite against something that individually or even as one country,
it's really difficult to make significant, meaningful impact on. I'm
(05:42):
struck by some of the examples you and I have
discussed in the past. Maybe you can shed some light
on just in numbers how our lives across the world
has been impacted.
Nazish (05:52):
Absolutely. I'll say I think the one of the biggest
impact that the world right now is seeing as a
result of the floods, hurricanes, heatwaves or the fires is
the displacement. And I think there is an estimate out
there that there are about 20 million people who are
forced to leave their homes every year. And just to
(06:15):
put this in perspective, this is roughly equal to the
population of the five largest cities in the United States
of America. Imagine if people living in New York, LA, Chicago,
Houston and Phoenix were displaced and the toll that it
takes on the mental and physical health of the displaced people.
(06:37):
There's no match. It's huge. And this number is increasing
and it's every year. And then if really, other than
the displacement, then I think there was a report that
came out from Lancet a few years ago that says
that there are about 5 million deaths that are associated
(06:57):
with extremely low or high temperatures yearly, and the number
of people dying from heat waves is increasing worldwide. And
coming from Pakistan, it's a very real thing for us.
Like it's heat waves and people's death are directly correlated.
(07:17):
And I'll share some of these stats and I know
we will talk about the solutions as well. I want
to be mindful that these are hard things to hear,
so bear with me a little bit. So and there
are over 930 million people in our world. About 12%
(07:40):
of our world population spends 10% of their household budget
on health care. It's already expensive for us as individual
for health care. We're spending a lot of money on
health and health related issues. And the poorest people largely uninsured.
(08:02):
These health shocks are impacting them a ton, as we
all know that about 100 million people are pushed into
poverty every year because of the impacts of other things.
But climate change is part and parcel of this situation.
And talking about the dollar amounts, I think United Nations
(08:26):
estimates about 2 to $4 billion per year by 2030
in the direct damage costs to health because of these
climate related events.
Shiva (08:39):
Wow. I think it's worth taking a moment of silence
just to digest the tremendous impact of some of these
changes that are impacting our lives. And it's, you know,
unnoticeable until you have the crisis actually hit your town
or household. But I think by and large, as you mentioned,
(09:01):
the frequency of these changes are increasing and every time
the depth is just getting more exacerbated. So with that
in mind, given your role and you gave us some
examples as a as a consultant, you know, you're working
with leaders in health care hospitals. I know it's near
(09:21):
and dear to you the impact that these changes are
having on the health professionals. And we already have a
shortage of doctors, nurses, medical equipment and more complex health situations,
at least in the US and I'm sure even more
so around the world. How do you see all of
this come together? And if you can also shed some
(09:44):
light on some mitigation strategies as well?
Nazish (09:48):
Absolutely. So I'll start with a little bit of a.
Bigger picture and then go deeper into how in my
day to day life I am seeing the impact of
these things. So. Few years ago, climate conversations were about
preventing or reversing the impacts of this crisis. But now,
more and more, everyone is talking about minimizing the impact
(10:11):
of this crisis, building climate resiliency and adaptive infrastructure in
all areas of our lives, including human health and health
care systems. And we all know earlier we said that
it takes a village to make these changes and we
need massive transformation and reimagination of our economies, societies and
(10:37):
systems in order to survive this crisis. And in my
day job, partnering with the health plans and health tech companies,
my core job is to remove barriers that are in
the way of accessing health care for consumers, for people
within the health care system, and that includes the barriers
(11:03):
and for within health care. I think the most significant
impact of the climate crisis is on the social and
environmental determinants of health. And what are those? Food, housing,
clean water and air. And as we all know, like
many other things in our world, the climate crisis impact
(11:26):
is not equal on all populations. It is worse for
already vulnerable people. The relationship between the air pollution and
respiratory illnesses. We all know it's widely known from allergies
to asthma, food and water borne diseases are on the
rise and will keep rising. And the extreme weather events
(11:48):
make people with existing conditions more likely to be impacted.
And then loss of transportation and health care facilities during floods,
hurricanes and fires is a threat multiplier multiplier for human health.
This crisis actually threatens any little progress that we have
(12:09):
made over the years in the area of health equity.
And now I'll give you an example, a real life
example of the storm in Texas. A few years ago
in winter, my team was working with a condition management
tech company that had to close its offices due to
storm storm related disruptions. And what we are seeing within
(12:33):
the health care provider networks that people have to evacuate
during the extreme weather conditions and it will become more
and more harder and expensive to make the health care
facilities available to people. You know.
Shiva (12:49):
Access to care already is difficult. With these disruptions, that's
even more challenging. But another issue is really around mental health,
whether it's earthquake that you probably saw in in Turkey
or fire in California or actually even some of the
more strikingly surprising places around the world, the heat wave
(13:13):
in in Europe, the displacement or these adverse effects are
pretty traumatic on the lives of people. And I'm thinking
about already shortage of social workers, therapists and psychologists and
how that access and that kind of mismatch between supply
and demand is exacerbated by these events. I just don't
(13:35):
know if we are ready for that yet.
Nazish (13:37):
Yeah, absolutely. And also, I think just as a frank
friend and not as a policy person or a health
care worker, this is an enormous problem that sometimes I
feel like we are going through the collectively all of
us are going through this, you know, reckoning with the
(13:58):
problem psychologically, emotionally and some of us are in the
denial stage. Some are in like the grief stage and
some are finally in the accepting stage. And I think
the opportunity or in this world, I think the first
and foremost most thing is just understanding, like slowly understanding
(14:21):
the impact of this crisis on our systems, our people,
from food systems to water to mental health to all
the areas. Just getting that understanding will help us come
together to find solutions, right? That's the that's the hope
that if you were to ask me, the hope in
(14:44):
this whole scenario is that hope that one day enough
of us will come together to work in a way
that we can make big enough dent in this problem
that we can. Set up systems that are resilient, that
actually care for people. They are built like, for example, for,
(15:09):
you know, health plans, providers. I see there is a
tremendous opportunity and really understanding the health care consumer and
their social and environmental determinants of health and harnessing the
power of data through the AI tools that are plenty
(15:29):
now out there to really identify people at higher risk
and then finding solutions to reduce that risk. What would
it look like for us to see that somebody had
an appointment and they needed transportation and then as a
result of that flood, they might not be able to travel.
(15:52):
So having systems opportunities where we completely can track that
person who missed that appointment to schedule that appointment after
that flood event is over. I think I've been loving
this idea of food as a medicine. It's gaining traction
within our industry. But again, right, we cannot achieve the
(16:15):
full benefit until we transform our food system and including
protecting the natural ecosystem, changes in our diet, farm food
production improvements, and also decarbonizing the supply chain. Right? We
cannot solve one problem and create another one as a
(16:35):
result of one of the solutions. And then at the
end of the day, right, the policymakers have some work
to do to that. We need to incorporate climate perspective
and build resilience and actually funding for the health care
system for optimal access, cost and quality of care within
(16:59):
the US and across the globe. And again, going back
to starting from the beginning, I think there is a
deep need for understanding how this crisis is impacting our health,
health care use, quality and cost. And I think that's
(17:21):
the missing piece here that we don't we haven't even
touched the surface of the impacts and what's really going
to happen and how we're going to change things.
Shiva (17:34):
Right. We haven't I think from a timing perspective, perhaps,
and this is the powerful Shiva talking, it couldn't have
come to this stage at a better time. I'm thinking
of this company I'm talking to that is leveraging essentially
generative AI to intervene and assist therapists and mental health
(17:59):
workers through chat. And it sounds like a human. It's
very contextual, it's very personalized, and it's a global platform.
And they're helping individuals across the world. And they have,
from what I've seen, like de-escalate the thousands of even
severe mental issues like suicide. When the earthquake in in
(18:24):
Turkey and Syria happened, they were one of the first
responders to go down and really get in touch and
support the people in need. And so that's just you know,
it's we wouldn't talk about this five years ago even
that a product driven by I could really intervene and
(18:44):
help people with trauma to alleviate some of that pain.
When you talk to clients technologies to start ups know
or peers you know, what other trends are you looking
at that you take with you to some of these
conversations at the UN or nonprofit or these councils around
the world?
Nazish (19:04):
Yeah, absolutely. I think the one of the.
Totally agreeing with you.
That we have.
Plenty of solutions. I think the issue right now that
we have is the issue of scale and adoption. So
there is so much out there. But to as you
were saying, that, you know, it's very little or little adoption.
(19:29):
But to another point that I would say, I think
the the telehealth is becoming quite an a trend where
how the health care industry and you and I were
part of that transition. Right. How we transition from a
paper based industry to digital industry and like over COVID.
(19:51):
And also, I think as humans, we have dealt with
these types of problems before too that we are. Resilient
enough people that we can get through this, too. And
telehealth is becoming a, you know, a super opportunity. Like,
for example, if let's say in my mind, if we
(20:13):
are at a stage where data.
Interoperability is.
At a point where let's say we are closing a.
Health care facility closed.
At 1 in 1 area, but is.
There a possibility to utilize digital tools or.
Transfer the data information for those patients live to a
(20:36):
completely different area and see.
What resources are available, What.
Physicians or any.
Health care workers are available out there.
Who can support this? And another trend that is interesting
is training the.
Health care resources.
On being aware of climate sensitive.
(21:00):
Issues. There are things that.
Are directly being caused because.
Of whether.
It's waterborne diseases or insect bites and things like that.
So I think the training, the health care workers in a.
Way which is different.
Than before. Right. And then giving them tools, whether those
are digital, like the chat bots that you were talking about,
(21:23):
having the.
Ability.
To listen, you know, parse the conversation that the doctor
and the patient is having and propping up some information
that would be useful in that conversation. Those are the
type of things that could sound small right now, but
can be game changers in future.
Shiva (21:40):
Absolutely. Absolutely. Every little thing counts. Well, this is fabulous.
Any final thoughts that you want to share with us?
And probably more importantly, if people want to get in
touch with you through the work that you're doing directly
with the UN or through your consulting firm engages, I
know you're very active leading some of these conversations, even
(22:02):
with your clients. How do our listeners reach out to
you and connect with you?
Nazish (22:07):
Absolutely. I would love to hear from folks on either end.
It doesn't matter. From my perspective, it's the works are
on both sides of work, are connected I think engages.com
is a good place for folks to go and then
LinkedIn I'm happy to connect andreas@engage.com is my email address.
(22:29):
To be.
More specific. And I'm not a big social media person.
But.
If you want to reach out to me on other
social media channels too, happy to connect there.
As well.
Shiva (22:41):
Fabulous. Well, no. Thank you so, so much for making
time for us. This was a great conversation and for
our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. So
much to be hopeful about, so much to be aware of.
And this was just a nugget of of what is
ahead in terms of global crises, but also all the
(23:04):
opportunities that can help humanity overcome just and adapt to
the changes that are, you know, exhilaratingly affecting our lives.
With that, thank you all for listening and tuning in.
Until next time.
Jared (23:20):
Thanks for tuning in. If you like what you heard,
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(23:42):
podcasts you need and it's all for free. And remember,
we might have a lot of work to do in
health care, but we'll get there faster together. Thanks again.
Hi. Welcome to Paving the Path. I'm your host, Shiva,
Meera Saini. People know me as a customer experience champion
and a digital executive at Fortune 50 companies. I plan
on paving the path in my show with women game changers,
thought leaders and executives touching the entire spectrum of digital
transformation in healthcare. Join me in exploring the digital renaissance
(00:33):
that's shaping healthcare today and forever changing the future of
wellness care and health. Welcome to another episode of Paving
the Path, where we explore the intersection of technology and healthcare.
Today we are discussing the climate crisis and its impact
(00:53):
on healthcare and the US healthcare ecosystem. Talking about the
climate crisis is like taking our planet to the doctor
for a checkup. Ignoring the symptoms puts our health and
well-being at risk and leads to even heftier healthcare bills
that we cannot afford to ignore. That's why I'm dedicating
today's episode to examining the impact of the crisis on
(01:15):
healthcare and its rising costs. To put things into perspective,
the CDC has identified various domains of concern, including air quality,
extreme heat and vector borne diseases, each having significant effects
on both health care and costs. According to the CDC,
healthcare costs will be increasing to $2 annually by 2030
(01:37):
and $14 billion annually by 2050. So join us as
we discuss these challenges with healthcare industry experts and explore
the solutions to mitigate these impacts. Today we are joined
by Nasir Riaz, a healthcare technology partner at Engages, a
leading consumer engagement consulting firm. Nasir has been working in
(01:58):
healthcare for 15 years, partnering with plans, providers and health
tech companies to improve healthcare consumer engagement. Her passion for
climate crisis has led her to volunteer roles with the UN,
non-profits and NGOs working on policy change and advocacy related
to the climate crisis and its disproportionate impact on marginalized
(02:20):
communities around the globe. She has facilitated workshops and forums
at the UN conferences for the non governmental track. I've
known Nazis for years and I'm fascinated by her knowledge
of the US healthcare ecosystem, but probably more importantly, by
her dedication to learn about the climate crisis and informing
the rest of us about how to cope with the
(02:42):
new reality that's upon us now. Welcome. It's great to
have you with us. We have quite a bit to cover,
so I'd love to jump right in. Perhaps to start with,
please tell us a little bit about yourself. What led
you to your current roles, especially interest in climate change
and climate leadership and volunteering roles that you have right now?
Nazish (03:05):
Happy to. Well, a little bit background about me. I
was born and raised in Pakistan and I like to
tell this story to everybody that I grew up right
next to a freshwater stream, which I played in and
hung out with my friends around that freshwater stream. But
about ten years ago, I visited that town and that
(03:27):
water stream is not there. And that is one of
the reasons why I started thinking about or working within
the climate area. And with regards to the health care
work that I'm doing, in a way both climate and
(03:49):
health care impact humans. And I think that's the key
for me, where I want to work in fields that
impact human lives. People like me, you, everybody else around us.
And my involvement with United Nations is mostly related to
(04:12):
my work around the advocacy and education of the how
climate crisis is impacting people who are marginalized. For example, women, children,
people in Global South, people in the United States of
(04:33):
America who live in the areas where the environment already
is degrading heavily and what kind of impact it has
on their daily lives, or I should say our daily lives,
including ourselves. And that's the kind of work that I
do with the various NGOs that I volunteer for. We
(04:57):
go attend the. You may have. Heard about the climate
change conferences known as cops. We attend with United Nations,
go there and across people around the globe meeting people,
sharing ideas, learning about the solutions and what people are
doing and what we are doing collectively to move forward
(05:20):
on this work.
Shiva (05:21):
Yeah, I mean, it's just listening to you, I'm reminded
of it takes a village to do anything, but when
it comes to climate, it takes the whole world to
really unite against something that individually or even as one country,
it's really difficult to make significant, meaningful impact on. I'm
(05:42):
struck by some of the examples you and I have
discussed in the past. Maybe you can shed some light
on just in numbers how our lives across the world
has been impacted.
Nazish (05:52):
Absolutely. I'll say I think the one of the biggest
impact that the world right now is seeing as a
result of the floods, hurricanes, heatwaves or the fires is
the displacement. And I think there is an estimate out
there that there are about 20 million people who are
forced to leave their homes every year. And just to
(06:15):
put this in perspective, this is roughly equal to the
population of the five largest cities in the United States
of America. Imagine if people living in New York, LA, Chicago,
Houston and Phoenix were displaced and the toll that it
takes on the mental and physical health of the displaced people.
(06:37):
There's no match. It's huge. And this number is increasing
and it's every year. And then if really, other than
the displacement, then I think there was a report that
came out from Lancet a few years ago that says
that there are about 5 million deaths that are associated
(06:57):
with extremely low or high temperatures yearly, and the number
of people dying from heat waves is increasing worldwide. And
coming from Pakistan, it's a very real thing for us.
Like it's heat waves and people's death are directly correlated.
(07:17):
And I'll share some of these stats and I know
we will talk about the solutions as well. I want
to be mindful that these are hard things to hear,
so bear with me a little bit. So and there
are over 930 million people in our world. About 12%
(07:40):
of our world population spends 10% of their household budget
on health care. It's already expensive for us as individual
for health care. We're spending a lot of money on
health and health related issues. And the poorest people largely uninsured.
(08:02):
These health shocks are impacting them a ton, as we
all know that about 100 million people are pushed into
poverty every year because of the impacts of other things.
But climate change is part and parcel of this situation.
And talking about the dollar amounts, I think United Nations
(08:26):
estimates about 2 to $4 billion per year by 2030
in the direct damage costs to health because of these
climate related events.
Shiva (08:39):
Wow. I think it's worth taking a moment of silence
just to digest the tremendous impact of some of these
changes that are impacting our lives. And it's, you know,
unnoticeable until you have the crisis actually hit your town
or household. But I think by and large, as you mentioned,
(09:01):
the frequency of these changes are increasing and every time
the depth is just getting more exacerbated. So with that
in mind, given your role and you gave us some
examples as a as a consultant, you know, you're working
with leaders in health care hospitals. I know it's near
(09:21):
and dear to you the impact that these changes are
having on the health professionals. And we already have a
shortage of doctors, nurses, medical equipment and more complex health situations,
at least in the US and I'm sure even more
so around the world. How do you see all of
this come together? And if you can also shed some
(09:44):
light on some mitigation strategies as well?
Nazish (09:48):
Absolutely. So I'll start with a little bit of a.
Bigger picture and then go deeper into how in my
day to day life I am seeing the impact of
these things. So. Few years ago, climate conversations were about
preventing or reversing the impacts of this crisis. But now,
more and more, everyone is talking about minimizing the impact
(10:11):
of this crisis, building climate resiliency and adaptive infrastructure in
all areas of our lives, including human health and health
care systems. And we all know earlier we said that
it takes a village to make these changes and we
need massive transformation and reimagination of our economies, societies and
(10:37):
systems in order to survive this crisis. And in my
day job, partnering with the health plans and health tech companies,
my core job is to remove barriers that are in
the way of accessing health care for consumers, for people
within the health care system, and that includes the barriers
(11:03):
and for within health care. I think the most significant
impact of the climate crisis is on the social and
environmental determinants of health. And what are those? Food, housing,
clean water and air. And as we all know, like
many other things in our world, the climate crisis impact
(11:26):
is not equal on all populations. It is worse for
already vulnerable people. The relationship between the air pollution and
respiratory illnesses. We all know it's widely known from allergies
to asthma, food and water borne diseases are on the
rise and will keep rising. And the extreme weather events
(11:48):
make people with existing conditions more likely to be impacted.
And then loss of transportation and health care facilities during floods,
hurricanes and fires is a threat multiplier multiplier for human health.
This crisis actually threatens any little progress that we have
(12:09):
made over the years in the area of health equity.
And now I'll give you an example, a real life
example of the storm in Texas. A few years ago
in winter, my team was working with a condition management
tech company that had to close its offices due to
storm storm related disruptions. And what we are seeing within
(12:33):
the health care provider networks that people have to evacuate
during the extreme weather conditions and it will become more
and more harder and expensive to make the health care
facilities available to people. You know.
Shiva (12:49):
Access to care already is difficult. With these disruptions, that's
even more challenging. But another issue is really around mental health,
whether it's earthquake that you probably saw in in Turkey
or fire in California or actually even some of the
more strikingly surprising places around the world, the heat wave
(13:13):
in in Europe, the displacement or these adverse effects are
pretty traumatic on the lives of people. And I'm thinking
about already shortage of social workers, therapists and psychologists and
how that access and that kind of mismatch between supply
and demand is exacerbated by these events. I just don't
(13:35):
know if we are ready for that yet.
Nazish (13:37):
Yeah, absolutely. And also, I think just as a frank
friend and not as a policy person or a health
care worker, this is an enormous problem that sometimes I
feel like we are going through the collectively all of
us are going through this, you know, reckoning with the
(13:58):
problem psychologically, emotionally and some of us are in the
denial stage. Some are in like the grief stage and
some are finally in the accepting stage. And I think
the opportunity or in this world, I think the first
and foremost most thing is just understanding, like slowly understanding
(14:21):
the impact of this crisis on our systems, our people,
from food systems to water to mental health to all
the areas. Just getting that understanding will help us come
together to find solutions, right? That's the that's the hope
that if you were to ask me, the hope in
(14:44):
this whole scenario is that hope that one day enough
of us will come together to work in a way
that we can make big enough dent in this problem
that we can. Set up systems that are resilient, that
actually care for people. They are built like, for example, for,
(15:09):
you know, health plans, providers. I see there is a
tremendous opportunity and really understanding the health care consumer and
their social and environmental determinants of health and harnessing the
power of data through the AI tools that are plenty
(15:29):
now out there to really identify people at higher risk
and then finding solutions to reduce that risk. What would
it look like for us to see that somebody had
an appointment and they needed transportation and then as a
result of that flood, they might not be able to travel.
(15:52):
So having systems opportunities where we completely can track that
person who missed that appointment to schedule that appointment after
that flood event is over. I think I've been loving
this idea of food as a medicine. It's gaining traction
within our industry. But again, right, we cannot achieve the
(16:15):
full benefit until we transform our food system and including
protecting the natural ecosystem, changes in our diet, farm food
production improvements, and also decarbonizing the supply chain. Right? We
cannot solve one problem and create another one as a
(16:35):
result of one of the solutions. And then at the
end of the day, right, the policymakers have some work
to do to that. We need to incorporate climate perspective
and build resilience and actually funding for the health care
system for optimal access, cost and quality of care within
(16:59):
the US and across the globe. And again, going back
to starting from the beginning, I think there is a
deep need for understanding how this crisis is impacting our health,
health care use, quality and cost. And I think that's
(17:21):
the missing piece here that we don't we haven't even
touched the surface of the impacts and what's really going
to happen and how we're going to change things.
Shiva (17:34):
Right. We haven't I think from a timing perspective, perhaps,
and this is the powerful Shiva talking, it couldn't have
come to this stage at a better time. I'm thinking
of this company I'm talking to that is leveraging essentially
generative AI to intervene and assist therapists and mental health
(17:59):
workers through chat. And it sounds like a human. It's
very contextual, it's very personalized, and it's a global platform.
And they're helping individuals across the world. And they have,
from what I've seen, like de-escalate the thousands of even
severe mental issues like suicide. When the earthquake in in
(18:24):
Turkey and Syria happened, they were one of the first
responders to go down and really get in touch and
support the people in need. And so that's just you know,
it's we wouldn't talk about this five years ago even
that a product driven by I could really intervene and
(18:44):
help people with trauma to alleviate some of that pain.
When you talk to clients technologies to start ups know
or peers you know, what other trends are you looking
at that you take with you to some of these
conversations at the UN or nonprofit or these councils around
the world?
Nazish (19:04):
Yeah, absolutely. I think the one of the.
Totally agreeing with you.
That we have.
Plenty of solutions. I think the issue right now that
we have is the issue of scale and adoption. So
there is so much out there. But to as you
were saying, that, you know, it's very little or little adoption.
(19:29):
But to another point that I would say, I think
the the telehealth is becoming quite an a trend where
how the health care industry and you and I were
part of that transition. Right. How we transition from a
paper based industry to digital industry and like over COVID.
(19:51):
And also, I think as humans, we have dealt with
these types of problems before too that we are. Resilient
enough people that we can get through this, too. And
telehealth is becoming a, you know, a super opportunity. Like,
for example, if let's say in my mind, if we
(20:13):
are at a stage where data.
Interoperability is.
At a point where let's say we are closing a.
Health care facility closed.
At 1 in 1 area, but is.
There a possibility to utilize digital tools or.
Transfer the data information for those patients live to a
(20:36):
completely different area and see.
What resources are available, What.
Physicians or any.
Health care workers are available out there.
Who can support this? And another trend that is interesting
is training the.
Health care resources.
On being aware of climate sensitive.
(21:00):
Issues. There are things that.
Are directly being caused because.
Of whether.
It's waterborne diseases or insect bites and things like that.
So I think the training, the health care workers in a.
Way which is different.
Than before. Right. And then giving them tools, whether those
are digital, like the chat bots that you were talking about,
(21:23):
having the.
Ability.
To listen, you know, parse the conversation that the doctor
and the patient is having and propping up some information
that would be useful in that conversation. Those are the
type of things that could sound small right now, but
can be game changers in future.
Shiva (21:40):
Absolutely. Absolutely. Every little thing counts. Well, this is fabulous.
Any final thoughts that you want to share with us?
And probably more importantly, if people want to get in
touch with you through the work that you're doing directly
with the UN or through your consulting firm engages, I
know you're very active leading some of these conversations, even
(22:02):
with your clients. How do our listeners reach out to
you and connect with you?
Nazish (22:07):
Absolutely. I would love to hear from folks on either end.
It doesn't matter. From my perspective, it's the works are
on both sides of work, are connected I think engages.com
is a good place for folks to go and then
LinkedIn I'm happy to connect andreas@engage.com is my email address.
(22:29):
To be.
More specific. And I'm not a big social media person.
But.
If you want to reach out to me on other
social media channels too, happy to connect there.
As well.
Shiva (22:41):
Fabulous. Well, no. Thank you so, so much for making
time for us. This was a great conversation and for
our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. So
much to be hopeful about, so much to be aware of.
And this was just a nugget of of what is
ahead in terms of global crises, but also all the
(23:04):
opportunities that can help humanity overcome just and adapt to
the changes that are, you know, exhilaratingly affecting our lives.
With that, thank you all for listening and tuning in.
Until next time.
Jared (23:20):
Thanks for tuning in. If you like what you heard,
please spread the word. Tell your colleagues to tune in
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Spotify or wherever you listen. This show is produced by
Shift Forward Health The Channel for Change Makers. Subscribe to
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(23:42):
podcasts you need and it's all for free. And remember,
we might have a lot of work to do in
health care, but we'll get there faster together. Thanks again.
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