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March 10, 2025 42 mins

Have you ever felt unheard or dismissed in a doctor's office? Join us as we navigate through the deeply personal health journeys of Isabel and Emily, part of the founding team of Guava Health, who share their compelling stories of battling complex medical challenges and the frustrating experience of not being believed by healthcare professionals. These stories aren't just about struggle—they're the catalyst for innovation at Guava Health, a personal health app designed to change the way we manage our health data. Along with Megan and Jenny, our Spoonie Sisters, we explore how these insights are reshaping healthcare experiences for countless others.

Discover how Guava Health is revolutionizing personal health management with its intuitive platform that brings together every aspect of your health data. More than just a tool, it's a powerful ally that helps you communicate effectively with your healthcare providers. From tracking symptoms and medication reminders to integrating fitness and wellness data, Guava ensures that users can present comprehensive health information, enabling more informed and efficient care. With the introduction of GuavaTags, effortless tracking of daily activities like medication intake becomes a reality, marrying the convenience of technology with the necessity of health advocacy.

Our conversation also takes a deep dive into the importance of accessibility and community feedback in healthcare technology. Guava Health stands out by offering nearly all its features for free, ensuring that financial barriers don't prevent anyone from taking charge of their health. By actively involving users in the app's development, Guava continually evolves to meet their needs, making your voice a vital part of its journey. Through collaboration, shared insights, and empowering tools, we're not just advocating for better healthcare—we're actively transforming it. Tune in to hear how innovative solutions and personal experiences are paving the way for a more inclusive and effective healthcare landscape.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to my Spoonie Sisters.
Today, on the pod we haveIsabel and Emily from Guava.
We have Megan, our beautifulco-host.
She's glowing and pregnant.
We have Jenny, the originalSpoonie sister herself, and then
there is me, andy.
First we have Isabel, the headof product and founding team

(00:21):
member of Guava Health.
With a background in moleculargenetics, isabel is passionate
about merging health and tech toimprove lives.
Joining her is Emily the head ofmarketing and a founding team
member.
We're excited to dive intotheir experiences and learn how
Guava Health is transforming theway we manage our health and
the incredible work they'redoing.
Welcome to the pod guys.

(00:42):
Thank you so great to be here.
Share a little bit about yourpersonal health journeys.

Speaker 4 (00:48):
I've been very fortunate with the providers
that I've interacted with.
They have generally believed mewhen I've come in with pain or
with issues.
I think part of that stems fromthe fact that I grew up in a
really small town in Vermont, soeveryone knows each other and
it's not like you go see aprovider and then you leave and
then you don't see them againfor a year.
You see them in the grocerystore.
Their kid is playing with youon the club soccer team.

(01:11):
It's more of like a smallercommunity sense and I started
having back problems, I don'tknow when we were in high school
together.
I was really debilitating whenI was at high school and people
would see me.
They wouldn't believe me.
We went to boarding school andthe providers that we interacted
with were not our localhometown ones.
They were like oh you know,you're 14, 15, 16 years old.

(01:34):
It's probably a tightpiriformis muscle or it's
probably just like a coccyxissue and it'll be fine.
It took, I think, three or fouryears.
Finally they wanted to trysteroid injections.
They got an MRI for me and theywere like oh well, this looks
like it's calcified.
You have three herniated slashbouldering discs.

(01:55):
You have degenerative discdisease.
We can try the steroidinjections, but it probably
won't work.
You're probably going to needsurgery.
I was 17 years old.
My mom was not happy with thatoutcome, but after that point I
got back surgery.
It was debilitating.
I got better, which was lovely.
I also have some hormonal stuffwhich has led to me trying to

(02:17):
get a diagnosis with PCOS.
I recently, because of the backproblems and the hip problems, I
was seeing a physical therapistand I was trying to get a
diagnosis for EDS, because Ihave since come in contact with
so many people with EDS andthey're like oh, your symptoms
kind of remind me of my symptomsand it's a more mild case, for
sure.
But just because I was tryingto do a lot of body work to try

(02:39):
to stabilize my structure, I wastrying to figure out exactly
what was going on so I could bethe best version of myself for
my body.
The provider was like well, youdon't have the body type for
EDS.
That's more of a Marfan's bodytype.
If you know about Ehlers-DanlosSyndrome or EDS, there isn't
particularly a body typeassociated with it, it's every
body type.
It has nothing to do with bodytype.

(03:00):
That was interesting where hewas a really phenomenal physical
therapist.
I really really liked him.
But that kind of disconnect ofinformation was really
eye-opening for me because eventhough he was great and he
really did try to give me thebest care possible, it was one
of those like he didn't knowwhat he didn't know and so that
kind of shortened version of myhealth history.
But that kind of brings me here.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
That was a great summary there was a child who
was always in pain growing up.
I had so many knee injuries andankle injuries.
I was that one kid who wasalways on crutches.
Everyone had one.
I was that kid and no one knewhow all this was happening.
I would be in such severe painand there would be no clear

(03:44):
reason for the pains.
The doctor would just be likestay off your left ankle, let's
toss you on crutches.
It was never a broken bone oranything.
It was really bad pain.
They kept saying it was growingpains, et cetera, et cetera.
I did get screened for Marfan ineighth grade because I fainted.
At the eye doctor.
They were worried there wassomething wrong with my heart.
I got screened for that in thecardiac sense.

(04:08):
Then it kind of left.
The connective tissuediscussion just stayed there.
In eighth grade In high schoolI was in so much pain too.
It kept ramping up and I was ahuge lacrosse player.
I had to quit all sports otherthan squash.
That was a good one.
Anything that involved runningfor more than like three minutes
at a time I couldn't really do.
I had to quit sports, which wassad because in ninth grade

(04:30):
that's a huge part of youridentity.
I saw the physical therapists atschool.
I went to all these doctors.
As Isabel mentioned, we went toa boarding school.
They were driving me around toall of these specialists in the
area.
Finally, one of them realizedthat my kneecaps were sliding
out and that they were reallyunstable.
That kind of explainedeverything for me.

(04:52):
Still, there was no mention ofwhy that could be happening, but
at least he discovered what washappening.
I, you know, worked onstabilizing my kneecaps, got a
little bit better.
I was getting really bad fingerpain, though, and I went off to
college and my fingers stoppedworking.
That was so bad my fingerswould just stop working, like
once a week I couldn't use myfingers for an hour at a time,

(05:13):
and it made doing homeworkreally hard, but it was.
It was so painful and I didn'tknow what was happening.
Eventually I got actuallyreally sick when I was on a trip
with my family and that is thebeginning of the end for me.
I never felt better after that.
I think it was a mosquito-borneillness, we're not quite sure
which one.
We think it was chikungunyathat set me on a long journey of

(05:39):
specialist visits.
I think I saw 15 differentdoctors and none of them could
figure out what was wrong.
I got mono and I was so sick mysenior year of college I was
going to the doctor once a week.
I was looking at my Guavaprofile recently at the doctor's
notes.
One of the notes from thestudent health doctor was like
don't know how she's stillsmiling.
This is her fifth week in a rowcoming in with the fever.

(06:01):
I graduated and started working,but eventually I was too sick
to work and I stopped workingand made it my full-time job to
figure out what was wrong withme.
I was in so much pain every day.
It was miserable.
I was being bounced fromspecialist to specialist.
I was living up in Boston atthe time.
Boston is considered one of thebest places in the world for
healthcare.

(06:22):
I had access to these amazingdoctors, but none of them could
figure out what was going on.
I was very lucky to have myparents support.
They were driving me to allthese appointments.
It was amazing having them lookafter me when I felt sick.
They could do all that, whichI'm very lucky for.
I was lucky enough to see aprivate doctor who spent three
hours at least listening to meand then diagnosing me.

(06:44):
She had all these guesses fordifferent tick-borne illnesses
that all came back positive onblood tests.
She diagnosed me with EDS, mastcell POTS, you name it, and
they were all triggered by thesetick-borne illnesses that I had
.
I had three of them Lymedisease, bartonella and
tick-borne relapsing fever inthe Bartonellas.

(07:05):
The reason I was having fingerpain, because it was damaging my
nerves and it was reallypainful.
So that brings me to Guava.
When Isabel messaged me after Imade a post on Instagram about
how sick I was and howprivileged I was to be able to
afford to go to a private doctor, I was really upset that others
in my shoes who were strugglingcouldn't afford to see a doctor

(07:27):
that took three hours of theirpersonal time to talk to.
You, wouldn't get a diagnosisand that really bothered me.
I posted about it.
Isabel reached out to me likehey, can I talk to you about
Guava?
I just joined, we're buildingthis thing Now I'm head of
marketing Crazy.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
I think that's a good segue.
Do you mind telling us whatGuava is for the people that
aren't familiar?

Speaker 4 (07:50):
Guava is a personal health application that is a
holistic platform and pulls allaspects of your health into one
place.
So instead of having 15different applications for 15
different things that you careabout, it's all under Guava.
One of the things to consideris that when you go see a
professional, go to theprovider's office.
That's a couple minutes of yourtime, so 95, 99% of your health

(08:14):
happens outside of that timeand it's really relevant for
when you're trying to get adiagnosis or when you're trying
to convey to the provider what'sgoing on with you or when
you're trying to figure out whattherapy is going to work best
for you.
With Guava, you know we'reintegrated with over 60,000
different patient portals.
We're integrated with topmedical and fitness devices.
You can pull in step data orsleep data or heart rate data.

(08:36):
You can also track real worldinformation like symptoms, med
reminders, mood, reproductivehealth stuff as well.
Guava will also broadencorrelations.
You can see how the weather isimpacting your headaches or how
the oatmeal that you eat forbreakfast every day is impacting
your gastro symptoms.
With the visit prep experience.
It was built in collaborationwith patients and providers and

(08:59):
that hopefully facilitatesconversations between the
patient and provider and triesto bridge the communication gap,
to ensure that patients feelthey're getting the best care
that they can, and then they'rearticulating what's going on
with them and providers have thedata necessary to really help
them in their health journey.
At the end of the day, it'skind of an empowerment tool, I

(09:20):
would say.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Absolutely.
I met with you one time to havea chat.
We're going over everything andI looked at you and, gosh, I'm
not even utilizing this app tothe best of the ability that it
could.
I was excited to put all mymedical history in there and all
that.
Oh, maybe I should be loggingeverything better and more often
.
I don't think people realizethat it's important.
We need to log everythingbecause the doctors are there to

(09:45):
help us, but they can only doso much.
If we don't provide information, we have nothing to give them.
We're just like, well, I getthis ache once in a while.
How are they going to help me?
They need to know what it feelslike, how often it's happening
if there's a certain time of dayand then you know, okay, let's
think about what the weather'slike.
What did I eat?
Did I not drink enough water?
There's so many things.

(10:05):
Yeah, yeah, it's insane.

Speaker 4 (10:07):
Our chief medical officer is a really phenomenal
doctor.
She's great.
I love her.
Her name is she's my superhero.
We want to be her when we growup.
But one of the things that shewould always say is about and
she's the one who introduced meto the phrase like, if you hear
hoofbeats, think horses, notzebras.
But at the same time, zebrasexist and so part of it, whether

(10:34):
we like it or not, the onus ison the individual to kind of
prove that they are a zebra andnot just a horse.
If a provider only has a fewminutes with you and they look
at you and they're like okay,well, based on your demographic,
like you probably don't havethese things, then it's like how
can I convey that I in fact dohave these things and I need to
be taken more seriously?
And provider most of the time.

(10:54):
Obviously there's exceptions tothe rule.
Andy kind of mentioned someexceptions to the rule, but a
lot of the times, like providersdo try to do good.
If you give them theopportunity to, they will, but
there's always those providerswho aren't that way.
Hopefully data forces them totake you seriously, because it's
a lot easier to discountsomeone's personal opinion or

(11:14):
take on a situation, but it's alot harder to do that when you
have data to back up your claims.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
Absolutely, doctors love data.

Speaker 5 (11:21):
I want to say that it resonates so much with your
guys' stories of just beingdiagnosed young.
I remember when I was in highschool and that's when my pain
started.
Nobody believed me.
It was so frustrating.
I remember my classmatesthought that I was faking it
because I had to be on crutchesbecause it started in my knees,

(11:41):
but then also having to quitsports.
I was big into cross countryand tennis and both of those
things.
I had to stop for a whilebecause obviously I couldn't do
it and I didn't know what waswrong with me for a while.
So it's really cool to havethis.
I wish I had this when I wasgoing through my diagnosis
journey, because it wasn't untilafter I had a whole scope of

(12:06):
inside of my knee that theyrealized oh, it's not a
mechanical problem Like a tornmeniscus, is actually something
autoimmune going on.
There's a lot of inflammationin here.
What are you most proud of interms of the features of the
Guava Health?

Speaker 3 (12:23):
There are so many.
I know what Isabel's answer is.
Mine is a little bit different.
We have an amazing engineeringteam and they have built many
features that I could only havedreamed of, especially when I
was going through this processof getting diagnosed.
And so when we were buildingthings out and Isabel was
talking to me about productlearning, about my pain points,

(12:45):
I was talking with my mom justabout my diagnosis journey
because I think so much of it Ikind of blacked out and she was
at the forefront of it,advocating for me, fiercely
supporting me and believing me.
I think that I kind of took upa lot of her life for a while,
which she says is what being amother is, and she wouldn't
change it if she had to.
Well, I guess she would want tomake me not sick, but whatever,

(13:08):
we were really curious.
I was going through a lot ofdifferent treatments when I was
first diagnosed and we couldn'treally tell if the treatments
were making my symptoms betteror worse.
It felt like they were makingmy symptoms much worse every
time.
I had a list of symptoms that Iwas experiencing before I
started treatment.
We'd kind of compare afterstarting new treatments which

(13:29):
symptoms do I still have.
Which symptoms do I not haveanymore?
I kind of forgot about it was alot of my mom reading symptoms
and me being like, yes, yes, yesNow on Guava.
Correlations can make thathappen for you.
So when you start taking a newmedication, you can see how it
affects your symptoms and it ismuch easier and also makes the

(13:51):
treatment process a lot moreefficient and effective, because
you're not guessing, it'spretty clear all of the
correlations are based inscience, data science.
They're all based in statistics.
If you're seeing one that hasjust popped up, it's
statistically significant.
I think it's really helpful.
I really wish I could have goneback to my doctor and been like

(14:12):
okay, so this med was helpingthis, this med wasn't.
I think it would have made myexperience a lot easier.
That's the one I'm the mostproud of, because that was one
of my biggest pink points and Ihope that it helps others.

Speaker 4 (14:23):
Yeah, the correlations are cool.
I hope that helps others.
Yeah, the correlations are cool.
Mine is the visit prepexperience and that is because a
common theme that I was hearingreally on was this idea that
patients thought that they weredoing an excellent job of
articulating what was going onwith them and narrating their
health, their symptoms and whatthey think was happening.

(14:43):
Providers who I would talk withwould be like I really want to
be helpful but I have sevenminutes or 12 minutes or
whatever it is, and then therest of the time is spent
charting in those seven or 12minutes, like a person is
telling me about their day, likegoing to pick up their kids and
walking up and down the stairsand all of these things that
they think are important butaren't helpful for me trying to
diagnose them in that particularmoment.

(15:04):
That was eye-opening becauseboth sides of the equation were
like trying to get to the commongoal, but there was a breakdown
of communication and I'm not aprovider.
I need to be very clear.
I had a crash course on kind ofthe diagnostic process of like
what the questions a lot ofproviders would ask when a
patient comes in, when trying tofigure out what's going on with
them going through thedifferential diagnosis, the

(15:30):
types of data that they'relooking for and the adjectives
that they were looking for whensomeone is describing symptoms.
For me, the biggest eye-openingthing was that they were
looking for very key adjectiveswhen describing symptoms like
dull, radiating, sharp.
Even though those are commonwords, they're not necessarily
super common for people todescribe their symptoms.
That individual thing canreally change a diagnostic

(15:50):
journey for someone.
When we were building out thevisit prep experience, we were
sure to include the keyadjectives that providers were
very familiar with and lookingout for when asking these
questions of patients of oh,what are your symptoms?
How would you describe thosesymptoms?
And so they were already there.
That way, the patient could belike oh, if I think about it,
yeah, this is dull or no, it'snot dull, it's actually

(16:12):
radiating or sharper.
I'm very proud of thatexperience because it was such a
common theme.
We had someone whose daughterwas diagnosed with a brain tumor
, but it took them an additionaltwo months, I want to say from
the time that she startedpresenting symptoms and seeing
specialists to actually beingtaken seriously, because they
saw six or seven specialists andeach one was like she's six,

(16:33):
she's fine.
This is normal that they fall.
It took an intervention from ateacher.
Being like this is what youneed to say to the next provider
that you see, because I dealwith five and six year olds all
the time this is not normal.
So use these exact words andtell them.
A teacher told you to say this.
It was only after thatintervention that he was taken

(16:54):
seriously and they actually dida brain scan and found the tumor
.
It shouldn't like.
It shouldn't have taken thatlong.
It should have just been animmediate I know something's
wrong with my kid and theprovider says, ok, let's take
this seriously immediately.
That's kind of like the.
I guess the catalyst for thevisit prep was that conversation
.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
One of my favorite parts of visit prep is there's a
box.
When you kind of have a gutfeeling with what's going on
with you, you can say what youthink it is.
I think that that's reallyimportant, because I always feel
like weird when I Google stuffand then I go to the doctor and
I'm trying to hint at somethingthat I've Googled and I want

(17:28):
them to be the first to say it,because I wanted to come in and
be like I've Googled it and thisis what I think I have, because
then I feel that they'lldismiss me.
So it's just kind of nice tohave it out there Like all cards
on the table.
Here's what I think it is, andoftentimes I mean the entire
time I was sick I kind of wasconvinced it was the tics,
because I just was alwaysgetting tic bites growing up.
I'd say that to doctors andthey'd be like well, chronic

(17:50):
Lyme isn't a thing.
Yeah, chronic Lyme isn't athing, or you wouldn't be this
sick, or stuff like that.
I wish I had been able to belike I swear it's the tics.
White coat syndrome is veryreal.

Speaker 4 (18:01):
Isn't that when your heart rate goes up?
That's when you see someone ina position of power,
specifically in like ahealthcare space, and then you
get panicky and black out alittle.

Speaker 3 (18:09):
Yeah, it was always blacking out.
I'd like forget why I was atthe doctor.
I'd be like, wait, I'm fine,why?

Speaker 2 (18:13):
am I here?
I think that's a good point youtouched on, though, because
even when you're going to thedoctor for, say, something like
a sinus infection, we worryabout sounding like that
annoying person.
But it's true, sometimes I getthem all the time, so I want to
just walk in there and be like,okay, this is what it is, I get
it all the time.
Can we just make this go awayquickly?
I think having something whereyou can put that note in real

(18:34):
quick, helpful, yeah, gamechanger.

Speaker 5 (18:37):
I'm a little biased.
I don't even feel guilty aboutGoogling my symptoms anymore and
telling my doctors, because I'malways trying to get a
diagnosis.
My primary care doctor he wasjust diagnosing you with all
kinds of tendonitis issues andeverything.
He was literally on web mdtrying to figure out what was

(18:58):
going on with me no way.
So after that I was just like,hey, whatever, that's just kudos
to that doctor, yeah I love itwhen they're not pretending true
literally have providers googleand webnd right in front of me,
like with their back to me,like I can't see over their
shoulder.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
I'm like at least you could tell me excuse me for a
minute or have a privacy screenor something, say something, but
I see you googling the samething that I googled and I could
have did that for free and notwasted any gas.
So you know, leave the roomgoogle from your phone.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
Be respectful you know, have any of you had them
bring in a book like the biggiant book?
I had them bring in a bookbecause I have um pustular
psoriasis and my daughter wasstarting to present symptoms of
psoriasis and they wanted tomake sure to let her know that
they weren't sure it waspsoriasis and to show the
thousand different kinds of skinconditions there are and all

(19:56):
the many different forms ofpsoriasis.
So he brought out thisginormous book and was flipping
through and showing the photosand we got nothing out of the
appointment.
No result.
It's been a few years later andshe's still not saying I should
have used google at that point,yes, google would have been a
lot easier.
I think it's a scary thing whenyou see them Googling or
bringing out a big, giant book.

(20:16):
At least you're being honest,but that's a little scary yeah
it is a little.

Speaker 3 (20:21):
It's like oh, I'm placing my diagnoses in your
hands and you don't even know.
You know as much as I do.
Kind of crazy.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
That's a perfect segue, because while I'm over
here, I'm up here tinkering awayadding stuff into the app.
That's what I'm over here.
It's it.
I'm up here tinkering awayadding stuff into the app.
That's what I'm doing.
I'm nerding out over here,y'all, but I'm nerding out.
So from your perspective, sincewe have this app I love it, by
the way, I'm loving everythingabout it it has the department

(20:51):
of veterans affairs in there.
Yes, because most apps don'thave the VA and I'm a veteran.
Most apps don't have the VA andI'm a veteran.
Most apps don't have the VA andthey got a majority of my
record.
That's what made me happy.
I kind of went out hereuploading stuff.
But anyway, from yourperspective, what do you have in
the app?
What do you think are thebiggest gaps in digital health
management?
That's a good question as awhole.
What do you think are the gapsand how does Guava Health bridge

(21:15):
the gap in digital health?

Speaker 3 (21:21):
Yeah, I'd say dispersed health information is
one of the biggest gaps.
I think that's the first gapthat we aimed to fill with Guava
, just because so many peoplehave those medical binders where
they have all of their healthrecords.
I had my children's hospitalrecords printed out.
I had, you know, mass General,beth Israel, my pediatrician
everything printed out in thatone place.
My mother would print outeverything, keep every record,

(21:42):
put it in there.
Eventually it got too much.
We stopped doing that.
There's no way to keep track.
I think Guava really fills thatgap, because we'd go to doctors
and they'd be repeating the sameblood tests.
I'd be like I could have swornI'd had this blood test it's not
on your record and I'd be likesame blood tests.
I'd be like I could have swornI'd had this blood test it's not
on your record, and I'd be like, well, I see five other doctors
at different places.
So I think Guava really helpsthat, because now I can pull it

(22:03):
up on my Guava profile and belike okay, I just had it done
last week.
Here it is.

Speaker 5 (22:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
I think that's what's exciting me the most about it
right now.
Okay, is that every time I goto the VA they go well, did you
have that done?
But they send us out oncommunity care that never
actually sends the records backin.
So then the veteran has to chasetheir tails trying to find
their records to bring back tothe veteran space right to give
it to them for them to upload,and it's an absolute pain in the

(22:30):
tail.
I was just at the VA earliertoday and they cannot find some
of my records that were fromcommunity care.
They never got them, so thisconversation was needed.
I'm all here and now all myrecords are going to be
conveniently located, so theycannot tell me that I didn't do
it.
I appreciate y'all for this.

Speaker 3 (22:47):
I hope we can help with that.
I mean, I'm sure we can.
That's amazing.

Speaker 4 (22:50):
So this is not my answer to the question.
It was just thought thatstemmed from what you guys are
talking about.
But a lot of people have themisconception that there is a
centralized health recorddatabase in the US for everyone
in the US, and that could not befurther from the truth, and so
that was really interesting tolearn more about, because I also
, before working at Guava, itwas like if I go see a provider

(23:12):
in the state of Vermontregardless of where in the state
of Vermont, because that'swhere I'm originally from any of
the providers will be able toaccess my records and no, like
they will be to this day, befaxing records.
No, I don't know of any otherinstitution that still uses fax
machines, and on a good day,that's on a good day of like oh,
we have this patient here, weneed their records, and you get

(23:33):
70% of their records or someportion.
It's never 100%, and so it'sreally the responsibility is on
the individual themselves to gettheir information to all of
their providers, and that is afull-time job that takes so much
time usually.
And so, hopefully, to Emily'spoint, with Guava, since it all

(23:55):
is integrated into one place, itmakes a lot easier because it's
like okay, here's my sevendifferent facilities that I've
received care at and here's mywearable data.
Let me just send all of thatover and then one and done and
that's good.
Or if I'm sitting in front of aprovider who asks like have I
received that lab test recently?
I don't have to try to rememberall of my login information for

(24:16):
all of my different patientportals and can instead just be
like let me quickly search thatlab test in particular and see
what pops up and when.
The last date of getting thattest was.
That's kind of like why we didthe emergency card too, because
one of the things that Emilysaid when we were chatting early
on and she was still reallysick was that she was always
really worried about travelingbecause she didn't want to pass

(24:37):
out near a hospital that didn'thave her records oh, I forgot
that I did this which mosthospitals around the world, let
alone the US.
So we were like OK, if you haveall of your information, guava,
how can we make essentially adifferent vehicle for that
information so you feel moreconfident being able to travel
and if there's an emergency,that you aren't going to be
given one of the 15 differentmeds that she happens to be

(24:59):
allergic to or dies or whateverI know.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
I used to have a medical alert bracelet and that
just wasn't cutting it.
I have sometimes airborneanaphylaxis to walnuts
specifically, but I have amillion food allergies.
I was calling all of thehospitals in Boston so they
could have a patient record setup for me, just in case I was
taken there by ambulance at anypoint.
I called and set up a patientrecord and I had all of my drug

(25:25):
allergies on there.
I had everything and they werelike why are you doing this?
But now I don't do that becauseI have my Boba card on me
always.
It's a lot less stressful now Ihave a lot less anxious about
it.

Speaker 4 (25:36):
Annie Tantor, your question about the gaps in
digital health I think part ofit is that logging is a pain.
So the passive data coming fromthe healthcare facilities and
the wearable devices is supereasy, like that is no touch.
So it's just like as you go tothe provider, those records go
into your patient portal andthen they're automatically
ported into Cova.

(25:57):
Same thing with wearables.
Like you go to bed at night andyou wake up, that sleep is
recorded and sent to Guava.
The tougher ones are the onesthat require you to be active.
Where it's like I took this medor I'm experiencing this symptom
, and when you're in a brain fogor a flare up or not feeling
well, one of the last thingsthat you want to do is log that
information.

(26:17):
It's really important to haveit.
I think that's kind of a bigthing that we are constantly
working on is trying to make itless manual and make it a lot
easier to log that importantinformation so that it doesn't
take as many spoons or as muchenergy to do and that way that
data is still quality withoutyou having to press a bunch of

(26:38):
buttons in an app.
Can you tell listeners about?

Speaker 3 (26:40):
GuavaTags Sure, that's funny.
So GuavaTags are our newestproduct, physical product.
They're so exciting.
We had so much fun.
We did one week where all of usfocused on making GuavaTags,
coding it, doing the marketingfor it, etc.
Etc.
The engineering team did anincredible job.
But they're basically NFC tagsand we have different stickers

(27:03):
you can put on them.
This is one for activity, theseare meds, this is food, this is
water.
We all have them on our waterbottles.
What they are is an NFC tag andyou just tap your phone to it.
Bottles what they are is an NFCtag and you just tap your phone
to it.
I really am wishing that.

(27:25):
But here is my coffee.
I'm putting the water tag on itright now.
Let's pretend there's water inthere.
When I tap my phone to it,it'll log that I drank water and
I can set it up.
So it logs how much water is inhere and it's so easy to set up
.
I just tap my water bottleanytime I finish it and it logs
32 ounces of water and it'sincredible.
I have them on all my med boxesand I tap it and they'll be

(27:45):
like hey, I'm meds taken, soit's a lot easier to log your
meds.
To admit, I was pretty bad atlogging meds, but this has made
it so much easier and a lot ofpeople have had fun setting up
their Guava Tags.
We get pictures every day frompeople being like look what I
did with my Guava Tags, and itis so fun seeing all of the

(28:06):
creative uses for them.
I love it.

Speaker 4 (28:08):
Yeah, it's really bridging like the physical and
the digital world, because thedigital exists kind of out of
sight, out of mind, a lot of thetime and Guava Tags are the
physical reminder.
I have it on my as-needed meds,which in reality are my
everyday meds, but I still callthem my as-needed meds.
But it's helpful because I openthe bottle, I take the med and
I tap my phone to it and itimmediately logs it without me

(28:30):
having to tap into an app andthen tap logging buttons.
And it is fun to Emily's point,like people have printed out
poop emojis, for example, andstuck them on guava tags and
then put them in their bathrooms.
First of all, there are somereally cute poop emojis.

Speaker 3 (28:43):
So I am a huge fan.
There have been a lot of poopemojis.
We've been kind of into it.
It's fun.

Speaker 4 (28:49):
Yeah, and same with mood or someone, I think,
created one for like activitiesand they just, they get really
creative because there's so manyartists in the space of people
who have chronic conditions andso it's been really, really cool
to see people have like theirown sticker set that they put on
the guava tags, so okay yes,let's hear, I have a question.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
I have a live question.
Okay, real time, you're here toanswer.
So what factors affect yourhealth?
How do I do this?
Because I'm trying to figureout life in the right now moment
.
What am I supposed to beselecting?
Because I know, like you shouldput like the factor right and
the metric In my current, rightnow moment.
I am trying to figure out why Ifeel like I feel, but my

(29:34):
cardiologist can't figure outwhy I feel like I feel, but I
can't put words to it.
But I also want to select afactor, but I don't know what it
is that you understand what I'msaying, totally know what
you're saying.

Speaker 5 (29:44):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
Trying to think creatively about how to answer
this.

Speaker 4 (29:49):
Are you on the insights page or the insights
tab?
Yeah, okay, so you're on thecorrelations feature.
That one will become morerelevant the more you log, the
more you log, or the moreinformation that you have, so
that will make it a lot moreobvious.
I would say, with what you'redoing right now I'm assuming you

(30:09):
got that free version, whichyou can then I think that steps
is affecting my heart rate or Ithink that the air pressure is
affecting it or the heartsymptoms I'm experiencing the
only thing that you could do is,with premium Guava will run
tens of thousands of possiblerelationships and then surface
the statistically significantones.

(30:30):
So as more information comesinto Guava, it will be looking
for patterns and then be hereare all of the things that we
found that have a relationshipwith the output that you care
about or the metrics that youcare about.
That's actually reallyinsightful, because a lot of
people have been like oh, I hada theory that the ramen noodles

(30:51):
that I was eating was impactingmy gastro symptoms, but I didn't
even think about thetemperature outside affecting my
gastro symptoms, but I didn'teven think about the temperature
outside affecting my gastrosymptoms or the PT that I was
doing or the yoga that I wasdoing was affecting my gastro
symptoms, and also it's notcausative, it's correlative.
So take that as you will.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
Yeah, here's a little personal story.
I was having the worstabdominal pain ever.
I'm talking on the floor,couldn't get up.
This was last year.
I did not know why this washappening.
I wasn't on my period.
There was nothing that madesense as to why this was
happening.
I was in a phase where I waslogging everything on Guava
because we had come out with abunch of new features, so I was

(31:28):
testing them out and trying toget use out of them.
To give feedback to Isabel, Iwas logging everything I ate,
which includes the gum that Iwas chewing.
I had switched guns.
It was correlated with myinsane abdominal pain.
I stopped chewing it.
I've never had it again.
Insight popped up and it waslike trident peppermint an

(31:48):
abdominal pain up 79% orsomething.
I didn't expect to check.
And Guava told me and I think Ialso was checking every day all
the food I was eating.
I'd like put it in Is thisgoing anywhere?
Is X affecting my abdominalpain?
And I'd be waiting forsomething statistically
significant.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
Real quick.
There's a free version, but canyou explain what comes in the
upgraded paid version?
Sure.

Speaker 4 (32:14):
So with the premium version it will do.
The automatic correlations isone of the biggest ones.
The other one is unlimitedaccess to the Guava Assistant.
The Guava Assistant is whereyou can ask questions on your
health.
You can be like how are mysymptoms trending this week?
Or what have my blood pressurereadings been for the last few
times that I've seen a doctor,or something you talk to him

(32:36):
every day.
Yeah, you can also log withyour voice, which is really nice
.
And that's anotheraccessibility thing that we've
put in recently, where it's logthat I had coffee at 7 am and
that I also woke up with aheadache 6 out of 10 pain.
Log that I went for a 30-minuterun yesterday and that I have a
mood of 5 out of 5 at noontoday, and it will capture all

(32:58):
of those isolated bits ofinformation and will verify with
you, like does this look right?
Yes, no.
And then it will automaticallylog it for you, which is great
because there's no buttonpressing involved, it's just
monologuing.
That's part of the premium.
Another one is for people with alot of paper records.
I think you can have one or tworecords with the free version,

(33:19):
but with premium it's unlimited.
You can take a picture of yourpaper record or upload it any
other way you want, and it willparse out the information.
So that's really big with labtests where they exist all over
the place and instead of havingthem just exist in those like 15
different pieces of paper, itwill all be ported together and

(33:40):
be put into one graph on Guavaand so you can actually see the
data changing over time for anyindividual metric, which is
really nice.
I think those are the main ones.
You also get a Guava emergencycard as part of it, and I'm sure
missing a few things.
To us, accessibility is superimportant because many people
have very different financialsituations and we want to make

(34:02):
sure that we're not blocking forthe end user, slash, end
patient.
That's kind of why the model isthe way it is.

Speaker 3 (34:23):
I mean a lot of people who are chronically ill
and in marginalized communities.
You know they don't have theopportunity to be heard and
listened in the healthcare spaceas much.
They don't have many advocates.
We wanted to act as kind of astand-in advocate for those who
need it most and be someone'spartner in that and build them

(34:43):
up and help them be the bestadvocate they can be for
themselves.
I think the best way to do thatis by making it accessible to
everyone.
That is our reasoning forhaving almost every feature
available on the free version.
I think that it's somethingunique about us.
I'd say.

Speaker 5 (35:06):
I was just introduced to this app today, so I am very
, very excited to start using it.
I didn't even know that itexisted until very recently.
I'm very excited to download itand use it and recommend it to
my clients too, because I knowthat a lot of them struggle with
a lot of the things that youwere saying not being able to
convey what you're experiencingday basis in terms of tracking

(35:28):
or logging things and symptoms.
Thank you for that.
This is amazing.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
I second everything that Megan said.
This app is phenomenal.
I'm excited about it.
It's already changing my lifebecause I see a trillion people.
I'm excited about it.
It's already changing my lifebecause I see a trillion people
and I'm on all the meds right.
It is literally just making mylife that much easier in the
right now moment.
But I do have a question forboth of you.
So you did this big thing andthis big thing is changing.
It's going to change the game.

(35:52):
What do you tell teenage you,looking back at her, when she
was mad, when she was frustrated, when she wanted to give up?
What do you tell her?
Gaslit, I know that's a reallyhard thing.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
Maybe I would tell her gaslighting exists.
I don't think that was evensomething that was 15 years ago
and I would maybe tell her hey,some doctors will gaslight you.
Don't listen to them.
Don't give up.
There is something wrong.
Listen to your gut when youthink there's something wrong
with your body, there is Emily.
I'd also tell her, the girlthat lives down the hall from

(36:41):
you, isabel, in our dorm,bissell.
You guys will build somethingreally incredible together and
get to work together to helppeople who are going through
something that you're goingthrough right now, and it gets
better.

Speaker 4 (36:53):
I would tell teenage me that providers are people too
.
They are not walkingencyclopedias who know
everything.
From what Emily said andexperiencing my own stuff, you
do know your body best, and so,if you think that something's
going on, to continue advocatingfor yourself and getting what
you're passionate about, and tryto work with people that you

(37:21):
really love working with,because that makes a huge
difference when you're in thethick of it day to day.
I think that that's reallyimportant and something that
doesn't get talked about enough,I think when you're a teenager,
where it's, here's this tunnelvision of what the society
expects of you and what we wantyou to do, and instead everyone
marches to the beat of their owndrum.

Speaker 3 (37:41):
It's okay if your path is linear.
You know, mine wasn't.
I let that get to me sometimesbecause so much of our value in
this society is based on ourproductivity and what we do for
work.
And when I was sitting in bed,going through a year of
treatment, not able to keep anyfood down for months at a time,
etc.
Etc.
I felt like I was a drain onsociety and that it was so

(38:05):
embarrassing that I wasn't doingthe linear path of get an
amazing job after college, moveout, get an apartment.
But I think that everythinghappens for a reason.
I think there's a reason I wentthrough that.
It was so I could help otherswho were going through that as
well and help them feel a littlebit more heard.
You're not in a drain onsociety.
That's also something.
Thanks, isabel.
Oh, that's another thing.

(38:26):
I'm not.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
I'm not Woohoo, no one is.
There's something I tell peoplequite often and it's that we
all have something to offer andit just might look a little
different, and that's okay,absolutely.
Thanks again for your time.
This has been such a pleasureand I'm so, so excited for
everyone to learn more aboutthis.
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (38:45):
We love any opportunity to talk about Guava
because we're excited that itexists and that we can help
people.
So thanks for giving us aplatform.

Speaker 4 (38:54):
Something that I do want to mention before we hop
off is the fact that pretty mucheverything that we've built to
date and we plan on building inthe future is based on community
feedback.
That happens because, insteadof building in a vacuum with
eight voices, it's how do we getas many diverse voices to the
table as possible to buildsomething that is as effective
as possible for as many peopleas possible.
It's important to us thatpeople continue reaching out.

(39:16):
Hey, this works, love this.
Or hey, there was a bug here.
Or hey, it would be amazing ifyou could incorporate this into
the Guava ecosystem.

Speaker 3 (39:24):
The best way to let us know what you think or if you
have any ideas is probablysocial media.
You don't even need to followus, just mention us in a story
if you want us to see something,or message us directly.
Will see it and we appreciateyour feedback.
We take every feedback intoaccount.

Speaker 4 (39:41):
We read every email too, and I are the ones on
social media.

Speaker 3 (39:44):
But if you read every email, you might get a faster
response from us on social media, but that's the best way to
reach us.
If you have any dreams of aguava feature, always let us
know.
We can maybe make them happenmost definitely everyone out
there.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
Don't forget your spoon and try to have a great
day.
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