August 30, 2024 • 34 mins
What if you could take control of your heart health with the help of a simple app? Join us in this episode as we chat with Mayan Cohen, CEO and co-founder of Hello Heart, a groundbreaking digital health platform. Hello Heart combines a connected blood pressure monitor with personalized AI coaching is nothing short of inspiring. Together, we explore the challenges of managing cardiovascular conditions and the critical importance of tracking vital signs like blood pressure and cholesterol.
Discover how Hello Heart is revolutionizing heart health management by bridging the gap between medical diagnostics and accessible, preventive information. We'll dive into the innovative features of the Hello Heart app, including its Bluetooth-enabled heart monitor cuff, digital lifestyle coaching, and risk flagging features. Listen to real-life success stories like Jimmy Ramos, who managed to lower his blood pressure and detect a life-threatening arrhythmia, all thanks to Hello Heart. We also highlight the significant recognition Hello Heart has received in the healthcare community and its availability to Health Select of Texas participants starting September 1st.
To learn more about Hello Heart and to see if you qualify go to the Hello Heart Webpage for HealthSelect participants.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Overnight I was personally thrown with him to
the patient or the caregiverseat and it was hard.
So even though I had the formaleducation in biotech so I can
read and write clinical studiesand I had basic medical training
, I struggled.
It was really, really hard tomanage a medical condition and
then I found myself collectingmedical records and tracking
(00:22):
vital signs at home with piecesof paper and Excel.
Reality with heart disease isthe risk factors are very, very
common, and the problem withthese risk factors is that you
can't see them and you can'tfeel them, so people tend to
ignore them until it's too late,until they have the heart
attack or the stroke.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hi and welcome to the ERS Walk Talk podcast.
I'm your host, Lacey Wolfe.
Today, I'm thrilled to bejoined by Mayan Cohen, who is
the CEO and co-founder of HelloHeart, which is a groundbreaking
digital health companydedicated to preventing
avoidable heart disease.
Mayan's journey is both uniqueand deeply personal.
Facing a challenging healthsituation herself, she was
(01:04):
inspired to create a solutionthat could help others take
control of their heart health.
Hello Heart combines aconnected blood pressure monitor
with AI-driven personalizedcoaching to empower users in
managing their heart health.
Under Mayan's visionaryleadership, Hello Heart has been
recognized as one of the mostinnovative digital health
startups and is trusted by over130 leading Fortune 500
(01:28):
companies.
Earlier this year, Mayan wasalso honored on the inaugural
CNBC Changemakers List,alongside influential leaders
like Taylor Swift and AlexCooper, celebrating 50 women
leaders who are transforming thebusiness landscape.
Starting September 1st, HelloHeart is a brand new solution
that will be available to HealthSelect of Texas and
(01:49):
consumer-directed Health Select.
Participants that qualify.
This will give our health planparticipants tools to take
charge of their health, so I'mvery excited about this.
In our conversation today, Mayanshares her personal story.
We're going to talk about whatled her to build this amazing
product, how the platform worksand what's next in the horizon,
(02:10):
as well as how you can sign up.
So stay tuned for an insightfuldiscussion with Mayan Cohen on
the future of heart health.
Here we go.
Good morning, Mayan.
How are you?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Good morning, lacey.
I'm doing great.
How are you?
I'm doing, greatacey.
I'm doing great, how?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
are you?
I'm doing great.
Thank you so much for beingwilling to be a guest on our ERS
Walk Talk podcast.
I am really honored to be ableto have a conversation with you.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Thank you so much.
I'm super excited to join you.
A huge fan of your work in manydifferent aspects, so thanks
for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Thank you so much.
And, for our listeners, I'vealready kind of given a formal
introduction of Mayan, but sheis a really special person.
She's built a product that weare going to be rolling out
September 1.
So, depending on when you'relistening to this, it may be
available to you and it iscalled Hello Heart.
So I wanted to get Mayan totalk just a little bit about and
(03:04):
tell all of our listeners howshe came to build this product.
So, if you don't mind, can youjust share your story?
How did you, how did you comeup with this concept?
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Sure.
So for me, healthcare andscience was always a passion.
As a little girl I used to runaround the potato fields behind
my house and investigate insects, and when I was six years old I
asked my parents for amicroscope for my birthday and
they were very puzzled by thisweird request from the geek girl
.
And when I grew up, I was avolunteer EMT and I studied
(03:40):
biotech.
So science and healthcare werealways a passion, was always in
the background.
Life later on brought me to thebusiness world, so I did
management consulting and workedon strategy project and new
product launch for very bigcompanies like American Express
and and food manufacturers.
But sometimes you find yourcalling in different, unusual
(04:03):
ways.
And what brought me back tohealthcare was a life-changing
experience.
That happened when I was prettyyoung, when I was 25, when my
boyfriend at the time wasdiagnosed with a brain tumor and
overnight I was personallythrown with him to the patient
or the caregiver seat and it washard.
So even though I had the formaleducation in biotech so I can
(04:25):
read and write clinical studiesand I had basic medical training
, I struggled.
It was really really hard tomanage a medical condition and I
found myself collecting medicalrecords and tracking vital
signs at home with pieces ofpaper and Excel, and I started
to build an intervention programof what we should be doing,
(04:46):
what he should be eating andexercising and what other
factors can contribute to hiswell-being and prolonging his
life as much as possible.
And when I went to the doctorsthey didn't have any answers.
They were amazing and treatingand diagnosing but anything that
has to do with prevention anddiagnosing, but anything that
(05:08):
has to do with prevention.
Their toolkit was very, veryminimal.
But, on the other hand, thescience is out there.
When I opened Google Scholar, Irealized that the studies are
out there.
All the studies about lifestyleintervention and how we should
be managing different medicalconditions is out there.
It's just I realized thatthere's a wide space between the
medical community and wherepatients are and what we as
human beings, as people, need tounderstand about our own
(05:30):
medical conditions and whattools we have to improve them
has a very big accessibility gapand I decided that that's what
I wanted to do.
So it's a very long story andit's a very long story and in
the end he unfortunately didpass away.
But that did help me understandwhat my life calling is, which
(05:51):
is to empower people tounderstand and improve their
health using technology, andthat's how the idea of Hello
Heart was built and formed in myhead.
And when we started going afterthis very audacious goal around
helping people understand andimprove their own health, we
decided to focus on the numberone cause of death, which is
heart disease, and I think allof us know somebody a friend, a
(06:14):
family member, a colleague thatwas very badly impacted and in
many cases, died of a heartattack or a stroke.
So it's the number one cause ofdeath in the world today,
definitely in the US, and thefastest growing cause of death
of all conditions.
So it's time that we'll pick upevery tool that we can to help
(06:37):
people understand and improve it.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Wow, what a powerful story and thank you for sharing
that.
I know you share your story butit's probably not easy still to
talk about kind of what broughtyou there.
But it is amazing how, fromsometimes tragedy, you have this
post-traumatic growth and webuild things to make the world a
better place.
So thank you for building thisproduct.
(07:00):
It's really incredible andwe're looking forward to helping
support the ERS health planpopulation with Hello Heart in
the very near future.
Can you share the mission ofHello Heart?
I know you talked about that.
The goal is to improvecardiovascular health.
Do you have a mission statementthat keeps you grounded at
Hello Heart as a team?
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Sure, our mission is to prevent any preventable
deaths from heart disease, soheart attack, stroke and all the
other conditions related tothat and the reality with heart
disease is the risk factors arevery, very common.
About 50% of Americans havehigh blood pressure,
hypertension or hyperlipidemia,high cholesterol or one of the
(07:45):
other conditions related to that, like irregular heartbeat and
other conditions that heartdisease is a risk factor of.
And the problem with these riskfactors is that you can't see
them and you can't feel them, sopeople tend to ignore them
until it's too late, until theyhave the heart attack or the
stroke.
And that's where I think thekey is in helping people
(08:07):
understand what happens insidetheir body and giving them the
tools to understand hey, I dohave high blood pressure or I
don't, my medication is workingor it's not working and give us
tools to better self-regulateand take care of ourselves,
because these are things that wecan't see and feel, so it's
easy to ignore them.
On the one hand, it's also veryrisky because you can't see the
(08:27):
heart attack coming unlessyou're very well educated and
you have these feedback loopsaround your blood pressure and
your cholesterol and whathappens inside your body and
what your own data says so, onthe one hand, giving people
tools to better understand theirblood pressure, their
cholesterol, the risk factors,to manage it and to improve it
(08:48):
in real time by providing themwith very minor lifestyle
modifications and, on the otherhand, which is very
complimentary, allowing peopleto understand the risk factors
and give them risk flags in timeso they can get to their doctor
in time and get diagnosed andtreated before it's too late and
they end up passing away.
Or, in other cases, even if youcatch it and get to the
(09:10):
hospital, permanent damage inmany cases can be formed which
really hurts our lifestyle andlife expectancy and can lead,
for example, to heart failure.
So it very much limits what youcan do in your day-to-day if
you experience these types ofconditions.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yeah, absolutely, and we see in our health plan
chronic conditions when welooked at putting a program in
place to help support our healthplan participants and
hypertension, as well asdiabetes and mental health
conditions all of theseconditions, we believe your
solution can help becausethere's a behavior related to
(09:48):
each one of these chronicconditions that we're seeing.
Can you tell people a littlebit about how the product works,
like what is it?
For those that don't know whatHello Heart is, what's the
technology behind it and what'sthe process?
Speaker 1 (10:07):
technology behind it and what's the process?
Sure, so Hello Heart is a verysimple solution that's very easy
to use for us as people, or endusers or patients, but it's
actually very sophisticatedtechnologically.
So what the product is isbasically a heart monitor that
allows you to track your bloodpressure and your pulse at home.
So it has a cuff, it connectsusing Bluetooth to your phone.
It's really cool and slick, youcan take it anywhere and it
(10:29):
connects to an app on your phoneand the app is really the brain
behind our solution.
What the app does is connectyour clinic.
It connects to the monitor, itconnects to Apple Health and
Google Fit and takes all of yoursteps data, weight data,
anything else that you put inthere and gives you an overview
of what your heart health reallyis at the moment, how it
(10:49):
changes over time.
So it shows you trends and, inmy view, the two most important
thing it does.
First, it helps you understand.
So you know a blood pressurereading of 146 over 85, is that
good, is that bad?
Most people can say, even ifthey have hypertension.
They were educated.
So it gives you a feedback loopthat helps you understand if
(11:12):
your blood pressure is high orlow if it's okay.
If it's not okay, how is ittrending over time?
Is it improving, is itincreasing?
So it gives you very simpleexplanations.
And then it does two otherthings.
One, it provides digitallifestyle coaching.
So it's not a full-time coachthat you need to commit to,
which is an incredible service,but not everybody's able to
(11:34):
integrate a live coach intotheir day-to-day over time.
So it's digital coaching, whichmeans it's a very lightweight
coaching session that just givesyou tips around nutrition,
exercise, stress management.
As you mentioned, mental healthis very much related to
hypertension.
Hyperlipidemia motivators tohelp you understand why you
(11:55):
should even care about yourblood pressure and cholesterol,
like did you know that bloodpressure impacts the way your
skin looks like?
So if you have controlled bloodpressure, your skin will look
better.
If you don't, over time you'regoing to get more wrinkles and
you're going to experience hairloss and things that people
really care about and don'talways know.
So it educates you about whatyou should be doing to improve
(12:18):
your lifestyle in yourday-to-day.
And the other thing it does itprovides risk flags.
So if you have extremely highblood pressure readings, if you
have a spike in your pulse, ifyou have irregular heartbeat, it
will flag hey, you might beexperiencing a risk, are you
experiencing these symptoms?
And if you are at a riskcategory that requires you to
(12:40):
get to a clinician, it willrefer you to the right clinical
resource in time either a PCP orthe ER or urgent care to make
sure that you catch risk in timeand can get diagnosed and
treated before it's too late.
And I'm very proud to say thatbecause people enjoy using Hello
Heart, because it's fun, wemake it really fun to track your
blood pressure.
(13:01):
There's tons of gamificationand rewards and positive
reinforcement about how wellpeople are doing and taking care
of themselves using Hello Heart.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I've been using it.
I don't really like to promoteanything that I haven't tried
myself and I've been using itfor a good while now and I
really love that feedback ittold me recently.
Your blood pressure is lower.
You can see the connection fromwhen you're walking.
You know when you're walkingmore because I have it
integrated with my other devicesand I just think that's such a
(13:32):
cool feature.
So you start to see how theother behaviors you're doing are
impacting your blood pressure,because most of the time even
from my own experience andknowing my parents and family
history you go to the doctoronce a year get your blood
pressure, if we're lucky.
Actually, only half of ourhealth plan participants are
going to the doctor for anannual visit, which is another
(13:53):
thing we're working on.
But you go to the doctor, youget your blood pressure taken
one time and then at some pointmaybe you're diagnosed with
hypertension, put on medicine,but there's not always that
consistent tracking and yourdevice also, like you said, it
syncs and your doctor can seeyour reports through MyChart.
(14:16):
I think that is also a verycool feature that people can
share.
So what other features like?
What are the things that peoplelike the most about using your
venom.
I've shared some of mine, butwhat are some of the other
things that people love aboutHello Heart?
Speaker 1 (14:30):
That's awesome and it's it's incredible to hear
about your experience.
It's actually one of the newerfeatures that we launched, the
dot to dot so it helps youconnect the dots between your
blood pressure and yourcholesterol and your behavior.
So exercise, activity, walkingsteps, medication adherence like
how is that really impacting?
Like I know you know takingmeds should lower blood pressure
(14:50):
, but is it really lowering myblood pressure so you can
actually see?
Speaker 2 (14:55):
The other day it said pet your dog, it will make you,
it will lower your bloodpressure right.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
That's one of my favorite features.
The fact that we can integratethe newest clinical studies and
turn it into bite-sized tipsthat people can actually
implement is amazing.
The dog tip is incredible.
There was a research that cameout only a couple of years ago
that hugging your dog reducesyour cortisol levels and that
reduces your blood pressure.
So if you want to lower yourblood pressure and you have a
(15:24):
dog, that's amazing.
Go hug your dog.
It will calm you down and loweryour blood pressure.
That is not something a doctorwill probably tell you to do,
but it's nice because you canincorporate little tips into the
app.
Sun exposure reducescardiovascular disease risk.
In terms of nutrition, we makeit really simple.
Instead of talking about fattyacids and things like that that
(15:46):
can improve cholesterol, we justtell you hey, why don't you try
adding salmon to your dinnertonight instead of steak, and
see what happens?
And try to incorporate verysimple things that are fun.
What other features people like?
People like sharing reports withtheir doctor, so they come into
their doctor's office a lotmore empowered with hey, here's
(16:06):
my trends at home.
My blood pressure is much lowerthan what you see in the clinic,
or it's much higher than whatyou see in the clinic, so they
can come in organized andempowered to actually share
their results with their doctor.
And their doctors love itbecause it's all organized in a
doctor format and it's adjustedto clinicians.
The gamification people lovethat.
(16:26):
So our product team about halfof them came from the gaming
industry and that's veryintentional.
We wanted people to reallyenjoy using Hello Heart, so
there's like badges and rewardsand little emojis and
celebrations every time youtrack your blood pressure or you
do things in a streak.
So you check your bloodpressure every day for a few
days and you get a badge.
(16:48):
So people start to enjoy it andalmost get, in the most
positive way possible, addictedto track their blood pressure.
And we use the power of thegaming industry and social media
industry skill sets for goodfor you to take care of your
heart health.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I love that there's so many ways that phones draw us
in.
I think that are not healthyAddiction to social media and
there's all kinds of things thatI feel like we are using phones
that are not healthy.
But to take that and flip itand use it for something that is
good is amazing.
I like there's so many greathealth technologies coming out
(17:28):
that I think can help improveour lives.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
So wait, I have a question for you.
Do you know how much time dopeople stare at their phones
these days?
On average phones?
Speaker 2 (17:37):
these days, on average, I am going to say I'm
going to say it's four to sixhours a day.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
That is very accurate .
It's now five and a half hoursand it's insane Like we stare at
these devices for five and ahalf hours.
It's about half of our wakingtime.
So what we did in Hello Heartis put all of the things you
need to learn and understand andall the even the reminders to
take your meds, to track yourblood pressure, to go see your
PCP on your phone in an appthat's super accessible.
So if you're already there,we're already staring at our
(18:11):
phone.
Why don't we use it for good?
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Do something good, take care of ourselves, and I
feel like I remember you sayingthat you use the research of Dr
BJ Fogg out of Stanford.
Is that true?
The power of habit, the tinyhabits habits.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
There's another Stanford professor called Nir
Eyal that talked about the hookmodel of how do you get people
to do things repeatedly?
So you have to get them to havea trigger, that, for example, a
reminder to track your bloodpressure.
You have to get them to get areward.
So that's the badge that wehave.
And then the investmentaccumulates over time and people
get more excited to do it againand again.
And Facebook, for example, it'sour Facebook feed.
(19:01):
We have more and more photosand friends and things in our
feed.
That gets us to feel like weare already invested in that.
In Hello Heart, it's trackingyour blood pressure, it's
connecting your clinic andlooking at your labs, it's
taking your medication on timeevery day and having that streak
.
So the investment encourages usto continue to use things.
(19:21):
So both of these studies,together with a lot of other
behavioral studies, is what webase our product on.
These are core principles.
We use a lot of behavioralscience and positive psychology
in building Hello Heart and thenwe experiment.
We basically that's the beautyof a digital solution you throw
a hundred different tips thatthe team developed that are
(19:42):
based on behavioral science intoour user community and then you
see what sticks, and thensometimes you find out that you
know very random things that thedesign team decided to try are
the tips that get people mostengaged and excited and improve
their heart health, andsometimes the clinical team are
actually in the back of the busin terms of their ability to
(20:07):
impact our users, and sometimesit's the other way around, but
it's very data driven.
So it's behavioral scienceprinciples that are all in the
heart of how we build thesolution, and then it's the
reality of just looking at thedata of what works.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I love it, yeah, even that confetti, you know, and
I'm using hands and not thatanyone can see me right now, but
you know that makes you feellike it's just a little burst of
happiness that triggers, that'sa reward in your brain and it
makes you want to go back and doit again.
So very, very cool how you'reusing that science and
(20:42):
technology of human behavior tohelp people actually take their
blood pressure and give themrecommendations for how to
improve health.
Do you have any success storiesfrom people who have been using
your device and the app, maybewho've seen significant
improvements in their hearthealth?
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Of course there's many, and that's probably the
best part of my job to get thethank you notes from the users
that either tell us how we wereable to change your life and
reduce their heart risksignificantly or even catch risk
in time, which is by far themost satisfying thing that I can
do as an entrepreneur.
So Jimmy is one of my favoritestories.
(21:21):
Jimmy Ramos was part of amailman group that we work with
and Jimmy tracked his bloodpressure for six months, did
great, reduced his bloodpressure, lost some weight.
Fantastic.
What Hello Heart does is itdoesn't actually get you to
reduce your blood pressure orreduce your weight.
It gives you the tools to do ityourself and need education,
(21:43):
and that's how you can see it inall of our published clinical
studies how impactful that canbe.
But basically, Jimmy wastracking his blood pressure.
Everything was fine.
Six months later he wasrandomly checking his blood
pressure and the app told himthat he has an irregular
heartbeat, which is one of ournewer features back in the day
(22:05):
and he was puzzled by it.
The app told him to check again, because you always have to
make sure a couple of times thatyou know if there is a risk
flag that it's real, so youwon't be sent to the ER for no
reason.
He checked it again and he hadan irregular heartbeat detection
and the app told him okay, ithappened two times in a row.
Are you experiencing any ofthese symptoms?
(22:26):
He didn't have any symptoms, sowe told him okay, you need to
go see a clinician as quickly aspossible.
He went to the doctor.
The doctor asked him why areyou here?
And he said the app told me tocome.
And he showed him the app.
The doctor was like okay, hedidn't have any history no
(22:51):
palpitation, no signs that youcan actually see.
But because he was tracking hisblood pressure and his pulse,
they ran tests and he did have avery severe arrhythmia.
And he did have a very severearrhythmia and he was put into
surgery a day later.
And, as he says, I promised mygranddaughter that I'm going to
be at her wedding.
I don't know if I wouldn't be,you know, tracking my blood
pressure and my pulse, if Iwould make it.
(23:13):
So he had a life threateningcondition that he was able to
catch because he was tracking.
And again, it's the monitor ourmonitors are FDA approved that
can flag these types of risksituations, but I think that
shows all of us how important itis to really track your heart
health at home, because that'skind of the missing gap in heart
(23:33):
health.
The tracking capabilities exist, Clinicians know how to
diagnose.
We as patients or as people,are not using them often enough
and don't have the education touse them at home, and that's
something we need to change.
We need to get everyone totrack their heart health at home
as a prevention tool, just likewe get everybody to do
mammograms to prevent breastcancer.
(23:55):
So my goal beyond Hello Heartis to get everybody to start
tracking their heart health athome and create a movement of
people taking care of theirheart health on a regular basis,
because we can change thestatistics of it being the
number one cause of death.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
What a great story.
And, yeah, just this idea, thatspace between doctor's visits.
What are we doing?
I think, yeah, it's a verypowerful tool.
How has Hello Heart beenreceived in the healthcare
community?
What kind of partnerships haveyou formed with groups to
support this?
Speaker 1 (24:31):
mission?
Great question.
So, basically the way I viewourselves, we're a tool that is
designated for the patient orthe person managing their own
health and we work in adjacentto the clinical community.
The clinical community, sincethey don't have the presence and
it is a white space, lovesHello Heart.
We work with several PBMs andhealth plans and we're very
(24:54):
proud to be working with aselect group of health plans and
be offered to their clients aspart of how we commercially
distribute Hello Heart and wepublish studies with leading
clinicians from UCLA.
We just published another studywith 100,000 patients with John
Hopkins.
So we work together withleading researchers from the
(25:17):
best facilities in the US topublish our outcomes and
continue to.
We work very closely with theAmerican Heart Association.
First, we have a joint cause oferadicating heart disease as
much as we can.
Definitely is a cause of death,but in general we do heart
walks with them.
We do joint education seminarswith them.
(25:38):
We recently launched a newinitiative for women's heart
health more than men duringheart attacks, because we have a
knowledge gap because womenwere not included in clinical
research until 1993.
We have a huge gap in educationfor the public and we have a
(25:59):
huge gap in education forclinicians.
So in many cases women's heartattack symptoms are being
dismissed by the womenthemselves.
First and foremost.
We don't understand our ownsymptoms and it's not typical.
It's not just the left sidechest pain.
It could be extreme fatigue andit could be stomach discomfort
(26:24):
and nausea.
It could be feeling lightheadedand dizzy and things that you
won't necessarily.
It can feel like a stomach bugalmost, or like a severe flu
that came out of nowhere, butyou feel something is wrong.
You don't always connect thesesymptoms to a heart attack, but
they are very common symptomsfor a heart attack for women.
So women wait 37 minutes longerthan men before they even get to
care and when they get to carethey're being dismissed a lot
(26:46):
more often than men during aheart attack because the doctors
are not fully educated.
They have good intentions butthey're not fully educated
around symptoms and we can closethis gap.
We're very proud to berecognized as a best in class
solution by the American HeartAssociation.
We're partners with them instudies we publish in the
(27:08):
American Heart AssociationJournal often and we're part of
their innovation network.
So we work with the AmericanHeart Association together to
promote women's heart health andhopefully reduce the mortality
of women during heart attacksand strokes, and it's so
important.
It's not we're both femaleleaders, but it's our mothers,
(27:30):
it's our sisters, it's ourcolleagues.
It's the number one cause ofdeath for women and we have so
many things that we can do toclose the gap, because women are
not just small men.
They have their own uniquecharacteristics.
They have different cholesterollevels, they go through
menopause.
There's so many risk factorsthat need to be addressed for
women's heart health that we canaddress as a society and we
(27:55):
should, because we want women tolive longer.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
That is very well said and I learned a lot about
women's heart health in apresentation I went to where you
were the speaker, so that's agreat I love, and I've
envisioned us having a secondpodcast specifically on women's
health women's heart health inthe future.
So it's fascinating and I dolove the work that you're doing
to just bring awareness to suchan interesting topic that people
(28:21):
have no idea right, and thefact that the research was not
even done on women you knowwe're comparing women to men.
It's fascinating.
So thank you for your effortsto get that education out and
save women's lives.
I mean it's amazing.
What's on your roadmap, mayan?
What's coming up over the nextfew years with Hello Heart?
Speaker 1 (28:40):
So we continue to embrace the newest technologies
and I think, first, our team isvery, very mission driven, and
that's why I'm so excited aboutworking with ERS, because I
think your members are allmission driven people.
All the state employees arewaking up every day to do such
an important job and savepeople's lives in many cases as
(29:01):
well, or change people's lifefor the good and that's how our
team is as well, but with adifferent cause of helping them
hopefully live a better life andget educated on their own
health.
Our team is very creative.
Our roadmap keeps changingbecause new ideas keep popping
up, so it's very exciting.
In the future, we want to getas close as possible to catching
(29:22):
risk closer in time, predictingrisk and having a better
connection with the clinicalcommunity to really refer
patients not to just any care,as we do today, but to the right
clinician at the right time andcreate a closer community
around that moment with ourpatients and their clinicians.
But if you take it down to today, we just added menopause as a
(29:45):
key feature to our solution.
So menopause support for womenthat are going through that
period, and guess what?
A hundred percent of women willgo through menopause, so it's a
very important time in lifeSomeday but but, like heart,
heart risk spikes around thattime because estrogen protects
(30:06):
our heart.
So you need to get educated andstart tracking your heart
health around that time.
So that just came up.
We're adding support for highblood pressure during pregnancy
for women that experiencehypertension during pregnancy.
That's another feature that'scoming up and can protect women
and their unborn children duringpregnancy, which is very, very
important.
(30:26):
So that's coming up next year.
And now we're very focused onmedication, adherence Medication
again, because you can't see orfeel hypertension,
hyperlipidemia, people tend tonot take their meds because it
doesn't matter, because you feelthe same before with or without
it, right?
So 60% of people don't taketheir medication as prescribed
(30:46):
when it comes to hypertensionand hyperlipidemia.
So we're giving people moretools and a lot of, as you said,
like the fun banners and, youknow, confetti and and badges
and making it fun to take takeyour blood pressure medication
as you use Hello Heart.
So that's that's the key focusof the team these days.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
That's incredible.
I look forward to seeing youknow the evolution of this
product and just to hear fromour participants that are using
it in the near future.
A little personal story aboutthe medication adherence.
My grandmother when the week Iwas born because she was so
stressed out because my mom waslate having me this is what she
(31:28):
says.
Anyways, she did not take hermedicine.
Mom was late having me this iswhat she says.
Anyways, she did not take hermedicine.
She was 50 years old and had astroke because she was not
taking her medicine.
A week before I was born sheended up.
It was a mild stroke and shelived many years after that and
had no really complications fromthat, but she sure, sure
started taking her medicineafter that.
But, like you said a lot oftimes, people just think, oh,
I'm fine, but she sure surestarted taking her medicine
(31:49):
after that.
But, like you said a lot oftimes, people just think, oh,
I'm fine, but it's superimportant, if you do have
hypertension, to take thatmedicine, and I love that your
device is helping people totrack, rewarding that behavior.
It's just amazing.
So if it is after September 1st, this product is out and
available, if you're listeningto this.
After September 1st it's outand available and you can
(32:10):
actually go ahead and order aHello Heart monitor and you can
get enrolled in this program.
So I'm going to be sharing thelink for how to do that in the
show notes and so you can justgo ahead and order a kit and
start tracking your bloodpressure.
And we would love to hear aswell and I know Maya and you'd
love to hear from people and howthat's going.
(32:31):
And, yeah, keep in, keep intouch A hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
I always love to hear how it's going and hear
feedback and hear ideas.
A lot of the ideas that end upin our roadmap and innovation
comes from our users, so pleaseshare feedback as much as
possible.
And you're right, if we areafter September 1st and you have
high blood pressure, highcholesterol, approaching
menopause age or have familyhistory of heart disease, you're
(32:58):
welcome to log in to Googlehelloheartcom slash ERS.
You'll find the link there aswell.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Perfect, mayan.
I'm always a little starstruckto get to talk to you because
you are just such an incredibleleader and you built this
incredible thing as the founderand CEO of a major healthcare
initiative.
It's really great to sit downand have a conversation with you
.
We appreciate your time and allthat your team is doing to
(33:27):
support our ERS health planparticipants, and we're really
looking forward to great thingsin the future.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Thank you so much, lacey, and I'm as starstruck as
you are every time I talk to youas well.
You have such an important roleshaping our state employees'
health care and well-being, sothank you for everything you're
doing.
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
All right, everybody get out there and check out
Hello Heart and we look forwardto hearing your feedback.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Great Thank you, Lacey.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
All right, everybody.
That wraps up another episodeof the ERS Walk and Talk podcast
.
I hope you enjoyed myconversation with Mayim.
If you are interested inlearning more about Hello Heart,
you can find the link where youcan find all kinds of
information in our show notes.
Please like and subscribe thepodcast so you receive future
updates and share with someonethat you think may benefit from
(34:20):
this information.
Thanks so much and have awonderful rest of your day.
Take care everyone.
Overnight I was personally thrown with him to
the patient or the caregiverseat and it was hard.
So even though I had the formaleducation in biotech so I can
read and write clinical studiesand I had basic medical training
, I struggled.
It was really, really hard tomanage a medical condition and
then I found myself collectingmedical records and tracking
(00:22):
vital signs at home with piecesof paper and Excel.
Reality with heart disease isthe risk factors are very, very
common, and the problem withthese risk factors is that you
can't see them and you can'tfeel them, so people tend to
ignore them until it's too late,until they have the heart
attack or the stroke.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hi and welcome to the ERS Walk Talk podcast.
I'm your host, Lacey Wolfe.
Today, I'm thrilled to bejoined by Mayan Cohen, who is
the CEO and co-founder of HelloHeart, which is a groundbreaking
digital health companydedicated to preventing
avoidable heart disease.
Mayan's journey is both uniqueand deeply personal.
Facing a challenging healthsituation herself, she was
(01:04):
inspired to create a solutionthat could help others take
control of their heart health.
Hello Heart combines aconnected blood pressure monitor
with AI-driven personalizedcoaching to empower users in
managing their heart health.
Under Mayan's visionaryleadership, Hello Heart has been
recognized as one of the mostinnovative digital health
startups and is trusted by over130 leading Fortune 500
(01:28):
companies.
Earlier this year, Mayan wasalso honored on the inaugural
CNBC Changemakers List,alongside influential leaders
like Taylor Swift and AlexCooper, celebrating 50 women
leaders who are transforming thebusiness landscape.
Starting September 1st, HelloHeart is a brand new solution
that will be available to HealthSelect of Texas and
(01:49):
consumer-directed Health Select.
Participants that qualify.
This will give our health planparticipants tools to take
charge of their health, so I'mvery excited about this.
In our conversation today, Mayanshares her personal story.
We're going to talk about whatled her to build this amazing
product, how the platform worksand what's next in the horizon,
(02:10):
as well as how you can sign up.
So stay tuned for an insightfuldiscussion with Mayan Cohen on
the future of heart health.
Here we go.
Good morning, Mayan.
How are you?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Good morning, lacey.
I'm doing great.
How are you?
I'm doing, greatacey.
I'm doing great, how?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
are you?
I'm doing great.
Thank you so much for beingwilling to be a guest on our ERS
Walk Talk podcast.
I am really honored to be ableto have a conversation with you.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Thank you so much.
I'm super excited to join you.
A huge fan of your work in manydifferent aspects, so thanks
for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Thank you so much.
And, for our listeners, I'vealready kind of given a formal
introduction of Mayan, but sheis a really special person.
She's built a product that weare going to be rolling out
September 1.
So, depending on when you'relistening to this, it may be
available to you and it iscalled Hello Heart.
So I wanted to get Mayan totalk just a little bit about and
(03:04):
tell all of our listeners howshe came to build this product.
So, if you don't mind, can youjust share your story?
How did you, how did you comeup with this concept?
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Sure.
So for me, healthcare andscience was always a passion.
As a little girl I used to runaround the potato fields behind
my house and investigate insects, and when I was six years old I
asked my parents for amicroscope for my birthday and
they were very puzzled by thisweird request from the geek girl
.
And when I grew up, I was avolunteer EMT and I studied
(03:40):
biotech.
So science and healthcare werealways a passion, was always in
the background.
Life later on brought me to thebusiness world, so I did
management consulting and workedon strategy project and new
product launch for very bigcompanies like American Express
and and food manufacturers.
But sometimes you find yourcalling in different, unusual
(04:03):
ways.
And what brought me back tohealthcare was a life-changing
experience.
That happened when I was prettyyoung, when I was 25, when my
boyfriend at the time wasdiagnosed with a brain tumor and
overnight I was personallythrown with him to the patient
or the caregiver seat and it washard.
So even though I had the formaleducation in biotech so I can
(04:25):
read and write clinical studiesand I had basic medical training
, I struggled.
It was really really hard tomanage a medical condition and I
found myself collecting medicalrecords and tracking vital
signs at home with pieces ofpaper and Excel, and I started
to build an intervention programof what we should be doing,
(04:46):
what he should be eating andexercising and what other
factors can contribute to hiswell-being and prolonging his
life as much as possible.
And when I went to the doctorsthey didn't have any answers.
They were amazing and treatingand diagnosing but anything that
has to do with prevention anddiagnosing, but anything that
(05:08):
has to do with prevention.
Their toolkit was very, veryminimal.
But, on the other hand, thescience is out there.
When I opened Google Scholar, Irealized that the studies are
out there.
All the studies about lifestyleintervention and how we should
be managing different medicalconditions is out there.
It's just I realized thatthere's a wide space between the
medical community and wherepatients are and what we as
human beings, as people, need tounderstand about our own
(05:30):
medical conditions and whattools we have to improve them
has a very big accessibility gapand I decided that that's what
I wanted to do.
So it's a very long story andit's a very long story and in
the end he unfortunately didpass away.
But that did help me understandwhat my life calling is, which
(05:51):
is to empower people tounderstand and improve their
health using technology, andthat's how the idea of Hello
Heart was built and formed in myhead.
And when we started going afterthis very audacious goal around
helping people understand andimprove their own health, we
decided to focus on the numberone cause of death, which is
heart disease, and I think allof us know somebody a friend, a
(06:14):
family member, a colleague thatwas very badly impacted and in
many cases, died of a heartattack or a stroke.
So it's the number one cause ofdeath in the world today,
definitely in the US, and thefastest growing cause of death
of all conditions.
So it's time that we'll pick upevery tool that we can to help
(06:37):
people understand and improve it.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Wow, what a powerful story and thank you for sharing
that.
I know you share your story butit's probably not easy still to
talk about kind of what broughtyou there.
But it is amazing how, fromsometimes tragedy, you have this
post-traumatic growth and webuild things to make the world a
better place.
So thank you for building thisproduct.
(07:00):
It's really incredible andwe're looking forward to helping
support the ERS health planpopulation with Hello Heart in
the very near future.
Can you share the mission ofHello Heart?
I know you talked about that.
The goal is to improvecardiovascular health.
Do you have a mission statementthat keeps you grounded at
Hello Heart as a team?
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Sure, our mission is to prevent any preventable
deaths from heart disease, soheart attack, stroke and all the
other conditions related tothat and the reality with heart
disease is the risk factors arevery, very common.
About 50% of Americans havehigh blood pressure,
hypertension or hyperlipidemia,high cholesterol or one of the
(07:45):
other conditions related to that, like irregular heartbeat and
other conditions that heartdisease is a risk factor of.
And the problem with these riskfactors is that you can't see
them and you can't feel them, sopeople tend to ignore them
until it's too late, until theyhave the heart attack or the
stroke.
And that's where I think thekey is in helping people
(08:07):
understand what happens insidetheir body and giving them the
tools to understand hey, I dohave high blood pressure or I
don't, my medication is workingor it's not working and give us
tools to better self-regulateand take care of ourselves,
because these are things that wecan't see and feel, so it's
easy to ignore them.
On the one hand, it's also veryrisky because you can't see the
(08:27):
heart attack coming unlessyou're very well educated and
you have these feedback loopsaround your blood pressure and
your cholesterol and whathappens inside your body and
what your own data says so, onthe one hand, giving people
tools to better understand theirblood pressure, their
cholesterol, the risk factors,to manage it and to improve it
(08:48):
in real time by providing themwith very minor lifestyle
modifications and, on the otherhand, which is very
complimentary, allowing peopleto understand the risk factors
and give them risk flags in timeso they can get to their doctor
in time and get diagnosed andtreated before it's too late and
they end up passing away.
Or, in other cases, even if youcatch it and get to the
(09:10):
hospital, permanent damage inmany cases can be formed which
really hurts our lifestyle andlife expectancy and can lead,
for example, to heart failure.
So it very much limits what youcan do in your day-to-day if
you experience these types ofconditions.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yeah, absolutely, and we see in our health plan
chronic conditions when welooked at putting a program in
place to help support our healthplan participants and
hypertension, as well asdiabetes and mental health
conditions all of theseconditions, we believe your
solution can help becausethere's a behavior related to
(09:48):
each one of these chronicconditions that we're seeing.
Can you tell people a littlebit about how the product works,
like what is it?
For those that don't know whatHello Heart is, what's the
technology behind it and what'sthe process?
Speaker 1 (10:07):
technology behind it and what's the process?
Sure, so Hello Heart is a verysimple solution that's very easy
to use for us as people, or endusers or patients, but it's
actually very sophisticatedtechnologically.
So what the product is isbasically a heart monitor that
allows you to track your bloodpressure and your pulse at home.
So it has a cuff, it connectsusing Bluetooth to your phone.
It's really cool and slick, youcan take it anywhere and it
(10:29):
connects to an app on your phoneand the app is really the brain
behind our solution.
What the app does is connectyour clinic.
It connects to the monitor, itconnects to Apple Health and
Google Fit and takes all of yoursteps data, weight data,
anything else that you put inthere and gives you an overview
of what your heart health reallyis at the moment, how it
(10:49):
changes over time.
So it shows you trends and, inmy view, the two most important
thing it does.
First, it helps you understand.
So you know a blood pressurereading of 146 over 85, is that
good, is that bad?
Most people can say, even ifthey have hypertension.
They were educated.
So it gives you a feedback loopthat helps you understand if
(11:12):
your blood pressure is high orlow if it's okay.
If it's not okay, how is ittrending over time?
Is it improving, is itincreasing?
So it gives you very simpleexplanations.
And then it does two otherthings.
One, it provides digitallifestyle coaching.
So it's not a full-time coachthat you need to commit to,
which is an incredible service,but not everybody's able to
(11:34):
integrate a live coach intotheir day-to-day over time.
So it's digital coaching, whichmeans it's a very lightweight
coaching session that just givesyou tips around nutrition,
exercise, stress management.
As you mentioned, mental healthis very much related to
hypertension.
Hyperlipidemia motivators tohelp you understand why you
(11:55):
should even care about yourblood pressure and cholesterol,
like did you know that bloodpressure impacts the way your
skin looks like?
So if you have controlled bloodpressure, your skin will look
better.
If you don't, over time you'regoing to get more wrinkles and
you're going to experience hairloss and things that people
really care about and don'talways know.
So it educates you about whatyou should be doing to improve
(12:18):
your lifestyle in yourday-to-day.
And the other thing it does itprovides risk flags.
So if you have extremely highblood pressure readings, if you
have a spike in your pulse, ifyou have irregular heartbeat, it
will flag hey, you might beexperiencing a risk, are you
experiencing these symptoms?
And if you are at a riskcategory that requires you to
(12:40):
get to a clinician, it willrefer you to the right clinical
resource in time either a PCP orthe ER or urgent care to make
sure that you catch risk in timeand can get diagnosed and
treated before it's too late.
And I'm very proud to say thatbecause people enjoy using Hello
Heart, because it's fun, wemake it really fun to track your
blood pressure.
(13:01):
There's tons of gamificationand rewards and positive
reinforcement about how wellpeople are doing and taking care
of themselves using Hello Heart.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I've been using it.
I don't really like to promoteanything that I haven't tried
myself and I've been using itfor a good while now and I
really love that feedback ittold me recently.
Your blood pressure is lower.
You can see the connection fromwhen you're walking.
You know when you're walkingmore because I have it
integrated with my other devicesand I just think that's such a
(13:32):
cool feature.
So you start to see how theother behaviors you're doing are
impacting your blood pressure,because most of the time even
from my own experience andknowing my parents and family
history you go to the doctoronce a year get your blood
pressure, if we're lucky.
Actually, only half of ourhealth plan participants are
going to the doctor for anannual visit, which is another
(13:53):
thing we're working on.
But you go to the doctor, youget your blood pressure taken
one time and then at some pointmaybe you're diagnosed with
hypertension, put on medicine,but there's not always that
consistent tracking and yourdevice also, like you said, it
syncs and your doctor can seeyour reports through MyChart.
(14:16):
I think that is also a verycool feature that people can
share.
So what other features like?
What are the things that peoplelike the most about using your
venom.
I've shared some of mine, butwhat are some of the other
things that people love aboutHello Heart?
Speaker 1 (14:30):
That's awesome and it's it's incredible to hear
about your experience.
It's actually one of the newerfeatures that we launched, the
dot to dot so it helps youconnect the dots between your
blood pressure and yourcholesterol and your behavior.
So exercise, activity, walkingsteps, medication adherence like
how is that really impacting?
Like I know you know takingmeds should lower blood pressure
(14:50):
, but is it really lowering myblood pressure so you can
actually see?
Speaker 2 (14:55):
The other day it said pet your dog, it will make you,
it will lower your bloodpressure right.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
That's one of my favorite features.
The fact that we can integratethe newest clinical studies and
turn it into bite-sized tipsthat people can actually
implement is amazing.
The dog tip is incredible.
There was a research that cameout only a couple of years ago
that hugging your dog reducesyour cortisol levels and that
reduces your blood pressure.
So if you want to lower yourblood pressure and you have a
(15:24):
dog, that's amazing.
Go hug your dog.
It will calm you down and loweryour blood pressure.
That is not something a doctorwill probably tell you to do,
but it's nice because you canincorporate little tips into the
app.
Sun exposure reducescardiovascular disease risk.
In terms of nutrition, we makeit really simple.
Instead of talking about fattyacids and things like that that
(15:46):
can improve cholesterol, we justtell you hey, why don't you try
adding salmon to your dinnertonight instead of steak, and
see what happens?
And try to incorporate verysimple things that are fun.
What other features people like?
People like sharing reports withtheir doctor, so they come into
their doctor's office a lotmore empowered with hey, here's
(16:06):
my trends at home.
My blood pressure is much lowerthan what you see in the clinic,
or it's much higher than whatyou see in the clinic, so they
can come in organized andempowered to actually share
their results with their doctor.
And their doctors love itbecause it's all organized in a
doctor format and it's adjustedto clinicians.
The gamification people lovethat.
(16:26):
So our product team about halfof them came from the gaming
industry and that's veryintentional.
We wanted people to reallyenjoy using Hello Heart, so
there's like badges and rewardsand little emojis and
celebrations every time youtrack your blood pressure or you
do things in a streak.
So you check your bloodpressure every day for a few
days and you get a badge.
(16:48):
So people start to enjoy it andalmost get, in the most
positive way possible, addictedto track their blood pressure.
And we use the power of thegaming industry and social media
industry skill sets for goodfor you to take care of your
heart health.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I love that there's so many ways that phones draw us
in.
I think that are not healthyAddiction to social media and
there's all kinds of things thatI feel like we are using phones
that are not healthy.
But to take that and flip itand use it for something that is
good is amazing.
I like there's so many greathealth technologies coming out
(17:28):
that I think can help improveour lives.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
So wait, I have a question for you.
Do you know how much time dopeople stare at their phones
these days?
On average phones?
Speaker 2 (17:37):
these days, on average, I am going to say I'm
going to say it's four to sixhours a day.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
That is very accurate .
It's now five and a half hoursand it's insane Like we stare at
these devices for five and ahalf hours.
It's about half of our wakingtime.
So what we did in Hello Heartis put all of the things you
need to learn and understand andall the even the reminders to
take your meds, to track yourblood pressure, to go see your
PCP on your phone in an appthat's super accessible.
So if you're already there,we're already staring at our
(18:11):
phone.
Why don't we use it for good?
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Do something good, take care of ourselves, and I
feel like I remember you sayingthat you use the research of Dr
BJ Fogg out of Stanford.
Is that true?
The power of habit, the tinyhabits habits.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
There's another Stanford professor called Nir
Eyal that talked about the hookmodel of how do you get people
to do things repeatedly?
So you have to get them to havea trigger, that, for example, a
reminder to track your bloodpressure.
You have to get them to get areward.
So that's the badge that wehave.
And then the investmentaccumulates over time and people
get more excited to do it againand again.
And Facebook, for example, it'sour Facebook feed.
(19:01):
We have more and more photosand friends and things in our
feed.
That gets us to feel like weare already invested in that.
In Hello Heart, it's trackingyour blood pressure, it's
connecting your clinic andlooking at your labs, it's
taking your medication on timeevery day and having that streak
.
So the investment encourages usto continue to use things.
(19:21):
So both of these studies,together with a lot of other
behavioral studies, is what webase our product on.
These are core principles.
We use a lot of behavioralscience and positive psychology
in building Hello Heart and thenwe experiment.
We basically that's the beautyof a digital solution you throw
a hundred different tips thatthe team developed that are
(19:42):
based on behavioral science intoour user community and then you
see what sticks, and thensometimes you find out that you
know very random things that thedesign team decided to try are
the tips that get people mostengaged and excited and improve
their heart health, andsometimes the clinical team are
actually in the back of the busin terms of their ability to
(20:07):
impact our users, and sometimesit's the other way around, but
it's very data driven.
So it's behavioral scienceprinciples that are all in the
heart of how we build thesolution, and then it's the
reality of just looking at thedata of what works.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I love it, yeah, even that confetti, you know, and
I'm using hands and not thatanyone can see me right now, but
you know that makes you feellike it's just a little burst of
happiness that triggers, that'sa reward in your brain and it
makes you want to go back and doit again.
So very, very cool how you'reusing that science and
(20:42):
technology of human behavior tohelp people actually take their
blood pressure and give themrecommendations for how to
improve health.
Do you have any success storiesfrom people who have been using
your device and the app, maybewho've seen significant
improvements in their hearthealth?
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Of course there's many, and that's probably the
best part of my job to get thethank you notes from the users
that either tell us how we wereable to change your life and
reduce their heart risksignificantly or even catch risk
in time, which is by far themost satisfying thing that I can
do as an entrepreneur.
So Jimmy is one of my favoritestories.
(21:21):
Jimmy Ramos was part of amailman group that we work with
and Jimmy tracked his bloodpressure for six months, did
great, reduced his bloodpressure, lost some weight.
Fantastic.
What Hello Heart does is itdoesn't actually get you to
reduce your blood pressure orreduce your weight.
It gives you the tools to do ityourself and need education,
(21:43):
and that's how you can see it inall of our published clinical
studies how impactful that canbe.
But basically, Jimmy wastracking his blood pressure.
Everything was fine.
Six months later he wasrandomly checking his blood
pressure and the app told himthat he has an irregular
heartbeat, which is one of ournewer features back in the day
(22:05):
and he was puzzled by it.
The app told him to check again, because you always have to
make sure a couple of times thatyou know if there is a risk
flag that it's real, so youwon't be sent to the ER for no
reason.
He checked it again and he hadan irregular heartbeat detection
and the app told him okay, ithappened two times in a row.
Are you experiencing any ofthese symptoms?
(22:26):
He didn't have any symptoms, sowe told him okay, you need to
go see a clinician as quickly aspossible.
He went to the doctor.
The doctor asked him why areyou here?
And he said the app told me tocome.
And he showed him the app.
The doctor was like okay, hedidn't have any history no
(22:51):
palpitation, no signs that youcan actually see.
But because he was tracking hisblood pressure and his pulse,
they ran tests and he did have avery severe arrhythmia.
And he did have a very severearrhythmia and he was put into
surgery a day later.
And, as he says, I promised mygranddaughter that I'm going to
be at her wedding.
I don't know if I wouldn't be,you know, tracking my blood
pressure and my pulse, if Iwould make it.
(23:13):
So he had a life threateningcondition that he was able to
catch because he was tracking.
And again, it's the monitor ourmonitors are FDA approved that
can flag these types of risksituations, but I think that
shows all of us how important itis to really track your heart
health at home, because that'skind of the missing gap in heart
(23:33):
health.
The tracking capabilities exist, Clinicians know how to
diagnose.
We as patients or as people,are not using them often enough
and don't have the education touse them at home, and that's
something we need to change.
We need to get everyone totrack their heart health at home
as a prevention tool, just likewe get everybody to do
mammograms to prevent breastcancer.
(23:55):
So my goal beyond Hello Heartis to get everybody to start
tracking their heart health athome and create a movement of
people taking care of theirheart health on a regular basis,
because we can change thestatistics of it being the
number one cause of death.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
What a great story.
And, yeah, just this idea, thatspace between doctor's visits.
What are we doing?
I think, yeah, it's a verypowerful tool.
How has Hello Heart beenreceived in the healthcare
community?
What kind of partnerships haveyou formed with groups to
support this?
Speaker 1 (24:31):
mission?
Great question.
So, basically the way I viewourselves, we're a tool that is
designated for the patient orthe person managing their own
health and we work in adjacentto the clinical community.
The clinical community, sincethey don't have the presence and
it is a white space, lovesHello Heart.
We work with several PBMs andhealth plans and we're very
(24:54):
proud to be working with aselect group of health plans and
be offered to their clients aspart of how we commercially
distribute Hello Heart and wepublish studies with leading
clinicians from UCLA.
We just published another studywith 100,000 patients with John
Hopkins.
So we work together withleading researchers from the
(25:17):
best facilities in the US topublish our outcomes and
continue to.
We work very closely with theAmerican Heart Association.
First, we have a joint cause oferadicating heart disease as
much as we can.
Definitely is a cause of death,but in general we do heart
walks with them.
We do joint education seminarswith them.
(25:38):
We recently launched a newinitiative for women's heart
health more than men duringheart attacks, because we have a
knowledge gap because womenwere not included in clinical
research until 1993.
We have a huge gap in educationfor the public and we have a
(25:59):
huge gap in education forclinicians.
So in many cases women's heartattack symptoms are being
dismissed by the womenthemselves.
First and foremost.
We don't understand our ownsymptoms and it's not typical.
It's not just the left sidechest pain.
It could be extreme fatigue andit could be stomach discomfort
(26:24):
and nausea.
It could be feeling lightheadedand dizzy and things that you
won't necessarily.
It can feel like a stomach bugalmost, or like a severe flu
that came out of nowhere, butyou feel something is wrong.
You don't always connect thesesymptoms to a heart attack, but
they are very common symptomsfor a heart attack for women.
So women wait 37 minutes longerthan men before they even get to
care and when they get to carethey're being dismissed a lot
(26:46):
more often than men during aheart attack because the doctors
are not fully educated.
They have good intentions butthey're not fully educated
around symptoms and we can closethis gap.
We're very proud to berecognized as a best in class
solution by the American HeartAssociation.
We're partners with them instudies we publish in the
(27:08):
American Heart AssociationJournal often and we're part of
their innovation network.
So we work with the AmericanHeart Association together to
promote women's heart health andhopefully reduce the mortality
of women during heart attacksand strokes, and it's so
important.
It's not we're both femaleleaders, but it's our mothers,
(27:30):
it's our sisters, it's ourcolleagues.
It's the number one cause ofdeath for women and we have so
many things that we can do toclose the gap, because women are
not just small men.
They have their own uniquecharacteristics.
They have different cholesterollevels, they go through
menopause.
There's so many risk factorsthat need to be addressed for
women's heart health that we canaddress as a society and we
(27:55):
should, because we want women tolive longer.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
That is very well said and I learned a lot about
women's heart health in apresentation I went to where you
were the speaker, so that's agreat I love, and I've
envisioned us having a secondpodcast specifically on women's
health women's heart health inthe future.
So it's fascinating and I dolove the work that you're doing
to just bring awareness to suchan interesting topic that people
(28:21):
have no idea right, and thefact that the research was not
even done on women you knowwe're comparing women to men.
It's fascinating.
So thank you for your effortsto get that education out and
save women's lives.
I mean it's amazing.
What's on your roadmap, mayan?
What's coming up over the nextfew years with Hello Heart?
Speaker 1 (28:40):
So we continue to embrace the newest technologies
and I think, first, our team isvery, very mission driven, and
that's why I'm so excited aboutworking with ERS, because I
think your members are allmission driven people.
All the state employees arewaking up every day to do such
an important job and savepeople's lives in many cases as
(29:01):
well, or change people's lifefor the good and that's how our
team is as well, but with adifferent cause of helping them
hopefully live a better life andget educated on their own
health.
Our team is very creative.
Our roadmap keeps changingbecause new ideas keep popping
up, so it's very exciting.
In the future, we want to getas close as possible to catching
(29:22):
risk closer in time, predictingrisk and having a better
connection with the clinicalcommunity to really refer
patients not to just any care,as we do today, but to the right
clinician at the right time andcreate a closer community
around that moment with ourpatients and their clinicians.
But if you take it down to today, we just added menopause as a
(29:45):
key feature to our solution.
So menopause support for womenthat are going through that
period, and guess what?
A hundred percent of women willgo through menopause, so it's a
very important time in lifeSomeday but but, like heart,
heart risk spikes around thattime because estrogen protects
(30:06):
our heart.
So you need to get educated andstart tracking your heart
health around that time.
So that just came up.
We're adding support for highblood pressure during pregnancy
for women that experiencehypertension during pregnancy.
That's another feature that'scoming up and can protect women
and their unborn children duringpregnancy, which is very, very
important.
(30:26):
So that's coming up next year.
And now we're very focused onmedication, adherence Medication
again, because you can't see orfeel hypertension,
hyperlipidemia, people tend tonot take their meds because it
doesn't matter, because you feelthe same before with or without
it, right?
So 60% of people don't taketheir medication as prescribed
(30:46):
when it comes to hypertensionand hyperlipidemia.
So we're giving people moretools and a lot of, as you said,
like the fun banners and, youknow, confetti and and badges
and making it fun to take takeyour blood pressure medication
as you use Hello Heart.
So that's that's the key focusof the team these days.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
That's incredible.
I look forward to seeing youknow the evolution of this
product and just to hear fromour participants that are using
it in the near future.
A little personal story aboutthe medication adherence.
My grandmother when the week Iwas born because she was so
stressed out because my mom waslate having me this is what she
(31:28):
says.
Anyways, she did not take hermedicine.
Mom was late having me this iswhat she says.
Anyways, she did not take hermedicine.
She was 50 years old and had astroke because she was not
taking her medicine.
A week before I was born sheended up.
It was a mild stroke and shelived many years after that and
had no really complications fromthat, but she sure, sure
started taking her medicineafter that.
But, like you said a lot oftimes, people just think, oh,
I'm fine, but she sure surestarted taking her medicine
(31:49):
after that.
But, like you said a lot oftimes, people just think, oh,
I'm fine, but it's superimportant, if you do have
hypertension, to take thatmedicine, and I love that your
device is helping people totrack, rewarding that behavior.
It's just amazing.
So if it is after September 1st, this product is out and
available, if you're listeningto this.
After September 1st it's outand available and you can
(32:10):
actually go ahead and order aHello Heart monitor and you can
get enrolled in this program.
So I'm going to be sharing thelink for how to do that in the
show notes and so you can justgo ahead and order a kit and
start tracking your bloodpressure.
And we would love to hear aswell and I know Maya and you'd
love to hear from people and howthat's going.
(32:31):
And, yeah, keep in, keep intouch A hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
I always love to hear how it's going and hear
feedback and hear ideas.
A lot of the ideas that end upin our roadmap and innovation
comes from our users, so pleaseshare feedback as much as
possible.
And you're right, if we areafter September 1st and you have
high blood pressure, highcholesterol, approaching
menopause age or have familyhistory of heart disease, you're
(32:58):
welcome to log in to Googlehelloheartcom slash ERS.
You'll find the link there aswell.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Perfect, mayan.
I'm always a little starstruckto get to talk to you because
you are just such an incredibleleader and you built this
incredible thing as the founderand CEO of a major healthcare
initiative.
It's really great to sit downand have a conversation with you
.
We appreciate your time and allthat your team is doing to
(33:27):
support our ERS health planparticipants, and we're really
looking forward to great thingsin the future.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Thank you so much, lacey, and I'm as starstruck as
you are every time I talk to youas well.
You have such an important roleshaping our state employees'
health care and well-being, sothank you for everything you're
doing.
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
All right, everybody get out there and check out
Hello Heart and we look forwardto hearing your feedback.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Great Thank you, Lacey.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
All right, everybody.
That wraps up another episodeof the ERS Walk and Talk podcast
.
I hope you enjoyed myconversation with Mayim.
If you are interested inlearning more about Hello Heart,
you can find the link where youcan find all kinds of
information in our show notes.
Please like and subscribe thepodcast so you receive future
updates and share with someonethat you think may benefit from
(34:20):
this information.
Thanks so much and have awonderful rest of your day.
Take care everyone.
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