Elisabeth Staudinger, Siemens Heathineers - AMOI Studio Interview | LSI USA ‘23

Transcription

Ben Glenn  0:01  

Say hello to my guest, Elizabeth shouting here at LSI 2023. Elisabeth, thank you for coming by the studio.

Elisabeth Staudiner  0:09  

Good morning. It's wonderful to be here today.

Ben Glenn  0:11  

I know when we got the sun to shine, it's day two of LSI. And we've now delivered on the promise, which is all we ever asked him Southern California, Sunny 68. And they delivered today. So we got a break from the rain. How is LSI been for you?

Elisabeth Staudiner  0:26  

I came in last night, right. And I spent the morning speaking to a few of the startup companies joining LSI summit this year. And it's been very fascinating and also inspiring for me to be here so far.

Ben Glenn  0:40  

Terrific. Are you coming in from maybe another part of the world where Siemens has opened up a new innovation center?

Elisabeth Staudiner  0:47  

Well, I did come in from Europe. But just last week, actually I was in India, yeah, where we inaugurated or where we had the groundbreaking ceremony for a new innovation campus that we are building in Bengaluru in the south of India, and this place will be home to more than 3000 software engineers, which will span across all the different parts of the healthcare space that Siemens Healthineers is covering.

Ben Glenn  1:17  

So for Siemens, this is maybe one of the largest campuses you've ever built are the most integrated into the community, you were saying that maybe one of the big hospital systems for India's is a stone's throw away, tell us more about how that's going to come to life.

Elisabeth Staudiner  1:33  

Right. For us. This is a fascinating location. And already today, about 50% of all software engineer engineers in Siemens health. Software Engineers in Siemens Healthineers are based out of Bangalore in India, and they cover the whole range to cover all the different parts of our business be the imaging space, the radiation therapy, the diagnostics, work we do. And they're very closely linked and connected with the ecosystem around them, be it healthcare providers, but also be the innovation equals ecosystem around us in India that we all bring together in one spot there.

Ben Glenn  2:12  

I think I had read in maybe somewhere on went maybe one of your LinkedIn posts, and correct my my remembrance of this but technical people with curious minds. That's innovation.

Elisabeth Staudiner  2:26  

Exactly. It's technical people, it's curious minds. And it's also the creating that space where people can connect across right where you go, you need your very, very deep domain, right. But then if you have an opportunity to exchange and connect the things you're working on with the people around you, that's when you can really create step change.

Ben Glenn  2:45  

You know, it's interesting, I started off early in my career was in the Navy. And so then coming into Silicon Valley, from that I look for that kind of leader or leadership and cross training that's native to a ship and I'm, I'm beginning to see where that might be an advantage for healthcare is you've got Yes, you know, during your watch, period, your radio man, your boilers operator. But there are times whenever you have to work with other people of different disciplines. But you have this common denominator, I'm wondering if that health care, that delivery of healthcare, that can become the common denominator for these very different technical skills, which we absolutely have to have for those to come together?

Elisabeth Staudiner  3:27  

Right. If you look at at healthcare, right, and look at it from from the patient, you're looking at a good outcome for yourself, right. And in order to get there, having one deep, deep expertise in one space is just one piece of the puzzle, right? You need all these different elements to come together, revolving around the patient, looking at what is it what will help this individual patient? What will help me as a patient, and bring together all the different strengths? Yeah. And it's this combination, it's also understanding how pieces fit together. Yeah, which is necessary to truly make a difference. I think

Ben Glenn  4:05  

that's another puzzle. We even in the US very complicated system. And you have so many specialists, and they understand the regulatory scheme, they are looking at all the changes that are happening to our clinical trial strategy. And, you know, Walgreens is working very hard to, you know, shatter that model of, you have to go to the main center. So we're changing that we're changing the way that delivery happens with software. But those are all discrete specialties. So how does health the health Healthineers program how do you what's your, your secret sauce? How do you bring all those disciplines together to understand the continuum of care?

Elisabeth Staudiner  4:43  

I mean, for us, we like to speak about this combination of focus and scale. Yeah. And that's also conversation we are having in the company. On the one hand side, it's extremely important to be very, very deep in your domain, to really and withstand the depths of the technology of the clinical application of the patient impact and outcome. And at the same time, you know, we spend time looking for ways of connecting the dots horizontally. And that's when you kind of like envision a bird when you start flying, and you'll look at the world from a 10,000 feet perspective. And see, okay, well, if we take this perspective, yeah, so what do we see? And how can we bring the different pieces together. And this is something where we believe in Siemens Healthineers, we really have this very unique combination, right? Of the creating something we call digital twinning, right, where you use the information from the imaging, use information from laboratory diagnostics, to be very exact about the diagnosis about the possible treatment options, then combine this with the technology, which you need to be super precise. Yeah, in making sure the precision is exactly the therapies Exactly. targeted at where it needs to go doing the things you're looking for to do. And this all of this enabled by digital data, and AI, yeah, which helps them with the links, it helps with connecting the different pieces. And it's this triad, so to say, where we believe we can make a real impact and make a difference.

Ben Glenn  6:23  

So how far does digital twinning go? Is this? Do you get into oncology? So down to like tumor level? Or is this this just stay with like, the major, you know, joints? They use an orthopedic example, so that you can twin a joint or can you twin, like deep information about a particular patient for like a precision healthcare example.

Elisabeth Staudiner  6:45  

And when you look at this fascinating idea of a digital twin, and it's been part also of the conversations I had here in the morning, already simple things can make a huge difference. Yeah. And then you can scale it up to this huge vision of a physiological model of a person which starts at birth, where you capture genomic information where as you do exam, blood test results, imaging, whatever, you capture all of this information longitudinally, to then shape this vision of a long term digital twin. We start from the simple things were said they already make a huge difference. Yeah, having exact and precise information on the imaging or the blood testing side. And having this early enough, already can make a huge difference to the care pathway as well as the patient outcome. Specifically, if you ask about orthopedics, and organs, there is one area in cardiology, we have been working on for quite some time already, which is very concrete, and very tangible. And this is where we create a digital representation of a patient's heart. Yeah. So it will be your heart, it will be my heart, not just a heart. Right, and you use the imaging information, you use the information on how does electricity flow through the muscle, you have the dynamics of the muscle moving, you have the blood flow going through through the heart, and then you can use this model to test certain therapy options. Yeah, one, one example we are working on is when it's about when you have arrhythmia. Yeah, there is many different ways of treating that. And there is different approaches you can take. And you can use this digital twin or model of the heart to simulate therapy options, and then to model which one of these pathways most likely will have the best outcome for the patient. So it's this is one very concrete example where a digital model of an organ is used to choose the most impactful procedure for an individual patient.

Ben Glenn  9:04  

And then there's that become part of the conversation between the surgeon and the patient about informed consent. And it's it almost seems like you have you have more than the surgeon, right? Because you now have the information from the digital twin. That's also advising surgeons going to make their use their judgment. But it seems like you're giving a powerful tool to inform the surgeon and thereby help the patient understand this is selected for you. We looked at your data.

Elisabeth Staudiner  9:36  

Right? And I think you're absolutely right, that goes both ways. On the one hand side it supports the physician and making the best possible choice. And it's also a vehicle to explain to the patients say, Well, this is what's wrong. This is where you see where the issue is, this is what I will do and this is what it will do to your heart. And that's the outcome you can expect. So It's I think it's a very powerful tool to inform the physicians choice, but also to help the patient understand what's going on and how it will help him or her.

Ben Glenn  10:11  

Wow, I'm so glad that you shared digital twinning. That's, that seems like a fascinating breakthrough. One of the other things that I found very interesting was, you had another post that talked about, you know, what are all of these different skills that are coming together? And it seemed like you're drawing from almost every spectrum of Siemens manufacturing is represented your service organization, sales, is there. Of course, r&d is there. And then you've got deep technical skills and clinical scenarios. So that how does all of that come together? What, what led you to that, as opposed to? Well, we have the best r&d engineers in the world, and they'll figure it out? What led to that bringing that all those voices together?

Elisabeth Staudiner  10:58  

What's what's driving us is really what we also describe as our purpose is to say we want to pioneer breakthroughs in healthcare for everyone everywhere. And if you take that statement, yeah, I mean, that's what's driving us. And when you're speaking about pioneering breakthroughs and healthcare, that's nothing anybody can do alone. Right? So it's very clear that you have to kind of have people who want to and know how to really push the boundaries of what's possible. Right? You'll have that urge and that curiosity to also go and and find out Yeah, at the same time, we are speaking about breakthroughs, and a breakthrough is only a breakthrough. If it makes a real difference. Yeah. And within healthcare, and healthcare is a space where very sensitive, you're touching patients lives. So you need to have this inquisitive spirit, but then also combine it with the deep technological engineering capability. And also the clinical know how, yeah, because if you don't bring together these different pieces, you may be doing pioneering things, but it will not be a meaningful breakthrough for healthcare.

Ben Glenn  12:17  

That's a beautiful definition. One of the panel earlier today, they were talking about the sort of the digital or write a lot of a lot of conversations this year at LSI. About, you know, AR and VR and digital and software as a medical device. And one of the things that came up was because we can, should we I think that's, that's like this, this ultimate tension that's within a lot of our big key regulated industries is just because you can disrupt something or change something, oftentimes, it's best not to that there's a there's a deep rationale for why things are done the way that they are inside the health system, you touched on many of them, this is someone's life, you don't Tinker there, this is not the place for tinkering. So I wonder if there's more than encouraged that more than inspires the vision that you have at Siemens, and how that reaches healthcare.

Elisabeth Staudiner  13:14  

I think it's absolutely meaningful and also necessary to continuously question what you do, and consider is there a better way of doing something? And as new technologies become available, I think it's also something we, we have to do and we also want to do is to see well, how can we utilize these technologies and also impact the space of healthcare? So if you're asking the question, well, just because we can, should we, to me, it's very clear that as long as you look for a positive patient outcome, ultimately, if you can demonstrate how the combination of something which is new, yeah, with the challenges that we're facing in the healthcare system will make a difference, either to a patient or to making the system more viable, more efficient. Yeah, I think there is a real obligation of also trying to explore how we can leverage new possibilities. 

Ben Glenn  14:19  

And one of the things we're seeing in the US health system is, you know, this broadening of the meaning of innovation, and it's one of the things I really enjoy exploring, and a lot of times it's not, you know, maybe we're coming into an age where it's not fundamental science that's been developed over 10 or 15 years that finally makes it into a product that breaks its way through regulatory, but it could be something as simply changing business processes, you know, adapting the way that digital is accepted, you know, getting getting digital education into reimbursement strategies, helping hospital systems understand how digital tools are not just apps on iPhones, but they have, you know, clinical significance. So do you see is Healthineers going to be able to enable this? I'll call it the digital education of healthcare systems around the globe. Do you see that role?

Elisabeth Staudiner  15:16  

I absolutely share the vision that digitalization is already making a huge impact on healthcare will make a much, much bigger impact on healthcare as we look into the future. And this space of education specifically, I believe, is a very interesting and important one. Because one of the big challenges Yeah, healthcare systems here in the United States, but also globally, are facing is there is just not enough people who are trained, who have the expertise and who have the capability of of making the right decisions or performing the right procedures, staff shortage, I mean, a huge buzzword but not only a buzzword, a real challenge for for health care systems in the United States and everywhere. And if you now envision that use digitalization to multiply how many people you can train, how many people you can impact how you can use the scarce resources you have in a way that there are more available exactly where they're needed. I think it's a very interesting opportunity to work on. And I can tell here also from being at LSI, many, many people are thinking about, well, what can I do? What is my idea? How can I contribute to solving that challenge?

Ben Glenn  16:39  

I think it will be, it's almost like we need to, we need to innovate in a way to create more capacity for the health system to accept innovation, there's almost like this, we need to help it create the opportunities and the pathways for new technologies to find the way into the system. So it's very different than you know, when I started doing this 20 years ago, and it was all, you know, surgeon with a great idea works with an engineer, they make a new thing. And that thing, he has to get into the health system, and then move the needle in advancing the standard of care. But now we're seeing you know, we have a system that needs innovation in a meaningful way, not a disruptive way, not a destructive way. But something that really allows it to now sort of take a deep breath and expand its lungs to new areas and these new technologies to come in.

Elisabeth Staudiner  17:29  

Absolutely. And I believe there will continue to be space. Yeah, for that first type of innovation that you were describing, I think there is still a lot of things to be discovered trade out experimented with invented. And then there is new ways of adding additional innovation to the healthcare system.

Ben Glenn  17:51  

Yeah, the one one model that came up yesterday was the you know, the device, the therapy that enters that can now collect data, then you have the outcome from that. So you know, you have data from the data that you collected, that then feeds back into the device or the therapy, rendering a new one that goes out collects more data and this virtuous cycle of which I don't know how well, that was captured, you know, say even the last decade. And so now I think people there's this awareness of the outcomes, how you specifically lead to value, how you specifically lead to better patient outcomes. So maybe we're also enabling those kinds of cycles of innovation.

Elisabeth Staudiner  18:31  

Yeah, absolutely. agree that there is Yeah, also, as computing power is becoming available, algorithms are becoming available, the opportunity to connect the dots have just increased tremendously. And leveraging these opportunities for healthcare as well is is a very fascinating thing to do.

Ben Glenn  18:54  

Elisabeth, thank you so much for coming by.

Elisabeth Staudiner  18:57  

Well, I'm very excited to be here. Yeah. It's been a great day so far. And I'm very much looking forward to spending the rest of the day here at LSI in California, with these amazing companies that have been joining here together.

Ben Glenn  19:15  

Well, I'm glad Siemens got you out here to do it and enjoy the rest of the rest of your LSI Thank you.