Keynote: Touchpoints that Matter: Building Health Systems for the Next Billion Patients | LSI Asia '25

Vy Tran  0:05  
Thank you so much for joining me this morning, and I'm thrilled to be kicking off a talk about building health care systems for the next billion patients. Let's begin with the general picture, many countries across the globe have made remarkable progress in the past decades in economic growth, poverty reduction and developing a strong public health system, but yet there are still many people, especially in rural areas, well where health care is a distant luxury rather than a guaranteed right, we continue to see difficulties in health care systems serving populations due to the growing aging population and Increase in chronic diseases, rise in cancer and neurogenerative diseases and the lack of medical professionals, an estimated shortfall of 18 million healthcare workers by 2030 in many parts of the world, most of the healthcare professionals are concentrated in The big cities, whereas the majority of the population is in the rural areas, where people remain severely underserved and insurance doesn't cover preventative screening or even treatments. But let's take a moment to humanize this topic and tell you a story about Mai. Here we go. Mai is a woman in her mid 50s, and she lives in a rural village of Wang Nai province in Vietnam. She spent most of her life working in the rice fields, raising nine children while still looking after her aging mother. She's strong, she's resilient, she's proud, but she's also sick, very sick. Mai has lung cancer. Let's get a sense of Maiz world, geographic disparities. Living in Vietnam in this smaller village creates a logistical nightmare for healthcare delivery, financial constraints, medication, specialized treatments, diagnostic tests and images require extra payment. Awareness in many rural communities, mothers like my lack the education and awareness on signs and symptoms of disease. Mai assumed that her persistent cough was caused by the smoke from cooking on a fire or the chemicals from working in the rice fields. Weeks passed and the cough got worse. She grew tired, lost weight and began coughing up blood, but yet she still refused to go to a clinic, since there was not a clinic in her village, and the closest clinic would be two hours away on a motorbike where there would still be no X ray machine, no CT scanner and no oncologist timing. Due to the lack of this awareness, Mai does not seek timely treatment. By the time she reaches the hospital in the closest city in Danang, she has been diagnosed with stage three lung cancer. The doctors explain the treatment to her, which include multiple rounds of chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. This is Mai 's worst nightmare, not because of the gravity of the diagnosis because, but because that she knew this would put her family into financial Jeopardy. Self self sacrifice is often expected amongst women in many cultures who are conditioned to put their family needs above their own shame and embarrassment can overshadow the illness, and even though my had this persistent cough, she delayed treatment for fear of finding out she actually may be sick. In her mind, it's better not to know, because her family wouldn't have to suffer the financial burden to treat her, because in Vietnam, her treatment would truly would not be fully covered. My is not unique. She is one of a growing population in Asia Pacific, where more than half of the world's population lives. Is 4.3 billion people live in Asia. Mai is a rising is part of a rising group of the aging population in the region by 20 51.1, of four people in Asia Pacific will be over 60 years old. The population of the people over 60 in the region will triple to 1.3 billion people by 2050 non communicable diseases are also on the rise, like in my case, more people are being diagnosed with cancer, the most common being lung cancer. Coronary artery disease is the number one killer, and neurovascular disease is also on the rise. In all cases, early detection is key, as mentioned before for my early detection wasn't possible, given the nearest clinic was two hours away, and with the clinic being two hours away, yet again, no X ray machine, no CT scanner, no oncologist, and by the time she did see her doctor, her cancer had progressed to stage three in Southeast Asia. Lung cancer surpasses other cancers as the most common cause of death. Like my a substantial proportion of the patients with lung cancers was were never smokers, for mai treatment. Her journey is not straightforward. There are multiple specialists, no health records that can easily be shared between providers, and no personalized treatment plan. We can help my by enabling healthcare systems that are patient centric, and this can only be done by going digital. Better decision making will enable my to inform her doctors of changes real time so her care team can make more informed decisions, stronger implementation, greater patient satisfaction. By being involved in her journey, Mai understands what is happening throughout her diagnosis and treatment, reducing her anxiety as well as her family's anxiety, lower cost of care. Mai can spend less time in the hospital. Studies have shown that patients who self report outcomes while receiving outpatient chemotherapy enjoy a better health related quality of life and have less need for hospitalization and most of all, better clinical outcomes by collecting data and accessing these insights, care teams are able to make more informed decisions and through automated prioritizations, they can also intervene those patients who have the most critical need. So how do we rewrite my story? We want to invest in rural infrastructure, mobile clinics, tele medicine, better roads can drastically improve access. Train healthcare providers make resources more efficient through deploying AI and optimizing digital solutions at Siemens Healthineers, we're committed to providing 6 million hours of training to health care workers by 2030 this is part of our sustainability commitment. The World Health Organization projects a global shortage of 11 million people, 11 million health care workers. By 2030 Vietnam alone will have a shortage of 40 to 50,000 nurses. And the Philippines today exports 85% of its nurses abroad. We also need to establish public private partnerships the private sector, working together with NGOs, the government, all of us need to scale up to do what the government alone may not be able to achieve. Through digitalization, we can give the patient more of an integrated, multi disciplinary approach to cancer care, where the patient is an active participant providing real time feedback to their provider. The provider is then able to use clinical decision making support tools to ensure accurate and timely treatment.

Vy Tran  9:56  
Let me go here to an image that. We have where we're trying to show some visual effects compared to previous results. Jump over to here. Sorry I didn't click on you'll see here an image of direct volume rendering and the segmented lung lesion, it's important to have really high quality imaging to ensure that we are diagnosing properly. Here you'll also see a image of a 4d lung visualization for radiation treatment planning. For radiation treatment planning, we want to ensure the right dose is delivered to the right place, and this is where precision medicine is extremely important. Our vision is digitalization, big data, AI can all help us understand new connections with the patient data, enabling higher precision and better outcomes. To do so, the data must be high quality and from population groups from all countries, in a structured format, ensuring consistency. What could Maiz future have looked like, had she had this level of access, Mai would have been able to continue caring for her family, continue to earn a living and live a better quality of life for all of us, we know somebody with a story very similar to my whether it be our mother, our sister, our grandmother or our best friend. For me, my story is very similar to my grandmother's story, and that's the reason why working in health care is not just a job. It's deeply personal. So I'm very happy to be here with all of you and work along the side of you, because I know we share the same personal commitment to improving health care access for everyone around us. Thank you so much for your time today.

Scott Pantel  12:21  
All right. Good morning everyone. Vy, thank you so much for your wonderful presentation and for framing things up for us today. The way we're going to do this, just so everybody's prepared, is we're going to Vy and i are going to have a short conversation here. I have some questions I've been dying to ask. We had a preparatory call, and I've had some follow up thoughts, and I want to follow up on what you presented here today. At the end of our discussion, we're going to, Vy has been open to doing some question and answer. So now's your time to think about maybe a question or two that comes to mind that you like to ask Vy. And we'll, we'll try to squeeze as much as we can in. So again, thank you for being here. Siemens Healthineers has a has developed just a phenomenal culture of innovation. And we were fortunate enough to have burn Montag with us on stage in 2022 we had Elizabeth stottinger with us in 23 and now we have you with us here today, I wanted to just talk a little bit about your personal journey, because it's a very interesting one, so I'll try to frame this up, and if I if I miss anything, please correct me. And then I'd like to maybe share to the audience how you arrived here. So brief history, 2425 years with Varian. So you came to Siemens Healthineers through an acquisition. The acquisition happened during covid, or right around covid, during covid. So it was an interesting time. You're based in the Bay Area, and then a couple years in, they say Vy you're going to come to Asia Pacific and run this business. How did, how did that happen, and how did that feel?

Vy Tran  13:54  
Yeah, it was. It was a big surprise. I mean, I had been at Varian medical systems like Scott said, 25 years grew up in regulatory compliance, all things compliance, regulatory quality, data privacy, anything compliance, they threw my way, and I became the Chief Compliance Officer for about five years towards the tail end, And then, like you said, in the middle of covid, I got a phone call from the CEO saying, Are you sitting down? And I thought, oh my god, am I getting fired? What's going on? Why are you telling me to sit down? And the the answer was, No, we're getting acquired by Siemens Healthineers. And shortly after, about a year into the acquisition, I think there was a very strategic decision by the company to move an executive into the executive team of Siemens Healthineers. And I think, you know, integrations are really about people, so I think it was a really smart move to move. Of the executives, including myself, into the executive team of Siemens Healthineers. And the role they asked me to take was the head of Asia Pacific, Japan, running the commercial team. That was a huge shock to me. I had never run a commercial team in my life. I ran compliance. So what a difference this was to have the head of compliance come to Asia and and manage a commercial team, a commercial and service team of nearly 5000 people. So it was an incredible opportunity. I was very reluctant to take it, because it certainly moved me out of my comfort zone. I mean, when you are an expert in a certain field for 25 years and then to move to something you don't have really much experience on it, it was scary, to be honest, super, super scary. And talk about, you know, everybody says, Get out of your comfort zone. I think for me that that year was getting out of my comfort zone, everything all at once. I moved companies, moved out of the country, I moved into a different field, and I didn't have a network anymore of the company I used to work with. So I think I really pushed the limits of getting out of my comfort zone. So it's been an incredible experience, professionally and personally, I was sharing with you, Scott, every every stereotype, every perception I had about Asia is wrong, yeah, and I grew up in the United I'm Asian. I left Vietnam when I was two years old. I'm pretty much American, and all the perceptions I've had about Asia is completely wrong. This is a super, just incredible place to be, and I just will say it, it has opened my eyes in so many ways, and I'm thrilled to be here.

Scott Pantel  17:03  
That's great. And that's what actually that's a perfect segue into one of the questions I had for you. You so you get settled in here, and in our prep call, you had said you made a comment that you were immediately blown away by the innovation and the diversity. So tell us a little bit more about maybe some of the things that surprised you. Maybe follow up with some detail on the innovation that you saw the diversity. What are some of the nuances that you immediately noticed when you got settled

Vy Tran  17:26  
here? Yeah, I mean, the innovation is incredible. I mean, the startup community, just here alone in Singapore, I didn't realize how strong of a startup community there is in Asia. I come from the Silicon Valley, where every other you know, person you talk to, works at a startup. But the the talent, the innovation, the ability to adapt and come up with new technology, is is all here in Asia, growth is here in Asia diversity. I would say Asia is very, very diverse. I mean, from a health care, health care perspective, you've got Korea and Japan, who you know, have this they call super aging population. Then you go to India, and you look at India, where they're building hospitals all the time in Greenfield and Brownfield, right? So how to manage those two types of of population, how to drive health care in such a diverse area in Asia is is very, very different from how you would do this anywhere else in the world, I believe. And you know, one aspect, I have a huge background in regulatory which, which made me very close to working with government officials. And so all of the things I thought in terms of how you would build policy making, which I learned in the United States is very different in Asia. So you know, again, that diversity how different regulatory systems are different in different parts of of the region, and how to work with those agencies to help build up the policies that form the healthcare system here in this region.

Scott Pantel  19:24  
So you're responsible for one of the fastest growing segment. You're managing one of the fastest growing segments for a major company, internal, r, d, external, innovation, M and A, where, where, where's the innovation going to come from? We have a meeting here full of innovators, big corporates and investors who are making decisions about where they're going to invest. Where is the innovation that Siemens is going to go after? Going to come from internal, external, a combination. Tell us a little bit about your strategy.

Vy Tran  19:52  
It's definitely both internal, external, you know, I think we're. I'm a product of Siemens Healthineers, expanding their innovation. They did a huge acquisition. They paid $16.7 billion in cash for a radiation therapy company called Varian medical systems out of Palo Alto. So there's a lot of external Of course, Siemens Healthineers is one of the top medical device manufacturers and around diagnostic imaging and diagnostics, so a lot of their innovation comes internal out of Germany. And I think, you know, nowadays, I think there is more of a push to look at how to to utilize startups and figure out ways to expand the innovation in a more accelerated manner through the use of startups. It's it takes a bit of time, I have to be honest. I mean, for a big company like Siemens Healthineers, it's very headquarters driven, because headquarters is where the r, d is at, and so here in the region, the challenge for me is creating that pull, that voice, that that need for headquarters to come and be exposed to what is here in Asia, what's here in Singapore, what's here in the region? There is a lot of innovation here. But how do we expose the headquarters folks where R and D is at to come down here to see it, to feel it, because it's sort of this out of sight, out of mind. And I think that's the one of the things I'd like to really focus in on in the future is, is bringing that exposure from headquarters down here into the region

Scott Pantel  21:48  
and and speaking of that, what, what, what segments or what areas of innovation are you, you and Siemens, most excited about these days that you're, you're looking into,

Vy Tran  21:57  
of course, it's digitalization, AI, clinical support, decision making, tools, all of those topics, really, to address a lot of the healthcare needs here in Asia that I spoke of in my talk earlier, right? I mean, this staff shortage issue is real. I mean, every country I've been to in Asia Pacific, there is a huge staff shortage problem, right? And that that really is going to affect the access here. So how do we work together to address this staff shortage problem? And like I said, it's only through digitalization, it's through AI. I think the challenge, though Scott's going to be is the regulatory nature of all of this, right? I heard from the panel earlier all of the things they're trying to do to get FDA approval, nmpa approval, all of the approvals worldwide. And you know the good old days of getting a 510, k or a CE mark, and that being enough to get worldwide approval. That's all gone. Every country now is trying to come up with their own regulatory scheme. And so as you introduce more of this digitalization, these AI tools that you know are clinical decision support tools that start to bleed over into actually making the decision on the treatment plan. It's a fine line. And how do you get the regulatory agencies? How do you bring them along? How do you educate them? How do you help them see that the risk outweigh the benefits. So that's going to be, I think, the bigger challenge in getting all of this digitalization, AI, all of this innovation work we're talking about to really address this staff shortage issue. And one of

Scott Pantel  24:03  
the things that we talked about in our prep call as well that really stuck with me, and we talked about these advanced technologies, but we also talked about the fact that 60% of the world's population is here, and there's just some simple issues of access and affordability. And you talked a little bit about like, simplifying technologies to make them more accessible and affordable. So maybe you can talk a little bit about how that that's part of the strategy, fits into the Siemens Healthineers vision.

Vy Tran  24:30  
Yeah. I mean, simplifying the technology to make things more accessible really is about ensuring the workflow is seamless, right? I mean, we I talked a little bit earlier in the talk about my journey of multi disciplinary care, right? And if you are a cancer patient and you've got to go through many different types of specialists, how do you make that whole journey seamless? So I think there is a lot of opportunity in innovation to make the patient journey here as seamless as possible. And you know, I think it is about working together, having an ability to connect all of the data that's going to be really important. And how do you analyze that data in a really meaningful way? So a lot of consistency on the data, governance on the data, making sure systems can support the data, having the infrastructure. There's a lot of opportunity here to address this topic.

Scott Pantel  25:38  
Amazing. Let's, let's shift a little bit and talk about was discussed last night. It was discussed in the previous panel, these uncertain times that we're operating in. How are you managing your teams during these uncertain times? Talk a little bit about the cultural dynamics and differences and just sort of how you're managing your team during these times.

Vy Tran  25:58  
Yeah, you know, I It's my first time working in Asia. So it was the first time I've managed a team, specifically a commercial team, in Asia. The biggest thing I've learned is adaptability, flexibility. Things change so quickly in Asia, everything from the government to the regulations to the the needs, one has to be super adaptable. In terms of being a leader here in Asia, coming in with rigidity is not going to work. You've got to be a super open to, I think just you've got to be traveling the region constantly to keep up with how things are changing. And I'll just give you an example. Nothing is ever set in stone. I will. I fly to Indonesia. I assume I've have all these meetings set up with various folks in the Minister of Health's Office, and half of them get canceled or at the last minute, as I'm about to board a plane on a Friday afternoon, somebody calls and says, come to his office. It's 5pm he's only available from five to 530 this is at 330 in the afternoon on that same day. So again, you've just got to be flexible and super adaptable.

Scott Pantel  27:30  
That's amazing. Okay, so we have 10 minutes left, we're going to open it up to questions. So while they roam the mic, I don't know where the mic is, I asked my team if they had some questions. So while we're chasing down the first question for the bold person out there, and I see Omar Khatib there, so I'm sure we'll get one from him, I am going to ask one of the questions that came in from my team to get this thing started off. So this is, this is from my colleague Amanda. And she says, so she's a Santa Clara grad, San Jose lagrad came up from Palo Alto, based in Varian for 25 years now. She's running Asia for Siemens. It's sort of crazy. I'd want to know her opinion on the good, the bad and the ugly of an ecosystem like the Bay Area. And what you what? What's what you've taken over to a pack from that experience? Wow, that's a, really, it's a loaded question. Yeah, it's

Vy Tran  28:20  
a loaded question, but really good question. The good and the bad of the Bay Area. The good about the Bay Area is, again, you know, very similar to Asia, very dynamic. But I think in the Bay Area, there is an arrogance, if I have to, there's an arrogance that only the best innovation, the best technology. It only exists in the Bay Area, if I'm honest with I grew up in the Bay Area. I've been there my whole life. I still have friends today that tell me, you know the bay area is where all the innovation is at, wrong, wrong, wrong. Get out of your world there and go to other parts of the world, and you will be amazed with what you see in terms of innovation and talent. So I would say that the bad of the Bay Area is the arrogance. The good of the Bay Area, of course, is the dynamic environment. What I have taken from leaving the bay to here in in Singapore, I will just say that, you know, the the other thing about the Bay Area culturally is it's it's a different culture in the bay. It's a different leadership style. It's a bit of a, how would I say a praise culture in the Bay Area. And one of the things I've learned leaving the bay is. Is that this everybody gets a participation award, does not exist outside the bay. It's a little more competitive in terms of the way people speak to one another. It's, it can be a little more of a critique culture outside the bay. So I think there's, you know, although a very competitive culture in the bay, there's just a cultural difference on how one interacts outside of the bay that could get some getting used to as well.

Scott Pantel  30:32  
So that's great. Yeah, okay, who's up?

Audience Question  30:36  
I think it's me. Hi. I'm Rachel Knutton with Alluvia Studio, and I'm sorry. I'm right here. And hi, one of the things I used to work in the hospital world, and I always heard about health care workers, nurses, care teams, being really frustrated by the burden of paperwork and records and taking away from hands on patient care. Now with digital health and AI, it seems like there might be a real opportunity to get the frontline care workers more in touch with the patient. And I'm just wondering if you're seeing or hearing about that as an opportunity, even with the staffing shortage, the opportunity to have that human touch that perhaps AI can't

Vy Tran  31:19  
provide, but can facilitate? Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think the whole AI solution will certainly be a big help for the front line workers. Again, I think it's this workflow, right, and what is burdensome for our frontline workers is, as you mentioned, all this paperwork, all of the how to connect all the different records, especially if you're from a patient from different hospital, you're you're seeing many specialists, they're all from different hospitals. How does one connect all of that data to make this seamless, not for the patient, but also for the frontline worker. So it's the workflow that's where I see us having huge opportunity. And we talk a lot. Brent's talked a lot. Brent Montag, our CEO, talks a lot about this seamlessness. I love that word, seamlessness. So if you can imagine the whole workflow being seamless for not just the patient, but for the frontline worker, I think it would add to reducing their stress, their mental health, and, of course, help the burden with our staff shortage.

Audience Question 2  32:46  
Hi there. My name is Omar Khatib. I run a growth agency that focuses on helping early stage companies with their marketing. And it used to be that, you know, even five years ago, a lot of companies would focus on going to Europe, first, getting CE marking, getting a little clinical traction, and then come to the US with the changes with GDPR, you know, things have gotten a lot more complex, a lot more difficult. So a lot of companies are going over Europe and coming straight to the US, looking at APAC. There seems to be a massive opportunity here, because the majority of the world's population is here, and Singapore seems to be a front door for that. So for a lot of the early stage companies that are looking to start doing early clinical trials, getting some early clinical traction. Where in the strategy should APAC be? Should they try and focus on the US first and then come to APAC the other way around? Or how do you see that?

Vy Tran  33:32  
That's a really good question. I would it depends on what country in APAC you're talking about, and maybe just to get specific on how their regulatory scheme is. I mean, you heard the woman earlier on the panel about China and how I remember, in even my days with running worldwide regulatory China moved towards having more clinical trials in, you know, from patients from their own population. So one can't assume that the clinical trial data, ha, can be just from, you know, the Western countries. But I would say, though, depending on the country you're at, it's just so important to get in there and have these discussions really early on with the regulators. And what I tried to do when I was at Varian was all always try to claim substantial equivalence, right? This data is equivalent to what you need. So, you know, I again, it's hard to say, from a total a pack standpoint, what the regular what the clinical trial data strategy should be. I would just advise you to really look into the country specifically and see if there's a way that you know the data. You do have or are about to collect, could be deemed substantially equivalent.

Audience Question 3  35:09  
Hi, I'm Blake with LSI. I'm just going to ask a question on behalf of some of the people who are here for the first time from the US, whether innovators or not, I spoke to a few people who are in Asia for the very first time. So what's some advice that you would maybe give them, just on building connections relationships here, and kind of how to break into this market a little bit if they're here for just the first time.

Vy Tran  35:36  
That's a great question. Yeah, um, you know, I would just say you got to come here a lot. That's my advice to you. This is not a one and done. Congratulations to LSI for having your inaugural event here in Asia. So it's a wonderful place to be for all the innovators here. This is a great place to start, but you got to keep coming to Asia. You. I mean, it's, it's never a one and done. That's, that's the thing I've seen. This is I'm guilty of this. When I worked at headquarters, I rarely ever traveled to Asia. I talked to a few people on the phone. None of that will make up for coming here often to build this network. It's just like any relationship. I mean, we all well, you know, I now run a sales team, and it's all about relationships, right? And those relationships cannot be established once or twice a year. So for the the innovators from the United States, I would make Asia a place to travel to often. And I would zero in and prioritize which country in Asia you want to really hone in and try to make a difference. And I would just say, for me in Asia, as the head of APJ, my biggest strategic countries right now for growth are India as a as a region and as a country, and the whole of ASEAN Southeast Asia as a region. I mean, these, these two regions, are the biggest growth opportunities we have for health care, and, I think again, traveling, understanding, especially a country like Indonesia, 200 million people in this country, there's a lot of opportunity for innovation. And just FYI, the the Minister of Health in Indonesia, is working with the World Bank, and they had a tender out last year for $400 million in investing into the health care system or Indonesia. So there's a lot of money that countries in Asia are investing into healthcare, huge opportunities come out here, come often. That would be my advice.

Scott Pantel  37:54  
That's great advice. Thank you. And we're wrapping up time here, so I guess a final question, V maybe your your bold prediction for healthcare in Asia in the next five years. And then add to that, if there's one takeaway that you'd like this audience to take with them over the course of this, this event and into the year, as we think about innovation and collaboration, what's the one takeaway you ask everybody to think

Vy Tran  38:24  
about? I would just say, you know, I've talked about it before, this staff shortage issue. How can your innovation address this massive problem we've got globally, but especially here in Asia again, I go back to I'm I'm still flabbergasted that the Philippines trains so many nurses. Okay, they probably train the majority of the world's nurses, and 85% of those nurses go abroad. What is left for the Philippines? Same thing with a lot of these countries here in age. So this staff shortage is real, so please, please come up with the technology to address

Scott Pantel  39:08  
it. It's amazing. Let's everybody thank Vy for opening the session this morning, and enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you, Vy.

Vy Tran  39:16  
Thank you so much. You