The Business Leadership Podcast

Salli: You're listening to the business
leadership podcast with Edwin Frondoso.

Eunice: We specialize in creating
an AI algorithm specifically

for pharmacology use cases.

And on top of this algorithm that we've
built in house, we built up various

tools or agents as we call them.

The reason why I believe pharmacists
can step into the role of a family

physician or a walk in clinic is because
we do have that education component in

schools now for the past 5 or 6 years.

Move forward with it in order to
get that momentum and traction

Edwin: Good morning.

Good afternoon.

And good evening biz leader.

Welcome to another episode of
the business leadership podcast.

I'm your host, Edwin Frondozo.

And today we are featuring a special
episode from our future narrative

mini series recorded live at the
collision conference in Toronto Canada.

In this mini series, we explore the
future of leadership, innovation, and

storytelling with visionary leaders
who are not just designing products.

But our creating entire
new worlds and markets.

Joining me is Dr.

Paul Newton and together we'll
be speaking with Eunice Wu.

She is the founder and CEO of a Asepha.

And she brings a unique blend
of expertise in both the design

and healthcare industries.

In our conversation.

Eunice we'll discuss the critical
health care worker shortfall and

the regulatory changes increasing
the workload on pharmacists.

She'll introduce a service AI
clinical tools designed to handle

manual tasks, allowing pharmacists
to focus more on patient care.

She will also highlight the
transformation pharmacies are undergoing

with pharmacists taking on roles.

Similar to family physician, aided by
AI tools that automate documentation

and identify drug therapy problems.

So without further ado, here we go.

We're now speaking with Eunice
Wu, founder and CEO of Asepha.

Eunice, how are you doing today?

Eunice: I'm great.

How about yourself?

Edwin: Doing great.

Really excited to jump in.

And just to get started, Eunice,
can you just share what problem

is Asepha solving for pharmacies?

Eunice: Right now there's
a 15 million shortfall of

healthcare workers in the world.

On top of that, there's recent regulation
changes allowing pharmacists to prescribe.

And this is adding more work onto
their daily operations without any

alleviation for the previous manual task.

Pharmacists are moving
more into a clinical role.

And we don't really have a lot of
supports to do so a lot of pharmacists

are overwhelmed, overburdened.

A lot of them don't even
have time for lunch or break.

And this is really difficult because
there are so many patients to serve

That have to travel up to 4 hours to
senior nearest practitioner, or every

town that only has 1 pharmacy, or they
have to travel to next door pharmacy.

So what we're really enabling is for these
pharmacists to do more with their time.

When I was in practice, I spent around
80 percent of my time on manual work,

and this is all work that could be done
by anyone without a clinical degree

where only 20 percent of my time was
being used on actual clinical services.

So what Assefa does is we create these AI
clinical tools that help with manual tasks

such as researching, documentation, and we
allow these pharmacists to then get closer

to that 100 percent patient facing care.

Edwin: That's super interesting.

From from my understanding where the
pharmacists and pharmacies are able

to prescribe prescriptions now, and
I'm not sure if I'm over simplifying

this, and this is where the problem
is, is it's because the medical

industry or the doctors, they don't
have enough time to see everyone.

So they're saying, Oh, you know what?

Go to the pharmacist to do that.

Is that sort of right?

Eunice: Kind of I would say it's well
known that pharmacists are the most

accessible health care professional where
you don't need an appointment to go visit

your pharmacist and get a medical opinion.

Why we are now doing prescribing is
because actually in training they changed

the degree from a bachelor to a doctorate,
and we're actually being trained in

terms of how to do diagnosis for these
minor ailments when we're in school.

And this has been going on for years.

Only recently has there
been this regulation change

in Canada in the US more.

So they've had associated prescribing for
quite some time now, where essentially

a pharmacist can work with a physician's
license and be able to provide.

These medications without having to
fax back and forth to get approval.

It is true that we are able
to prescribe now and that is a

great use of our education, our
clinical abilities, especially

with that shortfall of physicians.

I I genuinely see pharmacists becoming
the new family physician and family

physicians moving into a more specialty
practice in order to bridge that gap of

Edwin: Perfect.

Thanks for sharing.

I mean, it's it's it's super interesting.

for being here.

Being on that side of like, just
seeing how this all changes and

also changes the way we interact
with the health care professional.

So definitely appreciate the
work you're, you're, you're

doing there to help everyone.

I'm curious from your point of view,
and perhaps this is what a set is

solving, but how is specifically,
how is the automation and that

personalization helping or revolutionizing
the way the pharmacies work?

Eunice: Yep, for sure.

So we specialize in creating
an AI algorithm specifically

for pharmacology use cases.

And on top of this algorithm that we've
built in house, we built up various

tools or agents as we call them.

When I explain them to clinicians, I
explain them more so as Lego blocks

where each one of these agents or Lego
blocks performs a different service.

For example in Canada and the U.

S.

there's a service called
Medication Reviews.

This is typically performed for
someone who has more complex

care or a more elderly patient
who is on multiple medications.

Essentially, it's going through their
complex history and identifying if

there's any drug interactions non
adherence, any issues with their

medications that could be optimized.

process can take up to 30 minutes in
Canada and up to 45 minutes in the U.

S.

So this is quite extensive amount of time,
and a lot of it is spent on documentation,

speaking with a patient and researching
and contacting other players, such as

physicians or the family, etcetera.

So what we're able to do is that
we automate everything except

for the patient facing side.

So the conversation that you have With
the patient to verify information to

better counsel them on information.

We don't touch any of
that very much of it.

What instead we do is we actually
do the documentation for them.

So anything that is said within the
conversation, we can add that into

the forms necessary to claim back.

For this service we can also
identify in real time the drug

therapy problems that are mentioned.

For example, if your grandmother
mentioned, oh, I stopped taking

this medication because it made me
cough, we would then would be able to

identify, hey, this patient is missing a
medication for their high blood pressure

because they stopped taking this.

They could be at risk of X because
they stopped taking Y things like this.

Edwin: So what I'm imagining, During
our conversation, and if you're the

pharmacist, you have a SEPA running and
listening to our conversation, and it's

giving back feedback on a screen, on the
glasses, real time, in terms of what is

happening, and filling out the forms,
right, and the prescriptions, right?

Is that, is that, is that correct?

Is that how that, that interface works?

Eunice: Yep.

Yeah, that would actually be three
of our tools working together.

So this goes back to the agents in
the Lego blocks, where that would

be three different components.

The one that is transcribing the
conversation is the AI scribe.

The one that's doing the
documentation and also identifying

the drug therapy problems, that's
part of our medication review.

Agent, and these are
all connecting together.

If there is something that cannot
be resolved by a pharmacist and has

to be contacted to the physician, we
have another agent to do so as well.

And if we just need to give the patient
some information to take home, if

they ever want to reference it again,
we have another agent that is able

to help with that service as well.

So we break it down into these particular
services, because it's very hard to

create a one size fits all solution.

Especially in healthcare, even if you
narrow it down into pharmacy specifically,

there's so many different types of
pharmacy, so many different areas of

practice that we don't necessarily
do the same task in the same order.

So in order to have a scalable
business where you're able to

customize, but also be able to create
a solution that fits their workflow.

Edwin: That makes sense.

That's amazing.

And I'm excited for that because
I think you mentioned the numbers

and correct me if I'm wrong.

It was like 80, 20.

And when it comes to all this admin,
I wouldn't say, I don't think you

call it admin work, but that type
of like, those types of tasks that,

that, that you could shorten it.

And do you have any like insight now
with, with some of your deployments

and how much time is saved now?

Eunice: For something like the
medication reprocess that I

mentioned, us can take 45 minutes.

We can bring it down to around 15 minutes.

There's another process called
medication reconciliation.

It can take up to around an hour and
a half for long term care patients

and we can bring that down to.

I think it was last 15 minutes.

24 or 34.

I

Edwin: I assume units.

These numbers are going to get get
better as people get more accustomed

to these tools and working with it.

And also the

machine learning on the back end as well.

Eunice: Yeah.

With AI tools there's something called
Moore's law where with any software.

Actually, I think over time, the price of
these tools will get cheaper and cheaper.

The computer will get faster.

And I think.

Think in due time, it will actually
be abnormal for a health care

system not to be using AI tools.

It's actually really interesting because
I think as a clinician myself, there will

be a point where I'll be unethical not
to use AI because with using AI, it's

like a second check that is at a fraction
of a cost of another clinician that

can double check your work and thereby
prevent the human error aspect as well.

Edwin: Yeah, and in real time, right?

as as as it's happening when you're
interfacing it, that's really cool.

Aside from I guess A.

I.

And some of these changes within the
industry are there and I'm not sure

there might be none units, but are
there any other major disruptions

that's happening within the industry?

Eunice: Being in the industry we can be
at an event and suddenly my co founder is

watching the video for open AI release.

And then immediately we have to go
back early to implement something.

So I think it's a very exciting
industry in order to keep up

with it is very difficult.

And I think that's why
with software companies.

You can't be building against these
big players when these big players

release a new update, it has to be
in a way your software has to be in a

way where the big updates benefit your
software and actually make it better.

If it your software is something
that would compete with the big

players, then I think it wouldn't
be a sustainable business.

And that's a principle that we keep in
mind when we're building out a product

where, hey, if open AI, or these
larger companies release a new update,

will this Make our software better.

And at this point, yes, it does.

So we feel quite secure there, but like
I mentioned before, updates are always

happening, which isn't necessarily
a bad thing it's more so good thing.

Cause some industry is constantly moving.

Edwin: That's great.

Um, I guess the upstream of open AI
or, large language models like that.

And, I guess distribution, as the CEO
founder, like, what are, what are the

biggest challenges you're facing today?

Eunice: What we're facing today.

It's not really AI problems,
more so a healthcare problem.

We are in the healthcare space.

Healthcare is notoriously known for
their long sales cycles and a lot

of compliance and security needs.

I will say, being a software product,
the sales cycle is shorter than

we expected but it is still longer
than a typical B to C or a dev

tool or consumer tool, of course.

So that is a bit difficult to juggle in
terms of location, we're so urban, global.

Global clients, in which case we
don't have just the issue of, for

example, Canada's PIPA, UK's GDPR, U.

S.

is HIPAA, but we also have the issue
of, for example, clinicians prefer

different guidelines in different
states or different countries, even

different states, even different cities.

So how do we accommodate for that type
of differentiating information as well?

I'm

not just a security and compliance aspect.

Edwin: Yeah.

So what are you doing now?

like, are, really focusing on some people?

Eunice: One way that we've been able
to combat that is our IP actually lies

within that algorithm that we created.

We're able to process data
really well on the farm.

Anything that is healthcare related in
healthcare, there's a lot of unstructured

information and a lot of companies
there, they don't have data readiness.

That can be leveraged
in a proper way for A.

I.

Solutions.

So what we're able to do with these
like large amounts of data is that

we can structure it in a way that is
usable and increase the accuracy of any

queries that are coming out of that data.

For example, this can range from, we have
a client who provided us exact documents

that they wanted and excluded all other
documents in the medical literature.

That's something that we're able
to do where we did a limitation.

There's another client where they
provided their own data that they want

for a particular use case, in which case
that's a more specialty type of document.

And there's another client that
might provide a couple million

patient interactions that can
help improve the algorithm.

And these are different types
of data, but we have to be able

to process through all of them.

And I think really our iP lies to do that.

Edwin: As we're looking at,
you know, a future narrator,

a future narrative in terms of
yourself and what you're building.

I'd love it if you could share the vision
of the future you're building with a SEPA.

Eunice: Yeah, for sure.

I envision every pharmacist actually
becoming their own pharmacy and the

reason why is right now There's maybe
around five pharmacists per pharmacy

But it's because there's so many
tasks that needs to be performed You

need your assistants and technicians
to do the filling of prescriptions.

You need others to help at different
counters I see a future where each

pharmacist becomes their own pharmacy
because you no longer need Those

that help in order to run your
own practice where you can have an

automation that helps perform the
intake helps triage the patients in

terms of where you need to send them.

If they have questions, you'll have a
system that can help you and communicate

with the patient more easily and
directly instead of having come in.

Phone calls, we can have them segregated
into, which is a question that you

need to provide clinical service
for, which is a general question,

such as for insurance, et cetera.

And automation for dispensing
is already happening as well.

So I see a future where each clinician
has a lot more capability to do more and

have more control over their practice.

Edwin: great.

So what would the world look like when
all pharmacists have their own pharmacy?

Eunice: A lot more
accessibility for the patient.

Like I mentioned earlier some towns,
they only have one pharmacy and some

towns don't even have a pharmacy where
they're commuting a couple hours over in

order to receive health care or to their
newest physician to their nearest doctor.

And that's really a problem, because
especially in these rural areas there's a

lot of elderly patients, a lot of people
who need that care, and some of them may

not be able to make that commute over.

Paul: Eunice you had said
earlier, like earlier when we

were talking that you really saw
the pharmacist becoming, stepping

into the role of what did you say?

It was like, a family doctor and
and then providing more access.

How do you see that?

Changing the the pharmacists patient
interaction and the level of care.

Eunice: Yep.

My answer to that is it's already
changing where, for example, in,

in most of the major provinces in
Canada, pharmacists can prescribe

up to X amount of minor ailments.

I forgot, depending on which
province it is, I think it's between

30 to 50, I believe depending
on the area that you're in.

In some states, you can actually
already prescribe for any type

of condition if you're associated
with a different prescriber.

So the role is already changing and
you're seeing some pharmacies establish

these pharmacy clinics which are
essentially like walk in clinics,

like a family family physician.

But As more and more pharmacists are
stepping into that role of becoming

essentially a walk in clinic for these
most common conditions, I see there

being a specialization where you have a
dedicated pharmacist who knows your care,

especially for these complex patients.

Just in my experience, it's a lot
easier when I know this patient

really well, and my colleague
doesn't know this patient very well.

They will likely just prefer
to refer to me because I know

the entire complex history.

So I see that dynamic
being present as well.

Paul: It's really interesting how just
this access to AI and and having these

tools checking and providing you with
the insights, how much more access to

both to clinical diagnoses, but also
that different practitioners now can

provide the level of service that was
only, expected from a family doctor.

Eunice: Yeah.

I just like to clarify.

We don't actually provide the
diagnosis for the pharmacist.

The reason why I believe pharmacists
can step into the role of a family

physician or a walk in clinic is because
we do have that education component in

schools now for the past 5 or 6 years.

I believe when we're learning
about these medications, we're

also learning about the diagnosis.

For these common ailments, not for
the most complex ones, of course

but the most common ailments we do
have quite a bit of background on.

When a stuff helps out these
pharmacists it never says decrease

a dose, increase a dose, do this.

Instead, it tells them, Hey, patient
is on drug X at dose of a hundred.

The literature recommends around 50
and we provide the citation in the

original source to that, and they're
able to make the decision thereafter.

And that's really important to us.

Because A.

I.

Is not at the level where it can
be used autonomously right now,

and we want to make sure that the
clinician is in the loop for anything

that is being sent to the patient.

Paul: I really see how this is improving
the level of care in the community.

And there's the possibilities
are, it's mind blowing.

And I think, you'll see regulations
and things having to adapt to

access that's given because of AI.

Eunice: Yeah, definitely.

I think we're really excited about
the future of healthcare and I really

enables us to more with our time.

Edwin: Um, Eunice, before let you
go, I know we're over time now.

Um, But if, if you could share any
final thoughts, recommendations, or

advice to the fellow founders, CEOs
that, uh, that are listening today,

Eunice: I think just being a founder
myself, I think it's really interesting

because when you're in healthcare,
everything is very structured.

We work with a lot of clinicians,
like we hire a lot of clinicians

who come on board as well.

Everything's very structured and
formatted but it's really interesting

bringing these clinicians into this
type of founder and startup environment

because you don't really have any rules.

You don't have any guidelines, you
have to make a lot of assumptions and

decisions and have confidence in them
and move forward with it in order

to get that momentum and traction.

So I think.

If I have any parting words is just
have that confidence because especially

as a clinician, it's not something
that you're actually taught in school

or something that you're used to.

So it's definitely a dramatic shift.

But learning this skill has
been really typical to, to

the rest of my life as well.

So really grateful for the
entrepreneurship experience.

Edwin: that's amazing, Eunice.

It's been an absolute pleasure.

We're wishing you luck to help
in the health industry making

it accessible for all of us.

So thank you for all your work
and thank you for joining us on

the business leadership podcast.

That's it.

Biz leaders.

Thanks for joining me
on the special episode.

At the business leadership podcast,
part of the future narrative mini

series recorded at the collision
conference in Toronto, Canada.

This was a very enlightening
conversation with Eunice Wu exploring

the evolving landscape of healthcare.

And the innovative solutions
Asepha is bringing to the industry.

So for links to all the resources
that we discussed to connect with

Eunice and to learn more about the
future narrative project, please slide

into the show notes within the app
that you're listening to right now.

And if you are interested, In reading more
about Eunice and all the other business

leaders that we profile that collision.

Please do.

Join the wait list for our upcoming book.

And by the way, if you found any
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And until next time.

I have a 100 X day