Roon: The TikTok Of Dementia Caregiving

WEBVTT

00:00:02.355 --> 00:00:03.427
back to Ask Dr.

00:00:03.427 --> 00:00:04.807
Mia podcast.

00:00:04.807 --> 00:00:12.252
And today I'm very excited to tell you all about a technology platform called Roon.

00:00:12.252 --> 00:00:22.725
And I also have Rohan Ramakrishna, who is a professor of neurosurgery and one of the co founders for Roon joining us today.

00:00:22.725 --> 00:00:37.676
I know Rohan and I have chatted before this recording, and he and his co founders started Roam because they wanted patients to have a trusted source of medical information rather than from Dr.

00:00:37.676 --> 00:00:38.707
Google.

00:00:38.968 --> 00:00:40.829
Basically anytime and anywhere.

00:00:40.829 --> 00:00:43.350
So welcome to the podcast Rohan.

00:00:43.429 --> 00:00:44.383
Thank you, Mia.

00:00:44.383 --> 00:00:48.351
It's great to be with you and appreciate the opportunity to chat.

00:00:48.417 --> 00:00:49.360
Thank you.

00:00:49.360 --> 00:00:58.401
Well, I guess one of the first questions that I like to ask my my guest speakers is who are you caring for right now in your life?

00:00:59.880 --> 00:01:09.543
Well, don't think I'm caregiving right now, but I am parenting with my wife, our kids of three, our three kids who are nine, six, and two.

00:01:09.543 --> 00:01:13.676
So it's quite busy, as you can imagine, with kids in that age range.

00:01:13.676 --> 00:01:16.326
But as they say, small kids, small problems.

00:01:16.326 --> 00:01:18.617
it's bigger kids, bigger problems.

00:01:18.617 --> 00:01:26.792
So it's been, it's really quite fun and enjoyable to be in this particular phase of their lives.

00:01:26.902 --> 00:01:31.947
Yeah, my kids are eight and five, almost nine and six.

00:01:31.947 --> 00:01:34.549
So I think it's a great age.

00:01:35.070 --> 00:01:38.114
And we are not brave enough to try for three.

00:01:39.941 --> 00:01:42.811
I feel like that third one will just tip us over.

00:01:42.811 --> 00:01:43.793
Yeah.

00:01:43.853 --> 00:01:47.530
Well, the third one has to just learn to survive, you know, in that kind of environment.

00:01:47.530 --> 00:01:50.274
So it's been fun to see actually.

00:01:51.137 --> 00:01:52.438
Wonderful.

00:01:52.677 --> 00:01:56.831
So I know why you started Room, but I'm curious, how did you start Room?

00:01:56.831 --> 00:02:03.677
Because I think not everyone can build up a technology platform like you guys have built.

00:02:03.677 --> 00:02:05.950
I'm just curious, how did you start it?

00:02:06.632 --> 00:02:07.552
Well, it takes a village.

00:02:07.552 --> 00:02:09.693
think, you know, to your point, why did we start it?

00:02:09.693 --> 00:02:10.996
How did we start it?

00:02:10.996 --> 00:02:21.866
You know, just had this set of observations from my time as a practicing neurosurgeon where my patients were getting bad information, terrible information from the internet, right?

00:02:21.866 --> 00:02:22.316
From Dr.

00:02:22.316 --> 00:02:27.770
Google, from WebMD, from Reddit, from Facebook groups, TikTok, Instagram, et cetera.

00:02:27.991 --> 00:02:34.506
And You know, I wonder why is this the best that we have on the one hand, we can get an Uber instantaneously.

00:02:34.506 --> 00:02:36.877
We can get a package from Amazon tomorrow.

00:02:36.877 --> 00:02:44.860
We have Rover circling Mars, but when it comes to getting personalized health guidance, we're kind of still in the stone ages, you know?

00:02:44.860 --> 00:02:52.782
And so we asked the question, what would it take to give everyone a free personalized guide for health powered by the knowledge of the world's best experts?

00:02:52.782 --> 00:02:57.153
And that's sort of the motivating factor behind why we build a road.

00:02:57.187 --> 00:03:00.721
To your question about how we do it, it does take a village.

00:03:00.721 --> 00:03:05.574
know, my co-founders include people from Pinterest.

00:03:05.715 --> 00:03:21.167
And the idea there was to mix the best of consumer technologies with the best of medical so that we could develop something that really resonated with patients and families and met people where they are so we can give people trusted information whenever they needed.

00:03:21.367 --> 00:03:26.912
And so at this point, we have a growing team, many engineers, lots of doctors.

00:03:27.304 --> 00:03:39.231
And then all the different experts that come together, you know, close to a thousand and growing rapidly of physicians and other experts who've come together to kind of power the system.

00:03:39.906 --> 00:03:40.788
That's great.

00:03:40.788 --> 00:03:47.812
And I know one of the great things about room is that it is free, but it is not free to set it up.

00:03:47.812 --> 00:03:50.788
So how does the funding work on your side?

00:03:52.039 --> 00:04:06.719
Yeah, so we are a private company and we have raised investment funds to help power this and to hire the kinds of people we need, you know, in order to develop and grow Rune.

00:04:07.159 --> 00:04:17.819
In terms of how Rune will sustain itself in the long term, Rune will likely have some sponsorships, you know, to help power and fund the service.

00:04:18.040 --> 00:04:25.237
But For now, well forever, our goal is to keep it free to every patient and caregiver out there.

00:04:25.934 --> 00:04:26.615
Perfect.

00:04:26.615 --> 00:04:37.420
And speaking of those caregivers who might be listening, what is one main takeaway that you want people to leave with after they listen to this particular episode?

00:04:38.545 --> 00:04:39.677
You're not alone.

00:04:39.677 --> 00:04:46.980
You know, there's so many people that are dealing with the same thing you're dealing with or similar things.

00:04:47.541 --> 00:04:50.834
you know, Rune was created so you don't have to feel alone, right?

00:04:50.834 --> 00:04:59.598
Rune answers many and all of the questions that come up in a healthcare journey, not just the medical, but also the practical and emotional.

00:04:59.598 --> 00:05:04.187
So when it comes to dementia, for example, you know, the emotional questions might...

00:05:04.187 --> 00:05:16.613
have to deal with caregiver burnout and how do you deal with this and the depression or the anxiety that you might feel when you're taking care of someone with dementia who has a lot of needs and you're struggling financially, et cetera.

00:05:16.894 --> 00:05:23.197
There's also the practical, like if I need respite care, how do I evaluate that type of facility?

00:05:23.197 --> 00:05:26.500
If I need a nursing facility, how do I evaluate that?

00:05:26.500 --> 00:05:34.423
mean, all memory care, all these practical questions, which many doctors, not for any fault of their own, don't really know the answers to.

00:05:34.454 --> 00:05:35.076
Mm-hmm.

00:05:35.076 --> 00:05:36.646
so we harness that knowledge.

00:05:36.646 --> 00:05:43.540
And then of course, the, you know, like I said, the emotional, you know, I'm having trouble dealing with this.

00:05:43.540 --> 00:05:45.721
How do I deal, you know, how do I move forward?

00:05:45.721 --> 00:05:56.168
And so we across the medical, emotional and practical really cover everything that people are facing when they're dealing with an advanced dementia diagnosis.

00:05:56.348 --> 00:06:02.581
And so I think the fact that you're not alone and you can get an instant answer anytime you need it, that's what Root is here for.

00:06:03.341 --> 00:06:04.442
And that's great.

00:06:04.442 --> 00:06:11.862
I, I always, I think, I think of room almost like the tick tock of reliable medical information.

00:06:11.862 --> 00:06:40.293
I know that's not, that's not a nothing for or against tick tock, but I like the fact that it's digestible, small pieces of information in a video format, which, as we know, with other technologies is oftentimes very engaging and easier for people to take in than say, reading an article or sometimes even listening to a podcast.

00:06:41.339 --> 00:06:42.180
Yeah.

00:06:42.439 --> 00:06:52.783
Yeah, I think, I think the video aspect of it is really important because they're short videos, but they're, see the people that are giving you the answers, right?

00:06:52.783 --> 00:07:02.596
And so I think that piece of it is extremely important because what we're trying to do is build a trusted ecosystem, the most trusted ecosystem when it comes to health information.

00:07:02.596 --> 00:07:10.427
And I think, you know, unsighted text or, you know, from what God knows which source.

00:07:10.682 --> 00:07:12.023
is not very trustworthy, right?

00:07:12.023 --> 00:07:15.774
In the current world of AI, there's infinite information.

00:07:15.774 --> 00:07:21.317
There are infinite sources that are out there that claim to have great information.

00:07:21.317 --> 00:07:34.925
But where do you get that nuanced information where an expert can break down what was in a publication or what was in the news or what it's really like to get leukembi, you know, one of these new monoclonals for Alzheimer's?

00:07:34.925 --> 00:07:38.565
You know, what is the real world evidence of how it actually works in practice?

00:07:38.565 --> 00:07:45.651
I think those sorts of nuanced questions and answers don't really exist anywhere else except on Roon.

00:07:45.651 --> 00:07:49.971
And so we're really proud of Yeah, that's great.

00:07:49.971 --> 00:08:00.197
And how do you vet experts to find the best of the best who can explain complicated topics in digestible format?

00:08:00.197 --> 00:08:12.406
Because I know the CV is certainly one thing in our resume, but that doesn't always mean that people can explain things in a way that is not only accurate, but also personable.

00:08:13.829 --> 00:08:14.319
Right.

00:08:14.319 --> 00:08:18.041
So we actually speak and vet every single expert on RUNE.

00:08:18.041 --> 00:08:21.524
And I should mention that experts are not just doctors on RUNE.

00:08:21.524 --> 00:08:32.090
Experts are social workers, PTOT, speech therapy, financial and legal experts who can help you with that aspect of caregiving.

00:08:32.210 --> 00:08:37.793
Really anybody that has expertise to lend across any aspect of a health journey.

00:08:37.793 --> 00:08:38.523
Right.

00:08:38.523 --> 00:08:40.053
And so those are our experts.

00:08:40.053 --> 00:08:59.822
In terms of how we find them, kind of, you know, we we surveil academic facilities across the country to look for people who have a expertise and a focus in this area, specifically whether it's Alzheimer's or frontal temporal dementia, et cetera, Lewy body dementia.

00:09:00.043 --> 00:09:10.549
And we interview them and we make sure that they fit that overlapping Venn diagram of being both a great clinician and also a great communicator.

00:09:10.549 --> 00:09:25.857
And so once we talk to them, we bring them onto the platform and then every piece of content on Root is actually evaluated both before publication and then continuously afterwards so that we can make sure it remains accurate and up to date.

00:09:26.990 --> 00:09:27.490
Great.

00:09:27.490 --> 00:09:27.870
Yeah.

00:09:27.870 --> 00:09:33.336
And I know you get a lot of information from the users of the technology as well.

00:09:33.418 --> 00:09:46.614
How do you know and how do you track what people ask and who to go after in terms of providing that needed information that may not be currently available on room?

00:09:47.889 --> 00:09:57.106
So before we launch any condition, we actually populate the service, you know, the particular condition, let's say in this case dementia, with thousands of questions and answers.

00:09:57.106 --> 00:10:02.251
So when we launch something, there's already a very sizable corpus of information.

00:10:02.251 --> 00:10:21.235
And it turns out that corpus that we launched, whether it's dementia or any of our other conditions like glioblastoma or ALS or menopause and women's health in general, which we're launching now, it turns out that those questions we launched with roughly capture 80, 90 % of the questions people have.

00:10:21.475 --> 00:10:36.828
And then that remaining bit, we, you you can ask questions on Roon, as you just mentioned, and then based on the type of question we will, if it's unanswered, we will find an expert, the suitable expert to help answer it.

00:10:36.828 --> 00:10:41.011
And so we can usually get those answers back very quickly.

00:10:41.011 --> 00:10:51.620
And it's, you know, a really delightful experience, I think, for patients and families across the country because it's almost like an instant expert opinion, right?

00:10:51.759 --> 00:11:03.399
Wherever you are, it doesn't matter if you're in Lexington, Kentucky or Dearborn, Michigan or Scranton, Pennsylvania or New York City where I am at, you can get an instant answer from a world expert.

00:11:03.399 --> 00:11:05.840
And this is like one of the great value propositions.

00:11:07.042 --> 00:11:07.883
That's great.

00:11:07.883 --> 00:11:19.799
And how do you know whether people are looking for a better answer or that they're not satisfied with the answer that they're getting with existing videos?

00:11:21.298 --> 00:11:25.120
Well, they don't tell us necessarily what their motivation for asking the question is, right?

00:11:25.120 --> 00:11:28.393
They just ask the question and then we do our best to give the right answer.

00:11:28.393 --> 00:11:35.682
So I can't really say what the motivations are behind their questions, but certainly it's an informational gap that they have.

00:11:35.682 --> 00:11:37.458
I mean, that's why they're asking it.

00:11:37.458 --> 00:11:49.826
But in terms of whether they're satisfied with their current healthcare or not, think hard to know, but I think we can generally say that people are dissatisfied with their access to healthcare, right?

00:11:49.826 --> 00:11:57.735
You when it comes to getting an appointment for a neurologist or a geriatrician or et cetera, you know, there's often a long wait, right?

00:11:57.735 --> 00:12:05.576
No matter where you are in the country and you only have limited time with your doctor, you know, the average, depending on the specialty might be between 11 and 20 minutes.

00:12:05.576 --> 00:12:10.115
And so where do you, how do you possibly get all your questions answered?

00:12:10.115 --> 00:12:10.296
Right?

00:12:10.296 --> 00:12:21.138
Just what, you know, if your main question when you go to the doctor is about, let's say, um, difficult behaviors in someone with advanced dementia, you can spend that whole time talking just about that.

00:12:21.138 --> 00:12:24.409
But then there's a billion other questions you might have, right?

00:12:24.409 --> 00:12:31.193
Around, maybe it's a memory care center, maybe it's a nursing facility, maybe it's, you know, practical and emotional help for yourself.

00:12:31.193 --> 00:12:36.136
Like there's all these different things that you just don't have the time to get to in the doctor's office.

00:12:36.357 --> 00:12:40.940
And so I think hopefully Rune can help fill those gaps for people.

00:12:41.326 --> 00:12:42.145
Right.

00:12:42.147 --> 00:12:52.923
guess going back to that core set of questions that you launched for each condition, how do you know and how do you determine what is a core set of questions?

00:12:54.322 --> 00:12:56.354
Well, we have a pretty big medical team.

00:12:56.354 --> 00:13:05.110
And so we look at the, evaluate, kind of learn the condition, you know, and we can do that really rapidly because we're a team of doctors.

00:13:05.110 --> 00:13:10.193
And then we study what people are asking on the internet, on social, et cetera.

00:13:10.193 --> 00:13:16.538
And we kind of bring all that data together to create the questions that, you know, we populate on.

00:13:17.730 --> 00:13:18.870
Thank you.

00:13:19.091 --> 00:13:32.717
And then, and then one of the questions that I know I had and I think the audience is also might be curious is that, you know, because this technology is free now doesn't necessarily mean they'll be free forever.

00:13:32.717 --> 00:13:36.850
What would you say is sort of the business model for room.

00:13:36.850 --> 00:13:40.121
Yeah, yeah.

00:13:40.460 --> 00:13:43.200
our goal is to keep it free forever.

00:13:43.200 --> 00:13:47.559
That is our goal and that is our intention and that's what we aim to do.

00:13:48.399 --> 00:13:57.820
you know, whether you're in Bangladesh or India or New York, we want to give you a free personalized expert guide for health.

00:13:57.820 --> 00:13:59.500
So that's our mission.

00:13:59.659 --> 00:14:04.059
And as I mentioned earlier, our goal in terms of funding this is through sponsorships.

00:14:04.059 --> 00:14:08.926
And so we haven't done that yet, but that won't be for sometime in the future.

00:14:08.926 --> 00:14:11.360
But like I said, the goal is to keep it free for everyone.

00:14:11.831 --> 00:14:12.461
Great.

00:14:12.461 --> 00:14:13.582
Thank you.

00:14:13.643 --> 00:14:25.208
Are there anything that has been surprising to you when launching Roong and then the process of meeting with all the different experts as well as hearing from users?

00:14:26.799 --> 00:14:37.346
Yeah, I mean, I think I've been pleasantly surprised at the reception Roon has gotten, both from patients, families, doctors.

00:14:38.559 --> 00:14:43.019
I think doctors love taking care of patients.

00:14:43.019 --> 00:14:44.410
That's why they wanted to medicine, right?

00:14:44.410 --> 00:14:51.794
So if you kind of ask a doctor what's the most fun part of their job, it's really just sitting in front of a patient and helping them get better.

00:14:51.794 --> 00:14:53.196
And I think as we...

00:14:53.244 --> 00:15:01.629
can attest to in medicine nowadays, there's so many other factors that are less pleasant when it comes to being a doctor or working in healthcare.

00:15:01.629 --> 00:15:09.333
that physician-patient interaction is ultimately what keeps us in medicine, right?

00:15:09.333 --> 00:15:11.635
And keeps us motivated to keep practicing.

00:15:11.956 --> 00:15:16.799
So I think Rune, what it does for doctors, it helps amplify that aspect of it.

00:15:17.220 --> 00:15:19.321
As you know, you're on Rune.

00:15:19.802 --> 00:15:22.524
We ask you the questions that patients ask, hopefully.

00:15:23.416 --> 00:15:43.245
Hopefully you can use, and we see this, right, that doctors use Rune to help supplement and augment the education of their patients, both before, during, and after an office visit, because they're helped building this new knowledge ecosystem where, again, patients can get expert answers anytime and anyplace.

00:15:43.445 --> 00:15:49.908
And so I think doctors are really glommed on to the fact that Rune takes the best part of medicine and kind of scales it up for the world.

00:15:50.768 --> 00:15:53.889
I think on the patient side, it's been fascinating too, right?

00:15:53.889 --> 00:15:58.413
Because we get the beauty of Root is it's available anytime 24 seven, right?

00:15:58.413 --> 00:15:59.583
So there's no call center.

00:15:59.583 --> 00:16:02.635
There's no, you just get your answer immediately.

00:16:02.796 --> 00:16:18.417
And that aspect to be able to see these experts that you would never have access to potentially ever and get sort of their nuanced view of the world in your particular condition, I think really resonates with folks.

00:16:18.417 --> 00:16:27.183
You one of the statistics that we love to share is there's 2000 neurologists in Massachusetts and that's more than the number of neurologists in all of India.

00:16:27.563 --> 00:16:31.725
And so how do we, and even in Massachusetts, there's an access problem when it comes to neurology.

00:16:31.725 --> 00:16:36.269
So think about other places where there's much less physicians.

00:16:36.288 --> 00:16:43.832
And so if you think of migraines, just think of, know, if you have migraines, there's like a six or nine month wait to see a neurologist in most places.

00:16:43.832 --> 00:16:55.691
Well, a lot of that stuff, hopefully you can start getting some information about how to like, think about migraines and like what the workup is going to be and things you can do ahead of time before your first visit with a neurologist, you're not just waiting, right?

00:16:55.691 --> 00:17:05.366
And so giving people agency in their healthcare is something in addition to information is something that we're really passionate about and something we're really working hard on.

00:17:05.366 --> 00:17:11.550
think Jonathan Roseanne is an example, is a professor at Harvard and he has his brain health score, right?

00:17:11.550 --> 00:17:16.354
And in the brain health score, talk about all these things that you can do to prevent dementia.

00:17:16.555 --> 00:17:20.797
And, you know, they include social relationships, right?

00:17:20.797 --> 00:17:30.325
And having a sense of community around you and avoiding exercise and avoiding diabetes and things like these.

00:17:30.746 --> 00:17:34.709
Much of this is probably not news to people, like, be healthy.

00:17:34.709 --> 00:17:42.705
But I think on the flip side, hearing it from people in a nuanced way can help give you agency to implement those behaviors in your life.

00:17:42.705 --> 00:17:47.976
So we're really excited about this opportunity.

00:17:47.976 --> 00:17:52.016
to not just educate but influence people into better, healthier lives.

00:17:52.405 --> 00:18:09.185
Yeah, and I have to say as an expert who have recorded with Rung, all of the questions have been really similar to what patients and families have asked me within either within the clinical encounter itself or after the clinical encounter.

00:18:09.185 --> 00:18:24.365
I guess the only potential downside, it's not really a downside is just not knowing the specific scenario behind a question because as a clinician, I want to automatically ask back to the person who asked the question.

00:18:24.365 --> 00:18:27.246
So what do you mean by X, Y, and Z?

00:18:27.425 --> 00:18:49.633
But, you know, I try to answer to the best of my abilities, but that's also the benefit of having multiple experts sort of answering the same question because we may each interpret that question in a slightly different way and provide a slightly different answer, but overall will provide a complete answer to the person who's interested in the answer to that question.

00:18:49.756 --> 00:18:51.176
Yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up.

00:18:51.176 --> 00:18:59.862
mean, we do ask questions that have the opportunity to have lots of different nuanced perspectives to multiple doctors.

00:18:59.882 --> 00:19:09.397
And the reason we do that is just as you said, there's lots of nuance depending on the patient population you treat, your particular cultural experience, et cetera.

00:19:09.397 --> 00:19:13.990
And so we want to kind of capture all of that and be able to surface it to people.

00:19:13.990 --> 00:19:21.019
Because how people might practice given facts on the ground in Louisiana versus Texas versus Pennsylvania may be different.

00:19:21.019 --> 00:19:28.153
So we need to make sure that we capture all those different perspectives that go into how we take care of patients.

00:19:28.887 --> 00:19:29.439
Great.

00:19:29.439 --> 00:19:35.542
And I know, I'm guessing that most of the users and experts are based in the United States.

00:19:35.604 --> 00:19:40.116
But I also know that there are some folks who listen to this podcast internationally.

00:19:40.116 --> 00:19:49.675
And as you said also earlier, that the access to experts is oftentimes much, much less in countries outside of the United States.

00:19:49.675 --> 00:19:57.942
Do we know, or do we have experts who are based outside of the US or users based outside of the US within Roon?

00:19:58.344 --> 00:20:10.144
So most of our experts are United States experts, but we do have a few that are based in places like Canada, India, et cetera, the UK that we've found.

00:20:10.144 --> 00:20:12.644
But we want to grow that over time, of course.

00:20:12.784 --> 00:20:17.703
In terms of our audience, we're in over 100 countries today.

00:20:18.223 --> 00:20:24.203
So we have lots of users from all over the world, English speaking for the most part.

00:20:24.203 --> 00:20:27.304
In the future, Roon will be in multiple languages.

00:20:27.751 --> 00:20:29.065
And so we're excited to do that.

00:20:29.065 --> 00:20:34.273
But yeah, so far we're in over 100 countries and I think that's growing, which is great.

00:20:34.508 --> 00:20:39.165
Wow, that's amazing that it's already in more than 100 countries.

00:20:39.165 --> 00:20:40.117
So great.

00:20:40.117 --> 00:20:42.801
Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Rohan.

00:20:42.801 --> 00:20:45.977
And thank you to those of you who are listening.

00:20:46.198 --> 00:20:48.280
Where can they check out Roon?

00:20:49.382 --> 00:21:01.692
Yeah, so you can go to rune.com, R-O-O-N, .com on your mobile phone or your desktop or laptop, or you can download Rune for your iPhone from the App Store.

00:21:01.692 --> 00:21:08.130
Just type in Rune, R-O-O-N, and it'll be one or two down in the search box.

00:21:08.130 --> 00:21:11.301
And we'd love to see you there so we can help.

00:21:11.576 --> 00:21:12.428
Perfect.

00:21:12.428 --> 00:21:18.637
Is the app currently available in Android or only iPhone for now?

00:21:19.016 --> 00:21:27.275
There's not a specific Android app, but for Android users, you can access it using your mobile browser at Root.com.

00:21:27.275 --> 00:21:27.612
Yep.

00:21:27.612 --> 00:21:28.232
Gotcha.

00:21:28.232 --> 00:21:29.194
Okay, great.

00:21:29.194 --> 00:21:31.438
Well, thank you again for joining.

00:21:31.438 --> 00:21:39.348
If you have enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone who might also want to hear about Roon and talk to you all next time.

00:21:39.549 --> 00:21:40.550
Thanks.