Transforming Healthcare: Charles Gellman's Vision of AI Robotics in Medication Management

Step inside the visionary mind of Charles Gellman, the CEO whose leap from Big Pharma to launching HiDOHealth is redefining medication management with AI robotics. As I, Dylan Burke, uncover the tales of triumph and trial with Charles, you'll be privy to the innermost details of HiDO's inception—a device that's not just smart, but intuitive, using face ID technology to ensure that patients grappling with chronic diseases never miss a beat in their medication schedules. 

This conversation is a deep dive into the strategic intricacies shaping HiDOHealth's pursuit to alleviate the healthcare industry's pressure points. We unravel how Charles's team is crafting their technology to snugly fit the needs of patients who frequent hospital corridors, all while building bridges with healthcare plans to make these advances accessible. The dialogue brims with the raw energy of startup life, the ingenuity of partnerships, and the profound influence mentorship has in steering a ship through the uncharted waters of healthcare robotics. Don't miss out on this stimulating blend of passion, innovation, and real-world impact—a narrative well beyond the threshold of inspiration.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Hey folks, welcome back to the growing Lean podcast sponsored by Lean Discovery Group, an award-winning app and software development firm based in Virginia. This is your host, Dylan Burke, also known as Dege. Today I'm powered by MagicMind, this awesome productivity shot that I've been taking for a couple of weeks. It helps with my productivity, my alertness and my self-diagnosed ADHD. It's really awesome. I'm happy to be here today with Charles Gelman, CEO at HydroHealth. Welcome, Charles.

Speaker 2: 0:33

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to chat about some interesting topics today.

Speaker 1: 0:38

Yeah, I'm excited to learn more about you. So, without further ado, can you give us a little bit about your history and background and what led you to HydroHealth?

Speaker 2: 0:49

Yeah, so I started my career in the pharmaceutical side, worked at a company that many of you may be aware of, which is Johnson Johnson. Then I moved into medical device, spent some time on software, also worked at companies like Premier, walters-cluar and Nuance, before we were acquired by Microsoft. My background is in data science and clinical informatics, so I went to graduate school and studied along many other doctors and physicians there, and then I've spent also some time at Startup's Medu as a startup advisor for a company specializing in computational data and drug discovery.

Speaker 1: 1:24

Okay, that's awesome. It's a great background you've got there, and can you run me through the mostly like what your product is, if you can give us a little elevator pitch?

Speaker 2: 1:35

Sure, yeah, so I'm not sure. For those of you that are watching or listening, there's a bunch of devices. We specialize in AI robotics. So Hydro stands for health information data outcomes, and it looks like a miniature curate coffee machine, but it uses face ID. So imagine walking up to your curate coffee machine and it knew the flavor of coffee, the temperature and the volume. Hydro does that for medications for folks at home that are taking multiple medications and have chronic disease.

Speaker 1: 2:13

Okay, awesome, awesome. And could you run us through a bit of your overall business strategy, like, where are you at currently?

Speaker 2: 2:22

Yeah, so we do a combination of research as well as providing devices to Medicare Advantage or at risk payer populations. So we've done research with Stanford. We started with HIV at risk behavioral health and mental health disorders in their patient population there, and that was NIH funded. Then we moved on to an interesting segment which we can talk about a little bit further, which is mild to moderate dementia patients at Rush University in Chicago, which was NIH funded, which has gone remarkably well. And then we focus really on those high cost patients that payers have to manage already with hospitalizations, er visits and medications and what we do with high dose. We stabilize them in the home so they can assist themselves and live independently.

Speaker 1: 3:13

Okay, so that's super interesting. And who is the ideal? Firstly, who's the ideal user of the product and who is your ideal customer?

Speaker 2: 3:25

So the ideal user are folks that generally have had multiple hospital admissions over the previous 12 months or ER visits and they want to stabilize their cocktails or medications in the home. So they generally have four or five plus medications. Maybe they have cardiovascular disease, diabetes, they could have non-diagnosed cognitive impairment or dementia there's a variety of different disease states. So anybody that's gone to the hospital on a regular basis and that's really our patient population and who we sell to is really regional health plans and we focus on their high cost patients so we can reduce premiums for the broader populations.

Speaker 1: 4:06

Okay, that's amazing. And on LinkedIn it says you launched or you started the business about one and a half years ago. So what have been the biggest challenges? Firstly, in launching the business, I'm not sure if you raised funds or if you bootstrapped it. What have been the biggest challenges there for you?

Speaker 2: 4:26

So we actually we did raise angel funding, so we raised over a million and a half in funding and we've been very grateful for the support from the government. Both the NIH and the NAI have supported us with grants and we've applied to a variety of phase two grants which could lead to multimillion dollar non-deleted funding. Some of the greatest bottlenecks and challenges that we've incurred is really starting in a product segment where there's a lot of other folks that existed and, at least from my perspective, we thought that what we created would have existed 20 years ago. So let me back up a little bit and I'll tell you exactly why we got into it.

Speaker 2: 5:08

With my background being in data science, my overarching goal was to really uncover the blueprint for healthcare based upon the different medications, based upon age, race, disease as well as chronic care disease, and because of my time spent at Johnson Johnson, I was able to view firsthand the type of variations that exist from provider to provider, based upon specialty and patient population. So I looked into the market and it was trying to determine a very simple premise Are patients taking or missing their medications? And we came to the conclusion very quickly that a lot of the devices in the market could not solve that very, very simple question. So that is exactly why we started the business so we can document, dose by dose, what's going on and then alter patients behaviors so they can live a more productive, healthy life outside of the hospital. Vr.

Speaker 1: 6:07

Okay, amazing and so just maybe a little bit confused. How is the product actually gonna work? So are people gonna keep their medication near the product and take it like in front of it, or is it gonna administer the medication? Can you run me through like the user side of it?

Speaker 2: 6:25

Yeah, yeah. So when you walk up to the HydroDevice, it looks like a miniaturized R2D2 uvenant. It'll use face ID or a passcode. You can unlock it with your face or, if you remember your passcode, you can unlock with the passcode. It'll dispense the right medications at the right time, the right dosage, the right frequency and the right count, so you, as a patient, no longer have to remember those complex prescribing regimens that your doctor or doctors have given to you. Then you take the medications in front of the unit. We have a video observation recording to quantify that has occurred, and that is it on the end user. So a lot of the lift has really been done by the HydroTeam your pharmacist, your doctors. Already All we're doing is ensuring that you're following those complex regimens at home so you can stabilize your health and spend time with the most important thing, which is your family and your loved ones, and doing the activities that you love, versus the alternatives which many people encounter, which are the hospitalizations that you are, visits and other forms that people wanna stay out of.

Speaker 1: 7:40

Okay, that's amazing. And so you mentioned that patients with dementia are gonna be a target user. So what if they forget to go up to the machine? Does it send them a notification? Does it make a noise? How does it remind them?

Speaker 2: 7:55

Yeah, this is a great question. So, as far reaching as this sounds, as crazy as it may sound, patients with severe cognitive impairment, dementia and Alzheimer's are able to utilize a device without the assistance of others. So great question how is that even possible? Yeah Right, so there's a system of ways to alter people's behaviors, and one it could be a notification on the phone. If people can't remember, then a notification or text message could go to their caregiver so they can remind them. So now you have a support network, or imagine, you know, a flashing light on the device or a sound or perhaps a video message from a clinician saying have you gone and taken your medications today? So I think it depends upon the level of cognitive impairment and we have a decision tree in the background that we are able to engage them in the process.

Speaker 1: 8:59

Okay, that's awesome. And then I imagine that, with the facial recognition and the passwords and what have you, if they go up and they've forgotten they've taken their medicine in the morning, it'll obviously tell them no, you're all good, you've taken it for the day.

Speaker 2: 9:13

Yeah. So imagine for the first time ever, knowing, dose by dose, whether or not people take their medications. But even more importantly, if they've already taken them, then it'll prompt them. Congratulations You've taken your medications for the day. So we no longer have all of those medication errors happening in the home and those aren't reported in the first place. So it's a way of smoothing out the process and making things a lot easier on patients. We have a lot to manage anyways. It's just about smoothing that out for a lot of folks.

Speaker 1: 9:46

Okay, amazing. I love this idea, this concept and your passion behind it. I can see it's going to be huge, so I'm excited for you. I'm keen to see where this goes, and I want to go back to the business side of things. Where are you at in terms of getting to market?

Speaker 2: 10:03

Yeah, so we are going to contract manufacturing and scaling now. We're very, very excited with what's happening right now. We're looking at a couple more academic collaborations where we're looking to improve access to underserved communities, minorities as well as socioeconomically disadvantaged folks. So we have a variety of different partnerships right now, and then we're also looking to scale with regional Medicare Advantage plans in the United States and as we continue to grow and more people know about what is possible to stabilize these populations, we will scale up accordingly.

Speaker 1: 10:42

Okay, great, great, and I assume there would have been like some regulatory or regulations that you'd have to get approved. I don't know if it would need to go through the FDA, or what are the approvals that you've had to get, and have you got all of them necessary?

Speaker 2: 10:59

Yeah, so there is a framework of regulations and compliance that are required, and I don't know bore your audience with all of those, but yes there are. There are a number of different FDA regulations that monitors medical devices, depending upon how much that where they qualify or qualify as that. You have to go through this process, as well as quality management systems, so there's a variety of things that you have to continue to update and keep good compliance standards.

Speaker 1: 11:29

Okay, awesome. And have you reached the current level of compliance to get to market?

Speaker 2: 11:34

Yes.

Speaker 1: 11:35

Yes.

Speaker 2: 11:35

Yes so.

Speaker 1: 11:38

Okay, that's awesome. I love that, and can you paint me a picture of where you see the business heading in the next, let's say, one year, three years, five years and 10 years? So what is your long-term goal?

Speaker 2: 11:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:52

So this is my long-term goal, is what I've always dreamed of, and that's the blueprint for health.

Speaker 2: 11:57

If we could quantify, based upon different populations and disease states, the cocktail of medications that best serves you, me, our friends, our family, our neighbors, and quantify those medications with the best outcomes so people can live a long, healthy, happy life, that's ultimately the goal. So that's not just the goal for one, three, five. That's been the entire goal and mission the entire time. As we scale, we become closer and closer every single day, and that's what's so exciting is that we are so close to doing something that's so remarkable amongst disease states that I never thought was even possible. Saying a year ago, if we were talking, dylan, that we're going to be on dementia patients, I would have thought that you're crazy and I was crazy that you would try it, but it's possible. So maybe we're underestimating the power of the human brain and our own internal bias of what is possible. And by having assisted robotics, it can enable people to live independently on their own, without being dependent on the 40 million caregivers in the United States and beyond.

Speaker 1: 13:09

That's. It's crazy to think like I've got old grandparents. They still like completely mentally there, but sometimes they forget, you know, and I worry about them because they take a lot of medication and I think this is like the typical use cases for that type of person, who otherwise forget that they've taken it or forget to take their like important medication. So I'm like I'm super excited to see where this goes. I'm definitely going to follow your journey after this. I'm really excited and in like the super long term, are you looking to take this and scale it forever, or do you have a long term goal of making like a big exit?

Speaker 2: 13:49

Yeah, so my goal is to impact as many people as possible. However, we reach that goal to impact major populations is what we'll do. So in the future, as things scale, if it makes sense to vertically integrate with a larger company or with larger distribution so we can reach the people, to create that blueprint, then that would be the decision. If that's the best course, or if we have a huge raise or raises of funding to grow this company and organically scale or purchase other companies, we'll figure out whatever the best approach is in order to fulfill that mission.

Speaker 1: 14:25

Okay, that's epic, and have there been any partnerships or collaborations that have been effective in helping you get here? Like, what does your team look like?

Speaker 2: 14:38

Yeah, so the team is a bunch of misfits I would say Primarily engineers. So we have a lot of very, very sharp engineers from all of the world that have joined us at a fraction of the cost that their work worth, because they want to fulfill this mission for the greater good of humanity, and I'm super grateful and thankful for the passion that they share, that they want to drive this mission to reality. And so our team is primarily, you know, a group of engineer software developers as well, as we have partners from, you know, different mentorships out of the house. You know that range anywhere from pharma to health payers to investors. We've have just a very strong network of advocates behind us and we'll continue to grow those relationships and partnerships as we move forward.

Speaker 1: 15:31

Okay, epic, amazing. And I just want to jump back to the products quickly, because I remember, when we were chatting offline, you mentioned that the end user will most likely not have to pay for the unit. It'll be paid for by their medical insurance. Right, that's correct, yeah, so yeah, patients do not pay.

Speaker 2: 15:50

Yeah, patients do not pay a dime for this. They pay zero dollars, and the reason behind them not paying anything is because it smooths out the delivery of care. So when you go into a hospital or you go into a clinic, that's a sterile environment. Patients are going to clinicians where they work, but we've never brought the clinician or the medications directly to the patient and assisted them in the home, and we can do that at a fraction of the cost. Therefore, the payers or the health plans can pay for it within all the premiums, because it lowers the total cost of care.

Speaker 1: 16:33

Yeah, so it might be like a big one-off payment to roll them out, but in the long term it's going to save them tons of money.

Speaker 2: 16:40

Oh yeah yeah. We've already seen a 70% reduction of the total cost of care for cardiovascular populations and as we scale this out, you have unit economics that really drive costs down substantially.

Speaker 1: 16:55

Okay, that's awesome. Well, look, I'm looking super forward to seeing where this goes. I'm definitely going to follow your journey, and we are coming to the end of the show, but before we go, I wanted to ask what advice would you like to give to other business owners looking to succeed, firstly in the healthcare industry and just in general?

Speaker 2: 17:16

Yeah. So the reason why we're in a position that we are right now is not because of me, it's not because of the vision. It really comes down to the folks that are around us. So I believe very strongly in the power of your network and we have some fantastic mentors and investors, all sharing the vision. But the reason why we're in a position is because I lean on them. You know, when we have ideas or thoughts, I can text message or I can have a conversation with them, so it helps guide us along the right path. So, as a business owner, you're going through a roller coaster ride and you're trying to determine. You know which way to go on that roller coaster and, as I see the startup community, it's really you're building that track as you're on that roller coaster and you're trying to put it in your way and deviate. According to me, so having very successful people that can help support you on your mission as well as help you see an outside perspective, I believe is mission critical if you're going to be successful in execution.

Speaker 1: 18:20

Yeah, I couldn't agree more and that's actually a common thought on the podcast is don't be afraid to ask for help or seek mentorship, and that's a common thing that people often overlook. They think they've got this idea, their baby, and they can just jump into it and do it themselves. But, like, never be afraid to seek mentorship or ask for other perspectives, like you said, I think that's super important in building, especially, a revolutionary business. So, that being said, charles, thank you so much for being on the show. I've really enjoyed learning more about your product and your business and I'm looking forward to seeing what the future holds. I know it's going to be super bright. So what is the best way for people to reach out to Charles Gelman? To follow your journey. And, yeah, if they want to follow your journey and see where it goes.

Speaker 2: 19:14

Yeah, so you know anybody who's listening to this. Please find me on LinkedIn. It's Charles Gelman Gelman with two L's. Or you can go to hydrohealthcom and you can see a little bit more about the product. We have a lot of videos and we had a film production crew of follows for three years. So those are patient testimonials, payer testimonies, as well as more broader information about hydro. But please connect with me on LinkedIn, you know, join the network and you can follow our journey.

Speaker 1: 19:40

Okay, amazing. Well, thanks again, Charles, and if you or any of the listeners here would like to try the Magic Mind shot that I spoke about they're really awesome you can visit wwwmagicmindcom. Forward slash growing and there might be a little discount in there for you. But thanks again for your time, Charles. I've really had a great time today.

Speaker 2: 20:00

Thank you, dylan, appreciate it Awesome. Cheers.