Startup Physicians

From Pediatric Cardiologist to Health Tech Innovator with Dr. Bronwyn Harris

• Alison Curfman, M.D. • Season 1 • Episode 5

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Ever wondered how a physician can transition from clinical care to founding a successful digital health startup? In this episode of Startup Physicians, I sit down with Dr. Bronwyn Harris, a pediatric cardiologist turned healthcare innovator. From her early days in biomedical engineering to pioneering a digital health startup that was later acquired by Apple, Bronwyn shares her incredible journey navigating the intersection of medicine, technology, and entrepreneurship.

We talk about the lessons she learned in Stanford Biodesign, the challenges of building a healthcare startup from scratch, and how she leveraged her clinical expertise to create a groundbreaking asthma monitoring tool. Plus, we dive into the evolving world of wearable medical devices and how clinicians can contribute to the future of health tech. If you're curious about blending medicine with innovation, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss!

Bronwyn Harris is a pediatric cardiologist who clinically practices part-time at Stanford. She also has a background in biomedical engineering and has been working in the digital health space for the past decade with a range of experiences from starting her own company to working at Apple. She is currently Chief Transformation Officer for CareEvolution, a health software company with a one-stop digital research platform. Bronwyn is passionate about using patient-generated health data to empower patients and overall improve clinical care. 

 

Episode Highlights:

[1:26] Introduction to Dr. Bronwyn Harris and her unique career path.

[5:48] How her background in biomedical engineering shaped her approach to medicine.

[9:20] Early experiences with medical device research and home monitoring solutions.

[11:30] The power of design thinking in healthcare innovation.

[19:16] How Stanford Biodesign changed her perspective on medical innovation.

[22:49] Founding her digital health startup and the challenges of early-stage entrepreneurship.

[27:48] The unexpected path that led to an acquisition by Apple.

[30:01] The mindset shift from clinical medicine to the startup world.

[33:24] The future of wearable devices in healthcare and why clinicians should take notice.

 

Resources:

Checkout our services at StartupPhysicians.com

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the podcast, rate, and leave a review. Don’t forget to share this episode with fellow physicians who might be interested in startups. Together, we can shape the future of healthcare! See you next time.

Bronwyn Harris:

And realizing that, hey, everyone's time is valuable. Anything you're working on, there's hundreds, 1000s, even more things that you're not working on instead of that. And so spending again that time, anything you're doing thinking, is this need that I'm trying to address, something that I want to wake up every day and work is this where I want to dedicate my time, or is there somewhere else more valuable?

Alison Curfman:

Hey, and welcome to startup physicians. This podcast is all about exploring the unique intersections of medicine, technology and entrepreneurship. Before we dive in, please, like, follow and share to help other physicians discover innovative career paths today, we're joined by Dr Bronwyn Harris, a pediatric cardiologist, who has charted an extraordinary path through healthcare innovation, from a background in engineering to medicine to founding a digital health startup that was later acquired by Apple, Dr Harris has consistently pushed boundaries in patient care and new innovation. She's now a leading expert in wearable medical devices, and she really brings a unique perspective on bridging the gap between consumer health technology and clinical medicine. Her latest venture, asthma tool.com is helping asthma patients take control of their health through innovative monitoring and management tools. I am really excited today to have a guest with me who has always been an inspiration to me, Dr Bronwyn Harris, is here with me, and I am really excited because she has such a unique physician journey. I've never met anyone like her, and I really want you to hear about how she moved through different opportunities, what she learned, and different ideas she has about how you as a clinician can be contributing to startups. So Bronwyn, thank you so much for coming on today.

Bronwyn Harris:

Awesome. Thank you for having me. Allison, can you give us a

Alison Curfman:

little bit of your clinical background, and then also your journey of where you are and what you've done in the past?

Bronwyn Harris:

Yeah, how much time do you have? Okay, so as a clinician, I am a pediatric cardiologist, I am still practicing in terms of clinical time. I have a 10% clinical position at Stanford, and so that equates to about a half day a week, not quite every week, but so I get to see patients, usually once a month. I oversee the fellows clinic, and so I get to be teaching in addition to clinically seeing patients. So that's my official Doctor side. When I get to, you know, wear the stethoscope and use that, and then on the other side, that's, you know, an interesting journey. So I'll actually go back to, I'll even go, I'll go back to childhood. I joke that I was raised an engineer. So my dad is an electrical engineer, and, you know, from early age, constantly quizzing, well, why do you think I was designed that way? Why was that this? Why was it, you know, encourage those why questions? And I loved it. So when you asked me, when I was a kid, what I will be when I grew up, the answer was always an engineer. When I went to college, I decided to be rebellious and chose biomedical engineering. To this day, my dad still thinks electrical engineering is the the superior choice, and mine was an okay choice. So we can agree to disagree on that, but I love the critical thinking, but I love the medical side of it, and feeling that anything I was working on had, you know, direct impact to someone's health and well being. And so I thought I would work in medical devices. That was the plan. I went into a PhD program, and very quickly realized that while I liked that critical thinking engineering, I was really drawn to the patients I would be looking at De identified data sets I was working on ventricular assist devices and clinical decision support. And, you know, would see this, this 18 year old who had heart failure postpartum, and just wondering what happened to her. Where is she? Now, you know what? What's her story? And and I started joining weekly patient care meetings where the whole heart center met and spoke about the patients and talked about, you know, their whole not just the data and, you know, the mechanical part, but the first whole people, the whole person. And I loved it, like it just it all clicked to me, wow, like I love that, both the technical side, but then also the clinical and the real people. And so then I thought, Okay, I think I need to take the super big detour, which for me was literally a decade with four years of med school, three years of pediatric residency and three years of cardiology fellowship, to then be on that clinical side and so be that practicing clinician. Knowing that one, I felt that that was really called. To me, but also that that I would be able to help innovate with that knowledge and in a way that you can't do without that. And you know, I know that's exactly what what you have been talking about, Allison, right, of the the unique aspects that you bring being a practicing clinician and things that you take for granted that are so essential to innovation, even if they don't always realize that, or, you know, it isn't always clear the exact role, and sometimes you have to actually teach and prove the value that you can add. Right?

Alison Curfman:

And you're in Northern California, so it's kind of a really hot spot for innovation. Did you work on things in your training or during medical school that were related to your engineering background? Or

Bronwyn Harris:

were you Yeah, so I always tried to search out something related to it, again, medical device. Now, I really am very much in the digital health space. That wasn't really a thing back. I'm going to date myself a little bit. But, you know, 20 years ago when I was starting medical school, so at that point, I was always trying to find device work. When I was in medical school, I did some stent design specific for pediatric cardiology applications, and got some interesting experience with that. Worked with some SBIR grants, got to do some early animal studies. Got to work with the patent office. It was more in

Alison Curfman:

like a research setting, yes, okay,

Bronwyn Harris:

with a commercial bend on it. I mean, ultimately, hasn't been commercialized at this point, but still, you know, kind of thought through all of that. And for the SBIR grant applications. And then when I came out to Stanford for my training, and yes, a little bit certainly, part of the draw was the hot spot that that is here, that that is real, really interesting, the people that you can casually run into, but then also the people that it attracts, you know, to come speak at Stanford, or, you know, doctors that are working at the tech companies, and then part time at Stanford, and that, if you know that, you can, you know, get to pick their brain and learn a little bit more about the path that they had been taking. Yeah, when I came to Stanford again, I was looking for medical device research that was going on, and just kind of by chance, pulse oximetry research was there was an investigator initiated study going on with an anesthesiologist and looking at our pediatric patients during surgery and actually getting very blue, right? I mean, they actually were having SATs in the 50s and 60s. And a lot of these sensors, or these very specific ones, have claims that go all the way down to those but pretty hard to test at those levels. And so we're doing really interesting research in that also did some work on portable pulse oximeter, so we had a whole home monitoring program for our single ventricle patients. How long ago was that? That was back? Let's see. So in my clinical training for cardiology, so 2013 so over 10 years ago now, it was literally a three ring binder with paper with, you know, a table they filled in and would give weights. So we had a digital scale that they were given because these, these were a few month old babies, so their weights from day to day was really important. They're also given a pulse oximeter. Could would record that, because that also is early signs of something going poorly. And in that course, and what was really interesting is we give this huge hospital grade pulse oximeter, which is not convenient for the families. Meanwhile, there's portable ones out there, and FDA cleared ones, but we weren't using them, and some of them insurance wouldn't cover. And so we did a side by side test, which was pretty easy, of having these hospital grade pulse oximeters, and then using the portable one, and often would have patients who are already in the ICU and who are getting intermittent blood gasses, and so we could compare it at that time. You know, it took some time to coordinate that, but so we're able to show this portable pulse oximeter that's tiny and very convenient for the families was just as good. So we were able to send that home with them. We were able to show that in a study. And so, you know, again, just by chance of being interested in medical devices, it really started getting me into the sensor space. And then, yeah, you know, home monitoring, again, home monitoring with, you know, phone calls, definitely,

Alison Curfman:

with a three ring binder and a phone call is quite different than remote patient monitoring today, exactly, exactly.

Bronwyn Harris:

But it was a start. And so, you know, really interesting. I didn't notice when I look back my journey makes, seems to make perfect sense. That was not the case as I was going along. It was often, what should I be doing? What you know, what am I going to work on? Where is this going to go? I really didn't know. And then a big turning point for me was doing the Stanford bio design program. So they have a specific fellowship. They also have courses, both for people in undergrad and medical school, graduate school, and then also now have faculty programs. So. How faculty members get to do this, a version of this course, but I did the 10 and a half month intensive Fellowship, which it's a intensive in a different way than medical training, but really immersive into this innovation space, from talking about legal aspects to getting to go over to the D school, the design school at Stanford, and really getting immersed in needs based innovation and design thinking and all of this teaching you and actually observing in clinical settings. So something I clinical settings, and you know, for a long time now, but not just sitting back, not as the clinician, but just observing, observing. Hey, what challenges are coming up? How is a patient, you know, feeling at this time? What's going on with a doctor when you see something that's not going well, whether it's a hey, it's taking too long, there's pain, there's frustration, there's bad outcomes, then trying to see what was that just a one time? Thing is that, you know, because of that one provider or one situation is, or is there actual trend? There is there a important need behind it? And so really focus on that needs based innovation, teaching you and, you know, making you think that, gosh, if you spend that time up front and understanding the need, the rest will follow. So often a technical solution is created, and then you try to find a need. Well, what scenario, you know, what condition can solve this?

Alison Curfman:

And that's so much of the the concept of design thinking is you have to figure out what what is the problem you're trying to solve. And when people talk about design, they often will think like architecture or device design or very engineering focused thoughts. But obviously there's so much process design and so many very complicated processes that occur every day in the healthcare system for clinicians and for patients, and so that must have been a really incredible experience to really get that deep design training at Stanford.

Bronwyn Harris:

Yeah, so great just to have that dedicated time to spend, to think on that, to understand the importance of it. And I do think I'll pause of my journey for a minute here, just to say, you know, the roles that clinicians can play in startups or in innovation. I think often, when people are coming to someone clinical and asking about the challenges doctors we're so used to we're problem solvers, right? We have a solution already. We'll tell them, Oh, well, I need this catheter to be longer, or I need, you know, this, this to be different, but not realizing that actually, that team really needs to understand the need. They need to understand the process. They need you to describe. Well, hey, when I go into this procedure, here's what I do. We roll the patient in, and here's a get access here, and actually, literally, just describe all of these things. And well, you think you may know, and you may know what the true need is. You're so immersed in it that it is possible that what you think is the problem and the correct solution might not actually be it. And regardless of whether you're right or wrong, as clinicians, we like to be right and often, are you, you need to go with the flow and go with the process and spend time answering these questions. And that's a value can add. So one simple thing of design thinking, of you know, simple thing, especially if you have young kids that you can remember, but there's five whys. And I say that kids ask you that all the time. But if there's a problem or something that you're highlighting, the a trained person you know working on design thinking should ask you five times why you know? You say, Oh, this procedure takes way too long. And they'll ask you, well, why? Well, because the patient's never ready in time. Well, why? Well, anesthesia, you know, right? And you can go down, and there's lots of difference, but you can't just have one, you can't even just have two or three Whys like it really is, and you gotta get into the nitty gritty. And there's probably, it's, it's actually hard thinking. It's probably stuff you're not even thinking about it's subconscious in some ways, yeah, and some of it may be actually, like, I don't know. You might get to a point where you don't know the answer. Say, Okay, well, I'm gonna find. We're gonna go start doing more discovery. Yeah, we're gonna, maybe you're gonna need to track something. I've been in clinics where I sit and I time, you know, why is something taking so long? How much time? What's the, you know, greeting time? What time are they spending, you know, doing the technique to teach on the inhaler, the spirometry this. So really understand, if something is taking too long, you're not able to see enough patients, or, you know, there's some sort of challenge. Well, why is that happening? And you may not, and actually, often, probably won't have. The answer. The answer is somewhere, you know, right in your clinic or in your process, and whether it's you or allowing people access to, oh, yeah, come and observe, literally, potentially, with a, you know, stop watch or to talk to patients and have them understand how they feel. So, you know, I think that is so important that don't just come with solutions. Be willing to take the time to really talk through the process and highlight problems, and then be willing to be challenged to ask, Well, why? You know you're saying it's this problem, but why? Why downstream? And maybe there's something else that would totally change it and change the way that you're looking at the needs or solutions. And

Alison Curfman:

I found that there was knowledge that I had that I didn't realize that was really valuable knowledge. And when you talk about a process design or, you know, understanding the root of the problem, I felt like when, when we were designing the company that I helped build, my knowledge that I was bringing into this private equity firm, was a lot of like, how these patients move through the system and what affects them and what puts them in the hospital, and what sorts of challenges they face. And, you know, we look at all the claims data in the world, but we won't have those patient stories and experiences and really understanding that flow, what we consider kind of like, oh, doesn't everyone know that? You know, and don't really realize that that really comes from lived clinical experience.

Bronwyn Harris:

Absolutely, absolutely it is so important and it seems trivial. So it seems you know to you like, well, this is easy, right? Of course, I could just sit down and talk through the process, but it is. It is so important, but communicating that isn't trivial. And and understanding. I mean, I think the role that clinicians play some if it is teaching, and it's not quite the same teaching as you know, when there's a med student in your clinic, although there is actually that same sort of level you need to be able to break it down so that whether you know every engineer, designer, you know people on the business side, should understand whatever companies focus on a certain condition, or, you know, certain key clinical things, that everyone should understand that basic knowledge and that that can be something you can provide. And I typically, whether it's, you know, in a presentation or a document form, it should be very simple. And there should you need to separate out. They're not, they're not becoming a clinician in this space, but they still need to understand the basics. And so how do you teach that? How do you bring that knowledge? And yeah, it's something that seems easy to us because it is. It's second nature to us, but being able to teach and communicate that to others is really important.

Alison Curfman:

So what was your next step with your career, after the design intensity? Yeah,

Bronwyn Harris:

so Stanford Biodesign. So for me, that was a experiment, a little bit thinking, well, grad school, I found when I was doing the engineering full full time, I didn't love it. So I want to see, hey, this innovation work, is this something that I love? Is this something that I would want to do full time? And is it something that I'm good at, that I can add value on the answer to the both of those were Yes, I loved it. I love, you know, taking that medical knowledge, but then letting my brain, you know, run in in a different way, and, and I love the need that we ultimately worked on. So the process of the fellowship is learning to identify needs and how to, you know, how to compare them, which it's not comparing apples to apples, of thinking of what you are working on. And that was actually even an interesting thing. I feel like, all through my medical training, kind of like, well, what's my next paper? What am I going to work on? You just kind of take the next thing in front of you and realizing that, hey, your your time, everyone's time, is valuable. Anything you're working on, there's hundreds, 1000s, even more things that you're not working on instead of that. And so spending again that time, anything you're doing thinking, is this need that I'm trying to address, something that I want to wake up every day and work on? Is this where I want to dedicate my time? Or is there somewhere else more valuable?

Alison Curfman:

So did you end up creating product, or what was the outcome of that.

Bronwyn Harris:

So the need that ultimately came to the top for our team was in the asthma space. Again, this was a decade ago, crazy ton of innovation in the cardiac space, in diabetes, but respiratory I think, and I still think, actually today, a decade later, is is behind on that, that there are lots of solutions out there, very human, heavy, you know, send an asthma educator to someone's home, do a pharmacist intensive program that have really great outcomes, but none of those have been scalable, and again, they're pretty costly. How do you then bring in a digital tool to be able to go. Create a scalable solution around helping people achieve better asthma control. So that was ultimately what we worked on. Again, when you're looking at the need, the need is solution agnostic. So we thought of lots of different solutions, but what we landed on was using off the shelf sleep sensor to see data. And at this time, we were focused on pediatrics, and so having a sensor that you can set up on a bed and set and forget was really important. We thought for pediatric patients, they're not probably going to wear wearables. And at that time, wearables were pretty new. There wasn't a ton in that space. And then we wanted to use that data to be able to provide an education based self efficacy tool in an app form, to really help empower patients. Well, it was at that time, parents and then the actual patients to understand their asthma better and take that mystery out of it. So, you know, one of the things is we looked into the need asthma to patients, and we've heard this in interviews. It feels like it comes out of nowhere, right? I was doing totally fine, and then this attack hit me. Now there, there's great data out there, and I didn't know this actually, in my training as pediatrics, were trained in asthma, but didn't really learn the details of this, but looked in the research, and it's pretty clear there's a small percentage, about 10% time. It really can be, you know, more a sort of anaphylactic allergic happens within a few hours, but the other 90% there's build up over days. And then we know that if you can get someone to be more aware of their symptoms days before they can recognize when there's plenty of time to make changes. And so, you know, pausing there one other, you know, advice, and I think important roles that clinicians play is the ability to look up this sort of research that you don't get taught in med school, but it's out there, and it for non clinicians, it's really hard. And, you know, on our team at Biodesign. I saw some of these engineers trying to use PubMed and look stuff up and to filter through, you know what? Like, oh, this article is not well done. And, you know, not something we should believe. Well, this one, oh, this is really well done. There's, that's another natural thing that we have learned over time. And you forget, I think, or don't realize the value so that, I think is, is something really important and not to be little, the ability for you to do these lit reviews that, again, there's a lot out there that you

Alison Curfman:

have to curate it, you got to filter it and figure out what's worth listening to, especially when you're trying to do discovery on something new. It's like the puzzle pieces you bring together, they they matter in the overall like direction that you're heading. So what did you end up creating? Yeah,

Bronwyn Harris:

so we ended up creating when the biodesign fellowship ended, we felt there was something there. So there's something worth pursuing. What was interesting? This again, now 10, 910, years ago, it was early days of wearables and sleep sensors. And so when we went to investors, they did not believe that this data would be meaningful for asthma nowadays. He was like, Oh, you're, you know, wearables can tell you if you're sick or not. That's a kind of taken for granted at that point, that that that was not accepted yet. So first we did a translational grant to prove out that when there's changes in reported asthma symptoms, there's changes in this data. And so we did that, and that worked well with my last year of cardiology fellowship training. Then I finished my cardiology fellowship, and literally, July 1. Now in hindsight, I think I could have probably taken a week off, but July 1 I, you know, hit the hit the ground running, raising money to start the startup that we were founding on this. So had you done that before? Absolutely not, and went on

Alison Curfman:

your team that knew how to do that, or did you just figure it out? We

Bronwyn Harris:

so the bio Design Network was really important in that, in general, yeah, we didn't have the specific knowledge, but I think we had the support and the advisors to help us with that. When I went into bio design for the interviews, I actually said, I don't want to start a company. That was not a lot of people go in with that goal, reaching

Alison Curfman:

out, saying, Never mind. I do want to start a company. Yeah,

Bronwyn Harris:

well, for me, it was I found a need and a solution that I believed so much in that wasn't going to happen if I didn't help push it forward. And so I felt, okay, I'm going to do this. And I, you know, I think similar, hearing your story, and there's that moment where you kind of think about, okay, am I willing to take a totally different path to try this out? And I decided, yes, I am. And I think certainly that's a turning point for me. I had always thought I would be 5050, clinical and, you know, do consulting. And other innovation stuff, but in this case, this company wouldn't have gone forward if I didn't step up and take on the CEO role. What happened with your company? Took about six months to get our seed round. So to get official funding, we were able to we built out a whole app that was something I had never done, or, you know, thought through the design of that. Had great co founders who had more technical experience than me, so we're able to, all, you know, do that together. We had a firm in India that did the actual initial development, and then had a mobile developer in house in the company that was able to take that over, and, you know, really help with that. We did an initial clinical study, proof of concept, of showing Yes, you know, we really can improve asthma control.

Alison Curfman:

With that, I'm going to advise you there, because I think other people don't realize that when someone's trying to build a new concept or solution, for you to be able to grow, get contracts, raise money, it has to work, or you have to be able to have some evidence that it works. And that's another great place, I think, for physicians to plug in is, you know, designing ways that we can rapidly prove something absolutely. Did you feel like your clinical skills came into play there? Yeah, 100% so

Bronwyn Harris:

deciding, I mean, there were a lot of decisions on the study design and figuring out, you know what? What's the right evidence? But then also recognizing and balancing it with, we are a startup fundraising. You have certain runway with your money, so you also, there's some practical parts. Would it be great to have a two year, you know, study and do this? Yeah, you

Alison Curfman:

don't, you don't have the luxury of time, so you have to figure out, how much can I move quickly? Right?

Bronwyn Harris:

There's constraints, and so, you know, factoring all of that in, but absolutely thinking through evidence generation and understanding that within the needs of the company, right? And when you need, you know, a readout of something so that the next fundraising round can happen. So absolutely, that that's a really important role that clinicians can play. And I think that's another one where you always the knowledge you have is there, but what you might not have is the knowledge of the business side, and needing to be open and needing to understand what those needs are, and then factoring them in, and with that recognizing right, maybe there is a certain study design, and that is the right study design, but if a readout is needed due to fundraising or other things, maybe there's interim results that you could plan into the study. Or so, there's lots of different you can actually design the study

Alison Curfman:

to have initial outcomes and then future, future, more complicated outcomes that you're continuing to measure. So how long did you run that company?

Bronwyn Harris:

Yeah, so we it, let's see, it was about two years, and we had good clinical outcomes, and we're planning next steps of the company, raising the series A and had the fortunate opportunity to then have the entire team go over to Apple.

Alison Curfman:

You're the only person I know who's ever worked at Apple, and I think that's pretty cool,

Bronwyn Harris:

yes. So that was then the next step of my journey. So spent three years at Apple, which was amazing. I think, you know, if you so, well, bio design did give me initial design thinking experience, the three year Apple experience to work with the Apple designers and engineers was just amazing, right? The what I learned from that. Now I'm still not, I'm not a designer. I can't, you know, make it look beautiful and user friendly and all that. However, I now know what good looks like on those which I think is an important and I, you know, know when, hey, it's, it's not there yet, or, you know, I think something needs to change. And I, I know where to where to go to and how to work, how to communicate well with the designers and engineers, and that was just, it was phenomenal. I will say I was a little naive in thinking, Okay, that is the next step for the company, and hoping that, hey, within a year, this tool that we created could, you know, be in the Apple ecosystem and in in the health app, and, you know, then be helping millions of patients and just realizing the reality of these big tech companies, they don't move in that way. There's a lot of things they have to factor in to make a decision of prioritization. Yeah, absolutely. And so, and that's fair, right? It's a big company. There's so many choices, there's so many things they could do, and then there's a lot of implications of any decision that they make. Yeah,

Alison Curfman:

that's been really, really great to kind of have that perspective. And as we're kind of wrapping up, how did you have to think differently working as a clinician in the startup world versus, you know, wearing your clinical hat as a practicing. Clinician? Yeah,

Bronwyn Harris:

I think that that is a great question. You know, one as as a clinician, you are trained to be very systematic, standardized, right? I mean, that's literally follow protocols, and you get dinged, right? If you're not doing something according to you didn't prescribe this, this thing in this specific scenario, and that's that's important. That's the way we should be making sure, right, we're using evidence based care. You're not meant to be creative. Creativity is not prioritized, and isn't, you know, really part of clinical practice. And then another thing is, as a clinician, you're scared of the failures. And you know, sadly, for good reason, right of your career could be ended, or, very much, you know, kind of criticized by a significant failure, or a few failures. Now flip that in the startup world, people are praised for their creativity, for pushing the boundaries, right, for thinking outside the box. So not standardized. Standardized is gonna, you know, get you a new, a new and actually,

Alison Curfman:

a lot of physicians have a reputation for being too rigid to work with

Bronwyn Harris:

startups. Yes, absolutely right. So it is, I mean, a startup world, you have to push the boundary. You have to think, well, here's the way it's done, standard, and here we're going to try this. And then also interesting is, gosh, the failures are forgotten in the start, where you can have these serial entrepreneurs, where it's a what happened if you know, company failed, failed, failed, and then big success, they are known for that one success. And, you know, praised those, those failures are considered they those are learning experiences. Those are not and so, you know, you should still have your doctor brain when you're caring for patients. They don't think that should change. But you have to shift a bit when you're in the startup world and understand, you need to think, okay, and absolutely always be bringing the caution, and you need to bring, you know, some rigidity of patient safety. But you know, something where you think, Well, that can't be done in the home. You know, I always see the patient in clinic for this, like,

Alison Curfman:

Well, why? Right? Safety is such a great example of how clinicians can really lean in, particularly when it comes to new technology. When I've done work with clinical products or working with design or development teams, I feel like I'm the voice to really determine, like, what's safe, what's the worst thing that could happen if this piece went wrong or didn't work or, you know, in a lot of times, it's like, okay, if the worst thing that could happen is, you know, you could get a septic child at home that We don't know about that's a really, really bad thing, but the worst thing that could happen is that they may have to click a button too many or like they may not have the best, you know, button clicking experience, or there's certain things that you know within something you're building are just lower priority, and, you know, really fall more into the design world, but the clinical side of things, the safety side of things, I even think about companies that are, you know, there's a million AI companies popping up and wanting to find solutions for healthcare, and I feel like we as clinicians are the ones that understand like, hey, here are the guardrails, the boundaries, the worst thing that could happen. And our knowledge can really be helpful to training these algorithms. Yeah,

Bronwyn Harris:

absolutely. And I will, you know, just, I guess, to complete the circle of my journey, I will share that so say, you know, kind of multiple different iterations of the asthma tool. And finally, now the tool is actually available commercially and actually for free for patients, which I'm, you know, feel so, so proud that it's out there in the world, and after being studied, if anyone wants to go to asthma tool.com, you can read more about it. You can see about it. You know, in sharing this one, you know, certainly, if you have patients that could benefit. Please share and, you know, point them to it. But then also you, as a clinician interested in the space, I'd encourage you to spend some time on that. Actually download the tool, try it out. So many of these tools, if they're free, for you to use, should try it. You should see kind of what the experience is like. And with that, can think, Huh, maybe I would do this different. Or, you know, I really like how this was designed, and you know, always think about that as you're trying or seeing new tools. You know, start start thinking in that critical way. And you know, encourage, if you ever have feedback, feel free to reach out and share it with me. That's

Alison Curfman:

awesome. And it's so cool to hear about your whole journey and how it's also giving you stepping stones to other opportunities. I know that you focused so much on this asthma tool, and now it's really translated into you being a really well known expert in wearable devices, which are exploding right now.

Bronwyn Harris:

Yes, yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's. Interesting that while we initially was sensor sleep sensor data, and then switched over to wearable data for the asthma tool and found how engaging it is as a hook, where it's not a digital biomarker, you're not making any claims from that data, but when you're able to tell someone, Hey, your heart rate last night was higher than it usually is, and then pull them into this experience. It's really powerful. And, yeah, it's from, you know, both that. And then my time at Apple, I've gotten really passionate about wearable data, and I think there's a big gap between what's out there. And these are consumer facing tools. There are even, you know, regulated features, but they're OTC, so meaning over the counter, which means you don't need a prescription. People buy these smart watches, and then they use these features, and it's completely separate from the medical community. And I think there's not that much knowledge and a lot of skepticism by the medical community and working, trying to trying to help with that, trying to educate because, right, just like any other tool, there are limitations. There are things that you should know about it, but there also is something there. I mean, there's regulated features. You're getting vital signs on someone's wrist, and you could imagine there are scenarios that that could be helpful. And we as clinicians, we're used to very subjective data, right? Someone comes in with a complaint. For me, I hear of palpitations, you know, where my heart's racing, and, you know, I tease out and get lots of history on that and try to find out details. Well, even if this isn't, you know, 100% accurate, which nothing is, huh? That's still data. That's probably even better. I literally have patients tap out. Well, when you say it's fast, you know how fast and tap is it that is that? Is it so fast you can't count? So that's the type of data I'm working with for the HPI. You would think that data from a wearable, again, exactly what their heart rate was when they were having that experience, would be understanding, sure, right, the accuracy, precision, like there's details you need to understand, but Right? How is that not a useful adjunct to what you're already collecting. HPI. So anyway, that's my, you know, happy to any any time chat about that, because I think as a medical community, we need to embrace it a little bit more, actually, maybe not even embrace understand it, right? People are wearing it worldwide. Now, 22% of adults own a smart watch or a wearable that can give a heart rate. The data is out there, so whether or not you are aware of the details of it, your patients are using it.

Alison Curfman:

Well, I always love hearing about your story of you know, going from residency fellowship to your Stanford bio design to becoming a CEO and co founder of a tech company, then working at Apple, and now, as you've kind of launched into this new phase of your career, really being an expert in wearable devices, I would highly encourage anyone to go check out her. You said it's asthma tool.com asthma tool.com, and if you are ever looking for an expert on wearable devices to you know, bring your physician community up to speed or be more educated, Bronwyn is the person to go to. How do people find you? Bronwyn, are you on LinkedIn? Yeah.

Bronwyn Harris:

LinkedIn is a great, great place. I check that frequently, and yeah, love to get connected with like minded people. And you know, happy to message and meet up

Alison Curfman:

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today, Bronwyn, and thanks for coming on the podcast. My pleasure. Thank you, Allison. That concludes our conversation with Dr Bronwyn Harris, whose journey from pediatric cardiologist to digital health innovator really demonstrates the unique value that physicians can bring to healthcare. Through her work at Stanford, Biodesign, her startup experience, her time at Apple and her expertise in wearable devices, she has shown how clinical knowledge can shape better solutions for patients, remember to check out asthma tool.com and you can connect with Dr Harris on LinkedIn to learn more about her work with wearable medical devices. If you enjoyed today's episode, please like, follow and share startup physicians until next time, let's change the future of healthcare together. You.