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In this edition of the Healthcare Innovators Series (HCIS), we chat with Sunit Jariwala, MD. Sunit holds several titles, including a practicing Allergy/Immunology clinician, an Associate Professor of Medicine, a Board-certified clinical informaticist, and the Director of Clinical and Research Innovation for the Department of Medicine at Montefiore Einstein. He is also Director of Allergy/Immunology Research and created ASTHMAXcel, a mobile platform that delivers personalized asthma education to both children and adults.
Sunit discusses technology, innovation, COVID and more.
AvoMD: What problem does your team solve for the healthcare industry?
Sunit: As a practicing Allergy/Immunology physician and Director of Clinical and Research Innovation at Montefiore Einstein, I have been focusing on the development, implementation, and validation of user-centered technologies for patients. Our team especially aims to improve health disparities surrounding chronic conditions. As an example, we created and launched ASTHMAXcel, which was the first ‘homegrown’ mobile platform developed at Montefiore Einstein. This tool has helped adult and pediatric asthma patients by improving asthma control and quality of life and reducing emergency department visits and hospitalizations.
To encourage clinicians to create and implement digital tools through a needs-based innovation framework, we launched the Montefiore Einstein Innovation Biodesign Training Program in 2020. Our program represents a team-based approach that trains clinician innovators to build, validate, and sustainably scale innovative health technologies.
AvoMD: What technologies are you most excited about this year?
Sunit: I am extremely excited about patient-facing mobile health technologies with digital phenotyping and risk prediction capabilities.
AvoMD: How has Covid-19 impacted innovation in your company?
Sunit: Due to the digital revolution created by the Covid-19 pandemic, innovative health technologies are now mainstream at Montefiore Einstein. As a result, digital tools have been widely adopted, implemented, and iterated upon to help clinicians and our healthcare system achieve the quadruple aim.
AvoMD: What are the challenges healthcare companies face with technology adoption?
Sunit: Several key challenges to technology adoption within healthcare systems are that many of the available technologies lack rigorous validation, user-centeredness, and/or seamless integration within clinician workflows to be usable at the point of care.
AvoMD: What is your favorite blog, website, author for health tech insights and inspiration?
Sunit: I am inspired by the works of Dr. Eric Topol and Dr. Atul Gawande.
About Dr. Sunit P. Jariwala
Dr. Sunit P. Jariwala is a practicing Allergy/Immunology clinician, an Associate Professor of Medicine,a Board-certified clinical informaticist, and the Director of Clinical and Research Innovation for the Department of Medicine at Montefiore Einstein. He is also Director of Allergy/Immunology Research and created ASTHMAXcel, a mobile platform that delivers personalized asthma education to both children and adults. He has been the Principal Investigator for 12 grants, and the mobile platform has been awarded over $2 million in grant funding. He has extended the mobile tool to other conditions that include COVID-19, type 2 diabetes, COPD, heart failure, and rheumatoid arthritis. To train the next generation of faculty innovators, he created the Innovation Biodesign Training Program, which launched in July 2020. He is the Chair of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, Health Informatics, Technology & Education Committee.