Episode 24: Thought Leaders in Shared Decision-Making

The final episode of Season 2 of the DiepCJourney podcast brings together thought leaders in shared decision-making. This fireside chat includes the members of the World Health Innovation Summit (WHIS) Shared Decision team. This team was formulated and is led by Gareth Presch who founded WHIS in 2015.

Taking a Good Health and Wellbeing (SDG3) approach to person centered health, Gareth Presch recognized that there were five key cornerstones of which all needed to be supported, at a the same time, by the same people: Health, Economy, Education, Environment, and Ecosystems. He discusses his work by looking back at the accomplishments and milestones met in his 2022 global travels, speaking engagements, and participation in the World Urban Forum in Katowice, Poland in June of 2022.

Susanne Baars connects people to knowledge. She received training as a genetic scientist at Harvard and she is using her expertise through the Social Genomics Moonshot project she created to find access to care for those across the globe. Her work has transformed the lives of cancer patients. You can read more about her story with one patient, Harry, on his Journey through personalized treatment.

Dr. Minas Chrysopoulo is the current president of PRMA in San Antonio, Texas. He is a reconstructive microsurgeon performing breast cancer surgery primarily using the patient’s own tissue to reconstruct breasts lost to mastectomy. Dr. Chrysopoulo is an entrepreneur. He is the Founder of Toliman Health and through Toliman developed the first shared decision-making breast cancer surgery app, Breast Advocate. His innovations brought him to Katowice, Poland with his daughter to present the Breast Advocate app at the World Urban Forum along with Gareth.  

I am proud to work with and know these thought leaders as we continue to understand the needs of global digital health, personalized care, and building communities through our collective efforts. As Susanne stated, “Movement is the greatest facilitator”. Dr. Chrysopoulo stated that the only constant we have is change. It is through incremental changes as change agents we can work to improve health care through shared decision making and promoting and developing best practices in health care communitcation.