Health Tech: Priya Abani Of AliveCor On How Their Technology Can Make An Important Impact On Our Overall Wellness

An Interview With David Leichner

Your team matters. Your value as a company is only as great as your value as a team. Each of our team members has a myriad of experience leading core functions at some of the top companies in the world. The diverse experiences they bring allow us to tap into the diverse audiences we are trying to reach.

In recent years, Big Tech has gotten a bad rep. But of course many tech companies are doing important work making monumental positive changes to society, health, and the environment. To highlight these, we started a new interview series about “Technology Making An Important Positive Social Impact”. We are interviewing leaders of tech companies who are creating or have created a tech product that is helping to make a positive change in people’s lives or the environment. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Priya Abani.

As CEO of AliveCor, Priya is leading the drive to patient-centric remote cardiological care. Under Priya’s leadership, the company has expanded its proprietary sensor technology, AI and range of connected care services that serve both patients and healthcare professionals around the world. Prior to joining AliveCor, Priya served as the General Manager at Alexa Voice Service (AVS) at Amazon, where she led the expansion of Alexa technology into partner products.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?

Thank you so much for having me! I grew up in Mumbai, where I was surrounded by family who instilled in me strong values that I grew to cherish. I was social and extroverted and being in such a bustling place like Mumbai, I was lucky to have parents who gave me some freedom and independence and allowed me to explore. I think that natural curiosity and adventurous spirit really played a pivotal role in my career.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

No doubt the most satisfying part of what we do at AliveCor is meeting the people whose lives our products have positively impacted. Hearing firsthand the effect we’ve had on people’s health is exactly what drives us to create the solutions that we do. I was recently on a flight and happened to sit next to someone who is pretty well known. I was already excited about the opportunity to talk to them, but as we began our conversation, he mentioned that his wife was a Kardia user. He spoke so highly of our products and shared how they helped his family, so it was a really reaffirming moment and one that I’ll never forget.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

The person that immediately comes to mind for me is my dad. Although he was a physicist by trade, he taught himself coding and would teach classes at our local high school. So growing up, I used to attend those classes and that’s where I fell in love with computer science. Through him, I learned Basic, Pascal and COBOL, ultimately sparking my interest in designing algorithms. Considering where that passion has taken me now, I am forever grateful that I was able to have those moments with him.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My favorite life lesson quote comes from Gandhi — “the future depends on what we do in the present.” At AliveCor, our mission is future-facing –to save lives and transform cardiology by delivering intelligent, highly personalized heart data to clinicians and patients anytime, anywhere. In essence, we aim to become the 24/7 virtual cardiologist for the 99% of the time you are not in front of your physician. We recognize that the work we’re doing today gives people more control over their health, which allows them to continue living their life as they choose to. People from all walks of life are affected by heart disease. So, if we can build products that are valuable, and that patients trust, and if we can equip them with the tools they need to manage their heart health, then we’re a part of building a better tomorrow for generations to come.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

Absolutely. Part of my role as CEO is to continue to challenge my team to think big while keeping our mission front and center. In doing so, innovation shines through and allows us to reach our goal of making a difference in the lives of patients all over the world who can really benefit from our technologies. As a leader, I strongly believe that empathy, adaptability and the ability to motivate a team are all instrumental in driving this innovation forward.

Empathy: As a leader and especially as a woman, I’ve learned to not perceive my empathy as a weakness. I firmly believe that the ability to connect with others and truly understand their challenges makes me a better leader. Being able to build strong relationships with my team allows me to increase trust and communication, which helps us function better as a company.

Adaptability: A good leader needs to be able to thrive not only as a creator, but also as a growth operator. When I became CEO of AliveCor, I knew that we needed to both take our innovations from ideation to reality and be able to scale our solutions in order to drive our mission forward and have the greatest possible impact. Being adaptable in the role I play and when I play those roles has been crucial to our company’s growth and ultimate success.

Team Motivator: A successful business leader needs to be able to motivate their team. I learned early on during the COVID pandemic how important it was for a team to feel and stay connected. That period of time when we were all at home and only connecting virtually really got me thinking about how to build your team, even if that team might not always be in the same room. Equally important is figuring out how to sustain morale and a positive culture. The best leaders can navigate these challenges while keeping the company’s mission and vision front of mind.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about the technology or medical devices that you are helping to create that can make a positive impact on our wellness. To begin, which particular problems are you aiming to solve?

This February is American Heart Month, a time where people across the U.S. recognize the impact of heart disease and barriers to care. Heart disease is the #1 cause of death in this country, and the costs associated with managing it can exceed $350 billion annually. That is a significant burden on our healthcare system and the lives of those affected.

We also know that the landscape of provider availability is changing. For example, it can take up to three weeks to see a cardiologist, at which point symptoms may have worsened or evolved. But the good news is that 80% of all cardiovascular disease is preventable, and because remote monitoring devices and services like ours aid in the early detection of arrhythmias, we have a real opportunity to make an impact on both outcomes and costs for patients, providers, payers and enterprise systems.

How do you think your technology can address this?

I’d actually like to answer this question in three parts to explain how our technology can help three very different but equally important audiences: patients, healthcare providers and payers / employers.

For patients: Medicine has always been so top-down and what’s so exciting to me is that we are entering the era of consumer-driven products and services. Our FDA-cleared KardiaMobile devices provide customers the ability to check in on their hearts at home and the option to have their EKG reviewed by a cardiologist outside of the exam room — filling a critical gap that we often see in cardiovascular care. Ultimately, it puts the power back in the hands of patients. We’ve done this mainly by making cardiac health management more convenient — our KardiaMobile devices exist in the most convenient form-factor and are suited for on-the-go use. Just last year, we launched the KardiaMobile Card, which, at the size of a credit card, is the world’s thinnest, lightest FDA-cleared personal ECG device and can detect more arrhythmias than any other personal ECG in just 30 seconds. Whether you’re at the grocery store, at work, on a hike, or at home, our sensor technology allows us to tell patients, with a high degree of accuracy, whether they are experiencing one of six of the most common heart arrhythmias or if they have a normal heart rate — giving them peace of mind.

For healthcare providers: At AliveCor, we know that patient care and outcomes improve when healthcare providers have access to the critical information they need to support thoughtful clinical decision-making. So, this past year, we’ve broadened our partnerships to integrate our products into several electronic health records (EHRs) and clinical workflows. In December 2021, KardiaMobile 6L became the first-ever personal six-lead ECG monitoring device to be integrated into Epic’s EHR App Orchard Marketplace. This integration enables healthcare providers who use Epic’s EHR to seamlessly prescribe and deliver the physician-preferred remote ECG monitoring solution to patients. We’ve also partnered with GE Healthcare to integrate KardiaMobile 6L into their MUSE Cardiac Management System, which is used by more than 84% of the top hospital systems in the U.S. This integration offers physicians access to trusted patient data within their existing workflow, helping to increase their diagnostic confidence and improving the ability to effectively manage patients proactively across the care continuum — with the goal of reducing hospitalizations linked to cardiac conditions like atrial fibrillation.

For payers and employers: Last spring, we launched KardiaComplete, a comprehensive heart health solution designed to democratize heart care as the U.S. faces a significant cardiologist shortage. This solution is available to people diagnosed with arrhythmias and hypertension through their employers, health insurance plans and health systems. By leveraging data from best-in-class cardiac monitoring solutions — AliveCor’s KardiaMobile 6L and Omron’s Evolv blood pressure cuff — KardiaComplete meets people’s need for coaching and care in the moments that matter.

Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?

I first learned about AliveCor through our Board and investors. When Vinod Khosla, who is the Chairman of the Board, first offered me the role to be AliveCor’s CEO, I was hesitant because so many things about this opportunity were new to me. But what really sold it for me was the work that AliveCor was already doing and the mission behind that work. I think it brought me back to my dad, who had passed away the previous year. Then, I started reading reviews of Kardia devices and noticed that every second or third review said something like, “This device helped save my life. It saved the life of someone I love. It helped me get to the hospital on time, which again saved my life.” There were literally thousands of them. The fact that the company was making such a big difference in so many people’s lives was one of the driving factors that motivated me to join AliveCor. I thought about AliveCor’s foundational technology, the advent of the personal ECG and how I could use this foundation to advance the company to scale care globally.

How do you think this might change the world?

I believe that our solutions are already changing the world. Every day, I wake up knowing that our products and innovations are providing people with accessible, affordable and highly personalized data that they can easily manage from the comfort of their own homes. At AliveCor, we are continuing to change the paradigm of heart health care by giving people more control over their health and more time to do the things they love with the people that matter most.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

Over the past three years, the pandemic taught us that so many of the things that we used to do face to face can just as easily be done in a virtual setting, including how we approach and access healthcare. The pandemic underscored the indispensable role of remote patient monitoring, and clearly there is no sign that the importance or uptake of remote monitoring will decrease any time soon. Although this emergence is great for innovation within digital health, it also raises concerns around privacy and security. Within the past few years, we’ve seen data breaches and security issues within the digital health industry as new technology emerges. That’s why it’s important now more than ever, for us as innovators to really prioritize addressing these issues.

At AliveCor, we’re taking a number of steps in order to address these concerns. One being our stringent approach toward protecting patient data and privacy. We know that being able to provide patients with personalized data is essential to the services we provide but we also recognize that being able to protect patient data is crucial. That’s why we have put in place compliance measures to ensure that data is protected. We’ve worked with third parties to obtain HIPAA and SOC2 compliance which allows us to safely manage patient data.

I believe that the convergence of healthcare and tech is critical for innovation. This convergence gives us the ability to access more information that will continue to improve the solutions we already have. At AliveCor, the vast amount of data we have collected (more than 185 million medical-grade ECGs from more than 2.6 million customers worldwide) provides us with a significant advantage in developing new AI-based services to advance cardiac care both for patients and their cardiologists.

Here is the main question for our discussion. Based on your experience and success, can you please share “Five things you need to know to successfully create technology that can make a positive social impact”?

1. Your team matters. Your value as a company is only as great as your value as a team. Each of our team members has a myriad of experience leading core functions at some of the top companies in the world. The diverse experiences they bring allow us to tap into the diverse audiences we are trying to reach.
2. Think about the customer first. At AliveCor, we call this our “customer obsession.” Our approach to research and design is formulated with the end user in mind. In order to create a solution that will affect positive change, it’s important to keep in mind what the customer wants and what fits with their lifestyle. Is your solution convenient? Perhaps they want a solution that requires low effort? All of these questions are important to consider.
3. Affordability = Accessibility. AliveCor prides itself in providing our customers with solutions at the best value. Our devices give users access to readings and insights for more arrhythmias at a fraction of the price of other devices. We’ve done this because we recognize that cost is often a barrier, and the more that we as innovators can do to lessen that barrier, the more accessible our solutions become.
4. Be intentional. It is important to hone in on what you want your solution to solve. That means being selective about the products you are creating, the relationships you’re forging in order to build partnerships and the investments you need to make to achieve your mission.
5. Never stop innovating. Thinking beyond the immediate effects of your product is essential. As a leader, the innovations that you create with your team are often just the start of something bigger. You have to continually think about what’s next and how you can further improve the lives you’ve already touched. This approach to your work keeps you curious and thinking about next steps for driving even greater impact.

Can you share a few best practices that you recommend to safeguard your technology or medical devices from hackers?

AliveCor is committed to protecting our customers by achieving a high standard of data security and compliance. We protect our customers with stringent data security and compliance practices, achieving third-party attested HIPAA and SOC2 Type 2 compliance and ISO 27001 certification. As we scale, we are continuing to evolve and adapt our data governance and protection strategies and strive to provide secure technology services to our customers. This ensures that our customers are comfortable and feel protected knowing that they can trust us with their most personal information.

If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?

I would simply tell them that we need more people who are willing to act as the changemakers who will bring about the world they want to see. As a society, we can only improve if we continue to think about what we can do better. Of course, for me that includes our work at AliveCor, but there are so many other industries and areas that could use bright minds. I’m excited to see what the next generation of innovators come up with five or even ten years from now.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

What an interesting question! There are two people that come to mind when I think of who I would love to share a meal with. Living, I would say President Barack Obama — he’s been a big inspiration to me and for so many others on what it means to lead and be a leader. Otherwise, I would say my Dad. As I mentioned earlier, he played a big part in sparking my passion for technology and healthcare, so I would love to get a chance to show him what we have accomplished.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

They can follow me on LinkedIn and find more information about AliveCor and our products on our website, kardia.com and follow us on our Twitter.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success in your important work.

About The Interviewer: David Leichner is a veteran of the Israeli high-tech industry with significant experience in the areas of cyber and security, enterprise software and communications. At Cybellum, a leading provider of Product Security Lifecycle Management, David is responsible for creating and executing the marketing strategy and managing the global marketing team that forms the foundation for Cybellum’s product and market penetration. Prior to Cybellum, David was CMO at SQream and VP Sales and Marketing at endpoint protection vendor, Cynet. David is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Jerusalem Technology College. He holds a BA in Information Systems Management and an MBA in International Business from the City University of New York.