As an idea-creator, product strategist and serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in the digital world, Oren is a visionary in the health sector. He has continuously strived to build strong and long-lasting relationships with internal and external partners. In his entrepreneurial ventures, his knowledge of technology, coupled with a desire to help others has helped him found several startup ventures. He is the CEO and Co-Founder of Brook, which helps people with chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes or heart failure take control of their day-to-day health and ultimately achieve wellness in their lives. In an interview he speaks on an array of topics. Here are some excerpts:

Brook – the concept behind

Seattle-based Brook, Inc. is committed to helping people own their health on their terms. Its initial product, Brook Health Companion, is a personal health service that pushes beyond Artificial Intelligence to augmented intelligence, combining intelligent data collection and analysis with live, compassionate support from skilled nutritionists and experts in conditions such as diabetes and hypertension. Brook Health Companion has been embraced by healthcare plans and practitioners nationwide to help people manage their health more proactively and deliver more personalized service while reducing costs. Brook was founded in 2016, with the aim of making the lives of people living with chronic conditions like diabetes be as healthy as they can be. “We are innovating how people live with their chronic conditions, by bridging the gap between primary care visits and providing continuous support at the home,” says Oren.

Brook – changing the healthcare sector

Brook’s vision is that people, especially those living with chronic conditions, should be much more empowered to manage their health through the use of medical sensors and devices that can help monitor positive progress and catch downward trends before they become a problem, and that this monitoring can be translated into real-time data analysis that can deliver insights and recommendations back to patient about the right course of treatment. “The information is completely at our fingertips now, yet it is not implemented into the way care gets managed. We already see a dramatic shift happening, but on a relatively small scale. A wider adoption will create a better way of using our healthcare resources, and reduce the strain on the primary care office while delivering a true real-time treatment for those who really need it. The ability to now use remote patient monitoring as a way to align incentives and make sure better care is delivered at the home drives a true revolution in how we can for people with chronic conditions”.

Brook also extends care to patients at home through continuous, personalized, health coaching and lifestyle medicine. “With Brook Remote Care, through our Health Companion app, patients get support in following their care plan and building healthy habits, 24/7. The app tracks their health data through connected devices so the healthcare team can implement rapid care plan changes and communicate that back to the patient immediately.”

Healthcare industry changing and adapting

Oren urges providers to partner with technology and service companies that are building the infrastructure for better home care. “People can remotely log in for office visits, which has been saving everyone a lot of time and has made access to care so much easier. With that, the need for better monitoring and assessment of health at home becomes ever so important. Patients are looking for their providers to be embracing these technologies so that patients can use them, and expect the healthcare system to deliver better more personalized care with less need for office visits.”

Leadership traits

Oren exhibits a combination of leadership traits that power his success in each entrepreneurial endeavor he has faced throughout his career. His relentless focus on the customer experience, problem solving abilities, and his capacities to not only grow great teams but to foster growth in great people make Oren a leader anyone would be proud to follow.

Learning to accept failures along the way

“I think that accepting, and even looking for failures, is an important part of the process of success. There’s usually no success without multiple failures along the way, and I think that once you adjust your thinking to accept that you can (and probably should) fail, you stop being afraid of it.” He also says that through his journey to being an avid and successful leader he has learned to respect the process. “Healthcare organizations are incredibly busy and overwhelmed, and it’s my mission to relieve some of that burden and pass the benefits onto both the organization and the consumer.”

Becoming successful in healthcare

“My key mantra is that patients should come first. If it is good for the patient, you will be able to find a way to make it work for the system. The healthcare system is complicated, and unlike other worlds that tech is disrupting, to be successful in healthcare you need to learn it and understand the relationships between the different moving pieces to make it work. However, My final note is that even though it feels huge, healthcare is in fact a small village, and Brook hopes to help this small village be the best it can be for everyone involved.”