Cheryl Martin (Host): This is One on One with Regional One Health, your inside look at how we're building healthier tomorrows for our patients and our community. Stay tuned as we get to know some of the individuals who help provide life-saving, life-changing care for our community. I'm Cheryl Martin.

Jared Meyers is the Co-founder and CEO of Augment Health. He's here to talk about his company's experience with Regional One Health's Center for Innovation. Augment Health is developing a smart monitor that aims to make it easier for patients with bladder dysfunction to monitor their condition. Jared, welcome.

Jared Meyers: Thank you, Cheryl. Looking forward to sharing our experiences and being on today.

Host: So, start by telling us about Augment Health and the technology you're developing.

Jared Meyers: Certainly. So at Augment Health, we are developing a bladder pressure monitor, initially focused on patients after a neurologic injury or disease. So, this is anything from multiple sclerosis to Parkinson's disease to spinal cord injury. This bladder dysfunction affects about 7 million of these patients in the U.S. We're working to provide better data so that way physicians can know when patients need treatment and how they're responding to treatment. Because today, a lot of the care options are confined to clinics, urban areas, and can be very difficult to access in a timely, and I guess, productive fashion.

Host: That's great. It sounds wonderful. Just talk in more detail about what led you to work on this technology and how does your product help patients and medical providers, just giving us even more detailed information there.

Jared Meyers: So, my co-founder and I met while we were both down in Atlanta studying biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech, and we were looking to determine where we could best impact the healthcare space, patient care especially. And we identified this need speaking with a urologist initially, but then also really diving deep into speaking with more physicians, more nurses included in that, and as well as the patients themselves.

And what we found was there are existing treatments for this condition and for some of these bladder dysfunction issues. But a lot of the time, we're sort of flying blind, unable to determine exactly which treatment is most beneficial. Since today, we're basically bringing patients into the clinic, only able to capture 30 minutes of their bladder function and filling the bladder in reverse, which can be really not always able to mirror what a patient's experiencing in their day-to-day life.

So when we identified that with a little bit of startup experiences under both my co-founder and my own belt, we sought to improve the options available for physicians. And what we've developed is a tool that can be attached to an existing Foley catheter inserted for a 24-hour monitoring period. And what this means is that it's a generally available nursing skill. You're no longer relying on a specialist to be able to get that initial diagnosis necessarily as we really begin to expand and spread the impact of this technology more into the future. And at the same time, we're able to capture the patient's actual bladder filling process, which lets the physician see, hey, what is happening in your day-to-day life? And now, we can go and treat that once we have those answers.

Host: So, what led you to Regional One Health and the Center for Innovation?

Jared Meyers: So when we first started the company at Georgia Tech, we were still students. And we went through a few entrepreneurial programs there, but it was really another program based in the southeast called ZeroTo510 that I think marked the transition of us from sort of students to really being founders full-time running the business. That program was based in Memphis. And we moved out there, and this was in the middle of COVID at the time, but we found a really incredible group of mentors, supporters and other people around the ecosystem who then ultimately connected us into the Regional One Health ecosystem. I think back then we got to meet Dr. Coopwood, as well as Ally Alvarez on the innovation side. And so, those early conversations just got us really excited, really pumped about the local health network and local health systems , and especially as we think about patients who maybe need the most care. In many situations, we see the local hospitals really facing and stepping up to the plate to serve these patients.

Host: So, how long have you been participating in the Center for Innovation and what are some of the things you've been able to do?

Jared Meyers: So, we first got engaged with the group, I want to say, the end of 2021, the beginning of 2022. So, it's been two, three years at this point that we've really had this partnership going on. A lot of it has to do with, from a medical device company's perspective, especially a startup company. We don't have necessarily direct lines of sight into the inner workings of a hospital, of a health system. And so, really, what this partnership has helped us and supported us through is getting in front of physicians like Dr. Ledbetter in the Urology Department, who we've had a few conversations with over time, to really get that firsthand feedback and firsthand look, but then also zooming out to understand from a billing standpoint, from a numbers, from a use of other devices standpoint, what are the fundamental processes that we need to be prepared for and that we need to understand as we model out what a technology like ours looks like when it's employed at an institution like Regional One.

Host: So, you've talked about learning the inner workings and also getting in front of physicians. Any other reasons why the Center for Innovation has been beneficial to startups in general, that you see as well as to your company specifically?

Jared Meyers: What I would say there is there are a few factors that can be really valuable that I think Regional One Health has done a great job of. I mean, the first of all is even getting these deals done. It sometimes can take a really, really long time, and can require numerous approvals and sign offs, even just to get started. So, what I would say from that point of view is it was very easy, and very straightforward to begin working with Regional One, and that's something that I think can be maybe not immediately visible, if you're not in the midst of working on those deals. So, I think the ability for startup companies to very quickly engage, very quickly get this clinical, but also business intelligence really has supported-- I mean, I have a number of friends who have worked with the group as well, and who have had really positive experiences. And, in some cases, right, this is also a total life-cycle approach right now, while we're still in the development stage, still pre-commercial, there's a lot of this data that's beneficial for us to understand. But then, also having had friends who have worked in a more clinical research capacity have seen it benefit them immensely, because also from the budget standpoint, that can sort of also explode if not managed properly.

And from what I've heard and what I've seen, Regional One Health has done a really great job of managing these budgets, of making it very attractive, and easy for startups to work with and also feasible from both that budgetary and time constraint standpoint.

Host: So, it's been a win-win for you.

Jared Meyers: Yeah. So, I mean, we've been so impressed. I would say we have had a really great experience working with Regional One ourselves, and all of the other, say ZeroTo510 companies that have gone through previous or current cohorts have, I'd say, benefited and maybe you could even say, been transformed by some of these collaborations.

Host: So Jared, what are your company's next steps and goals for the future, even as it relates to the Smart Monitor? And what role do you see Regional One Health in the Center for Innovation playing in that?

Jared Meyers: So right now, we are in sort of the regulatory cascade is what I might call it. So, what that really means at a basic level is from now, when we've been able to see some early validation in early preclinical studies where we've been able to handle a lot of the design optimizations and also be able to really define the problem and get clinicians excited about the technology. Now, we move into that testing process, just to make sure that everything is ready for a person to be able to use. And so, a lot of that looks like infection testing, just making sure nothing's growing on the devices, making sure that our sterilization is intact, a lot of fairly straightforward elements that we see in front of us. So, that's one stream of things that we're currently working through and kicking off.

And then, at the tail end of that, that's when we really hit the ground running in an even bigger way. And so, what that looks like is a clinical study. So, one thing we're preparing is a 10-patient study once we're prepared for human use, so that way we can demonstrate our tools alongside the existing tools, and really demonstrate how that plays out so a clinician can understand and see the use case themselves and, at the tail end of all of this, getting that clearance by FDA for the product.

At that point, it's really an exciting time and that's where I think Regional One Health comes into play an even bigger role, right? Because it's the people on the ground at the health system who are seeing the patients in the most need, who could stand to benefit from these technologies. And so, that's where there's a really exciting continued partnership, a continued relationship where Regional One Health sort of serves as the person pointing us in that right direction, right? "Hey, this is the patient that needs this product." And so, we're able to really leverage our own skillset as well as your skillset at the health system to be able to get this device in front of the patients, get the device to the patients and the physicians, so that way they can really have as quick a benefit as possible.

Host: Now we know that there are a lot of things you cannot control, but I'm assuming that you still have a dream target date of when patients will actually be able to use this. Is this something you can share?

Jared Meyers: We're currently targeting 2026 for at least initial patient use. A lot of this does depend on potential grant opportunities and other partnerships and how those develop. But if all goes well, we could be looking at this study at least kicking off on a six to nine-month time span in the clearance itself, little bit more of a waiting period. But I think if we're setting up at the end of 2026 with our first few partner sites enrolling, we're very happy and we're celebrating. But we're definitely closer than we ever have been, which is exciting because we've learned a lot and the timelines can expand and contract, just as you learn these different things. And we're feeling very excited about what's to come over the next 12 to 18 months.

Host: Well, may all go well. Jared Myers, it's been great learning more about you and your company and the product, your company, Augment Health. Hope you experience great success.

Jared Meyers: Thanks so much, Cheryl.

Host: Learn more about the Center for Innovation at Regional One Health by visiting innovation.regionalonehealth.org. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out the full podcast library for other topics of interest to you. Thanks for Making One on One with Regional One Health part of your journey to Better Health. Join us next time as we introduce you to another member of the Regional One Health Family.