A Conversation
We feel a sense of honor and responsibility when people are interested in the challenges we are tackling at Perfood.
Recently, the former minister of health for the state of Schleswig-Holstein, Dr. Heiner Garg stopped in for an informal visit.
Dr. Garg spoke with CEO Dominik Burziwoda and spent time in the guts of our operations, where the CGM sensors and therapy kits are carefully put together and sent out to people facing the challenges of type 2 diabetes and migraines.
While a visit may seem to many like just a small occurrence in the humdrum of a startup, it is in fact much more. Innovation cannot be sustained and cannot succeed without open and robust conversations.
In fact, it may be as important as the science, technology, and product development that must take place to actually change the course of the diseases that affect millions of people, and our economic prosperity.
In the case of Dr. Garg, he knows firsthand that effective healthcare begins with a clear and open understanding. In fact, even before he was a health minister and FDP leader in Schleswig-Holstein, he wrote a paper entitled:
📎 ‘The need for care as an object of economic security policy’ ("Pflegebedürftigkeit als Gegenstand ökonomischer Sicherungspolitik").
This focus on the importance of the big picture in healthcare is critical. As a startup, the path to effectively integrating our innovations and products into the healthcare system is not straightforward — and we don’t expect it to be.
Healthcare is about people, and as such requires oversight and the contributions of many stakeholders. This is an attitude we fully embrace.
When we look at just the challenges around diabetes and the scale of the response needed, we see how much we can contribute to this immense priority. This mission is what drives us.
In the case of Dr. Garg, perhaps another reason he was curious about us as a digital therapeutics and DiGA company is that he was at the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic response in Schleswig-Holstein.
He knows intimately that there needs to be a strong capacity to innovate and, in some instances, do it as quickly as we can think.
As Dominik Burziwoda always points out, in the area of prescription digital therapeutics, Germany has a once-in-a-century opportunity to be the definitive leader in this emerging sector.
But in pursuing this lofty goal, we know that the most important part of what we have to do is to have open, collaborative, and productive conversations with all stakeholders.
We may not always see the problems and solutions in the same way, but with openness and conversation, we are confident we will always find the path forward.
So while this was just a short visit from someone who has seen and contributed to addressing some of the biggest health challenges of our time, we see it as a model of what will make German innovation in healthcare a success story — an open conversation.
#germany #healthcare #innovation
