VIDEO: Lifetime disruptor ‘just getting started’ in quest to elevate care for IBD patients
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Marla C. Dubinsky, MD, winner of the 2023 Healio Lifetime Disruptor Award, was first inspired to “disrupt the space” after witnessing patients with inflammatory bowel disease become frustrated with lack of support and access to care.
“Because the price of medications are quite costly, despite biosimilars being introduced, we needed to find a way to help improve the total cost of care that IBD patients are often faced with,” Dubinsky, chief of the division of pediatric gastroenterology at Kravis Children’s Hospital and co-director of the Susan and Leonard Feinstein Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinical Center at Mount Sinai, told Healio. “For me, it was dividing and conquering: How do I take my learnings and my passion for what we do every day and find a way to deliver it to as many people as we can?”
Dubinsky partnered with Laurie Keefer, PhD, director of psychobehavioral research in gastroenterology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and co-founded Trellus Health, which delivers personalized, multidisciplinary support for patients with IBD. It was built on values Dubinsky deems critical in health care: providing patient-centered and value-based care and improving outcomes for both patients and physicians.
Dubinsky, who also serves as the company’s CEO, said it “has been an incredible growth opportunity” to take her leadership skills and create something that benefits patients with IBD and other chronic gastrointestinal conditions.
“Despite wearing multiple hats, when you do something you’re passionate about and want to make change and inspire to help as many people as you can, you just do it [even] if it means disrupting, being a physician, entrepreneur, being a female CEO of a publicly traded company, taking on all these new learning opportunities and failing along the way until you reach success,” Dubinsky said.
She added, “I am so lucky and pleased to be called disruptor and although lifetime seems like your job may be done, for me it’s about just getting started.”
The 2024 Healio Lifetime Disruptor Award winner will be announced in October during the Healio Disruptive Innovators ceremony at the AGA annual meeting in Philadelphia.
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