Revolutionizing Musculoskeletal Health with Daniel Perez, CEO of Hinge Health

Discover how you can finally conquer chronic pain without ever leaving your home. Daniel Perez, the CEO and co-founder of Hinge Health, joins us to reveal how his innovative digital health program is revolutionizing musculoskeletal care. You'll learn how Hinge Health's cutting-edge software and algorithms create personalized exercise therapy plans, health coaching, and educational resources, making physical therapy more accessible and affordable.

We also tackle the significant hurdles people face in accessing musculoskeletal healthcare, especially in large, rural states like Texas. Daniel shares insights into how Hinge Health provides a comprehensive solution that allows individuals to quickly access care from the comfort of their own homes, supported by dedicated physical therapists and health coaches. We discuss the strong connection between chronic pain and mental health, emphasizing how effective pain management can alleviate anxiety and depression.

Finally, get acquainted with the Enso device, a game-changing wearable gadget that delivers non-invasive pain relief through high-frequency electrical nerve stimulation. We'll also take you through the inspiring journey of two UK PhD students who turned personal challenges into the pioneering startup, Hinge Health. With impressive clinical outcomes and ambitious plans for the future, Hinge Health continues to transform musculoskeletal healthcare by integrating innovative digital solutions with traditional in-person care. Join us for an episode overflowing with insights and actionable advice for a pain-free life.

Learn more and apply to participate in Hinge Health today

Chapters

• 0:01 Revolutionizing Musculoskeletal Health With Hinge
• 4:01 Comprehensive Musculoskeletal Health Solution
• 9:06 Pain Relief Wearable Device Innovation
• 15:08 Digital Solution for Musculoskeletal Health
• 20:26 Innovating Musculoskeletal Health Care Solutions

Transcript

Daniel Perez: 0:01

You can get treated within minutes when you're signing up for Hinge and get all of your care right from the comfort of your own home. We've seen with our data that people are more likely to be depressed, more likely to be anxious, when you have pain. And the clinical research has also shown if you have one pain, one area of your body that's in pain let's say you have knee pain you're about a 2x higher likelihood so double the likelihood of being clinically depressed. And if you have more than two areas, say your knee and your hip or your knee and your back you're about three or four times more likely to be depressed and anxious. And so researchers have seen that connection between the mind and body for a long time, and oftentimes it's going to be difficult to impact somebody's depression if we don't first impact their back pain.

Lacy Wolff: 0:44

Hi and welcome back to the ERS Walk Talk podcast, where we explore the latest in health, well-being and programs available to help you live a healthier life. I'm your host, lacey Wolfe. I'm the coordinator for statewide well-being initiatives at ERS, and today I'm thrilled to be joined by Daniel Perez, who is the CEO and co-founder of the company Hinge Health. Daniel's background is truly impressive. He holds degrees from Stanford and also went to Cambridge, and he's a seasoned entrepreneur with a digital health space. His work with Hinge Health has been groundbreaking in the way we approach musculoskeletal health, tackling chronic pain through a blend of technology, education and personalized care. Hinge has helped thousands of people across the country take control of their physical health, avoid surgery and improve their quality of life. And now Hinge Health is available to our Health Selective Texas participants starting September 1st. Gives our health plan participants the opportunity to participate in a virtual physical therapy and expert care to treat back and joint pain from the comfort of home. Through the Hinge Health app, participants can get personalized exercise therapy, one-on-one health coaching and education to prevent and manage chronic conditions.

Lacy Wolff: 2:00

In this episode, we're going to dive into how Daniel and his team are revolutionizing the way we care for our bodies and how you can use this valuable benefit. So let's get started. Here's my conversation with Daniel. Daniel, welcome to the ERS Walk Talk podcast. It's really an honor to sit down and have a conversation with you.

Daniel Perez: 2:17

Thank you for having me.

Lacy Wolff: 2:18

Lacey Hoping, we could just start with having you explain the Hinge Health solution for our listeners and kind of talk about what it is and how it's different from other musculoskeletal solutions out there.

Daniel Perez: 2:32

Sure so Hinge Health. We are tackling back, joint and muscle pain. So about one in two Americans will have back joint or muscle pain in any given year. That could range from a sprained ankle through a twisted knee or chronic knee or back pain, all the way through surgery somebody having knee arthroscopy or hip replacement and so it's a wide spectrum, but about one in two of us will have something along that spectrum in any given year, and it can be really difficult to get care for musculoskeletal conditions and oftentimes we'll just take Tylenol or Advil because it's hard to access care, hard to take time off, work, hard to travel to a physical therapist or to a doctor, and so what we've done with Hinch Health is we've created a digital program so you can get your physical therapy right from the comfort of your own home, and so when you sign up to our program, our software and our algorithms will create a custom care plan for you.

Daniel Perez: 3:24

So you have a custom physical therapy program that's delivered to you via our software. You get connected to your own personal physical therapist who you can message at any time. You get to see them on a video visit. You could message them directly with our app. You also get a care team and they're going to guide you through your care plan over the next several weeks and it's customized to you, you and it's constantly changing just for you. You don't have to worry about co-pays. You don't have to worry about waiting in line. You don't have to worry about sitting in traffic or getting childcare. You could get treated within minutes when you're signing up for Hinge and get all of your care right from the comfort of your own home.

Lacy Wolff: 4:01

Really incredible because there are so many barriers to accessing musculoskeletal health, and, I think, especially in Texas. We're a huge state and we have a lot of people in rural areas. That's one of the reasons why I'm so excited about this solution, because sometimes it might take 30 minutes to drive, even for me in Austin. I might be close to a physical therapist, but with traffic it can take a long time to get to somebody.

Lacy Wolff: 4:25

So it's really incredible what you've built and I know for us there's a huge need for it. Like when I look at our health claims 20% of people in our health plan have a musculoskeletal condition, but I'm guessing that's probably not all of the people that could use this solution or maybe need help with musculoskeletal.

Daniel Perez: 4:44

Absolutely. A lot of folks are suffering in pain in that there's a there's a barrier to like schedule a doctor's visit. Like my knee pain is finally too difficult, or my back pain is too difficult. I need to go see a doctor about this. A lot of us are just below that threshold. It's like three or four out of 10 pain.

Daniel Perez: 4:59

But I'm going to deal with it today because I've got to get to work or I've got to take my kids to school. I can't take a half day off work to go to the doctors right now and with Hinge you could sign up and be treated within minutes right from the comfort of your own home. You could sign up on your phone, you could sign up from work, you could sign up at home and very quickly get your care. But also, if you're in West Texas, where there's a few more, a bit more difficulty maybe finding a provider because it's a bit more rural, or you're in downtown Dallas, where there's a lot of traffic, or downtown Austin, it's going to be very consistent care, no matter where you are, and very quickly you'll be able to access the care.

Lacy Wolff: 5:33

That's amazing and having gone through the program myself, you know I think it's really amazing that you get a physical therapist assigned to you as well as a coach.

Daniel Perez: 5:42

Absolutely Can you talk a little bit about those two components of your program, and so we firmly believe in bringing a full care team to each of our members who join our program. So, when you join, we're going to do an intake and we're going to ask you the same questions your doctor would ask you, your physical therapist would ask you about your knee pain or your back pain. So we understand how it's been impacting your life and we share that with our care team. You're going to be assigned a dedicated physical therapist who's familiar with your condition and they're going to design your program for you. They're going to customize your program for you and your health coach, however, is part of that care team and they're here to help you overcome some of the barriers and challenges all of us face in life.

Daniel Perez: 6:19

You know you might have a sick kid this week or overtime at work, and your health coach is going to work with you like well, how can we find 10 minutes today to focus on your hip pain, right?

Daniel Perez: 6:28

How can we find 10 minutes tomorrow to focus on your knee pain? And they're here to help you stay adherent, to do something you may not want to do, which is to move a painful joint, but I tell you what movement is medicine, and too many of us think, when my knee is hurting, I just shouldn't move it, and that's not the case for chronic knee pain. You actually want to move it. Even if it's a little bit sore, you're actually going to feel better in the long term, and our health coaches are really great about being your partner and your collaborator over time to help you stay adherent to your treatment plan, but also help you with other things like your diet, your nutrition, your sleep, your stress levels all of these other things that might be impacting your health, and your physical therapist is there along the way as well whenever you have questions about your specific condition.

Lacy Wolff: 7:09

That's wonderful and there's such a strong link connection between mental and physical health and I think often in the health care space we separate these two things. But it seems like your solution really does bring that together and focus on those habits that will help the whole person.

Daniel Perez: 7:28

Absolutely. Yeah, we can separate it. We've seen with our data that people are more likely to be depressed, more likely to be anxious, when you have pain. And the clinical research has also shown if you have one pain, one area of your body that's in pain let's say you have knee pain you're about a 2x higher likelihood so double the likelihood of being clinically depressed. And if you have more than two areas say your knee and your hip or your knee and your back you're about three or four times more likely to be depressed and anxious. And so researchers have seen that connection between the mind and body for a long time and oftentimes it's going to be difficult to impact somebody's depression if we don't first impact their back pain.

Lacy Wolff: 8:06

Right.

Daniel Perez: 8:07

Because no matter how much antidepressants we might give you, if the underlying reason why you're depressed is because you're not sleeping well at night, because your back hurts and you can't find a great comfortable position, we need to first address your back pain. Or you might be depressed because you're being a bit socially isolated because your knee is hurting and you're not able to hang out with your friends or walk with your spouse or play with your kids. Once we address that underlying knee pain, we'll be able to go back to living your life.

Daniel Perez: 8:30

That's a big impact on your mood disorder.

Lacy Wolff: 8:32

And I'm going to go completely off of my order of questions here, because, as we're talking about pain, one of the things that you're bringing in is this Enso device.

Daniel Perez: 8:42

Can you?

Lacy Wolff: 8:42

talk about Enso. What is it and how can it help with pain? Because that is such a huge, it's such a common thing that folks are dealing with, like you said, and untreated pain.

Daniel Perez: 8:52

Well, that's why we're so excited to work with the state of Texas. We bring a full suite of care to the members who join our program, and physical therapy is a cornerstone of conservative management care for people with back, joint or muscle pain. But a lot of times people are in too much pain to move or they're having frequent flare-ups, and you might wake up in the morning and your back's really hurting. But you've got work to do, right, right, and it's almost 9 am and you've got to show up to work. And maybe you're a schoolteacher or you work for the state government somewhere and so you've got to show up. And so Enso is about the size of a half dollar and it's a device, a wearable device, that we've developed that you could put anywhere in your body, just about, and it delivers electrical nerve stimulation right through your skin.

Daniel Perez: 9:35

And Enso's devices have been available over the counter for a long time. Our innovation is that we deliver very high frequency electrical nerve stimulation that previously could only be achieved by surgically implanting the device. Our breakthrough is that we're able to deliver this without it being surgically implanted, and it delivers completely non-addictive, non-invasive pain relief. And we've shown that it improves pain relief even more than just physical therapy alone and what our members tell us. It just kind of melts their pain away.

Daniel Perez: 10:04

So to put it on your lower back, it fits right beneath your clothes. It's completely wireless. You could use it with your app and the average user, when we send them an Enso, will use it for two, three, four hours a day and it just slips right underneath your clothes. The battery lasts nearly all day and it's just a really pleasant feeling to just get the pain away. Other people will wear it around their knee, other people wear it on their shoulder or on their neck, just wherever your pain might be. You could put on our Enso. It's offered at no cost. Just ask your physical therapist for it if you're having frequent flare-ups, and we'll send you an Enso right in the mail in two days, and it's one of the most delightful aspects of our program.

Lacy Wolff: 10:44

It's amazing. Yeah, I used it myself and I can talk about my own health conditions on the podcast. I can talk about other people's, but I had a flare up with my SI joint and low back pain and have scoliosis, so some issues with that on and off, and that really did help. I felt a significant decrease in the pain just after wearing it one day.

Daniel Perez: 11:06

Yeah, we just lost our Enso 3. We put a lot of engineering it's it's taken a lot of R&D work to just push Enso forward, but we are. We are super delighted Our the users on Enso. They've they rave about it. We've had, you know, we had an employee at Hinge Health move on recently and she said the one thing she wants to make sure is that she still has access to her Enso forever. And so we told her for as long as I'm CEO, you will always have access to Enso. We will send you new gel pads and new upgrades free. It's a very, very popular aspect of the program because, yeah, if it melts your pain away, you want to keep using it.

Lacy Wolff: 11:45

Absolutely. And the other thing that I think is so great about your program think about, like, the whole continuum of musculoskeletal conditions. You have a program for people that want to prevent injury as well and kind of teaching people how to move properly. I think that was one of the neatest things. I took the. I took my hinge kit over to meet one of the executive directors at an agency and actually he had just had two knee replacements and he I put the, I put the, my iPad out and I had it going through the squat form technique. It's locating his joints, it's giving him feedback and he said this is exactly what my physical therapist told me.

Daniel Perez: 12:28

Yeah, so we're excited to do it. And prevention's key Like even if you're not in pain, you should be moving. A lot of us are like at our desks for a long period of time and we're not moving enough during the day. I'm sorry. Movement is medicine. It lubricates your joints or your cartilage doesn't have blood supply, and so when you're not moving, it joints, your cartilage doesn't have blood supply, and so when you're not moving, it's not exchanging nutrients, and so when we move our joints, we're actually helping them breathe in many ways. We're bringing in oxygen, we're taking out waste, we're bringing in new nutrients, and so I love that your colleague could use our technology and just move a bit more during the day. Do different types of movement. Whether you're in pain or not, you should always be thinking about light stretching and strengthening or moving every 30 minutes, and it's so healthy for your joints.

Lacy Wolff: 13:09

It is the reason why we are all having so much musculoskeletal issues, I guess, is because of our sedentary lifestyle. For the most part, it's not because, we're picking up heavy things.

Daniel Perez: 13:19

And just running in the morning. You know just if you do a 30 minute run or six minute run in the morning, it doesn't excuse sitting at a desk for eight hours, sure.

Lacy Wolff: 13:27

Yeah.

Daniel Perez: 13:29

It's better than nothing. But it's probably even better to move periodically throughout the day than just move at one period during the day in my morning workout or my evening workout.

Lacy Wolff: 13:36

Right, I understand you also have a walking desk that you use quite a bit, personally I do. Can you share how you do that.

Daniel Perez: 13:47

Yeah, I just got it. I don't want to use the word life-changing, but I don't have another word to use other than walking very gingerly like one mile an hour, and it's been great for just my overall energy level, my focus, making sure that I don't feel too sedentary over the course of the day and it doesn't impact my work. I'm going like one mile an hour so I can type just fine, I can do video calls just fine and they're about $200 now, which isn't cheap it's still $200, but it makes a big impact on your health, right, yeah, and I think I've even seen them.

Lacy Wolff: 14:35

You know people try things and get rid of them on the marketplace.

Daniel Perez: 14:38

Yeah, you get over a hundred bucks yeah exactly.

Lacy Wolff: 14:40

So. We've talked a lot about Hinge and what it can do for people. I'd love to kind of transition and hear your story of how you built Hinge Health, you and your co-founder. I understand that you had an accident that kind of sparked your interest or then you realized there was kind of a gap in this space. Can you tell your story?

Daniel Perez: 15:01

Sure, yeah. So when I was younger I actually had a biking accident so I broke my arm and my leg when I was younger, had about 12 months of rehab. I then went to the UK to do my PhD in the medical sciences. I met my co-founder while he was there. He had also had a musculoskeletal injury so he tore his ACL when he was younger. He also had 12 months of rehab and he was also then pursuing his PhD specifically in joint regenerative medicine, so he was trying to regrow cartilage for people who have had joint injuries. That was his area of research and we got together and we were poor PhD students but committed entrepreneurs and so we weren't paying as much attention to our coursework.

Daniel Perez: 15:41

But we were very interested in the science around healthcare and particularly using technology to improve healthcare outcomes, and we remembered our rehab experience and as we dived into the clinical literature, what we found was that there is really solid agreement there was not much argument really solid agreement on what the best practice care is for people with musculoskeletal conditions, you know, with back pain, knee pain, hip pain, shoulder pain, and it's like they should not be escalated to opiates up front. They should be escalated to surgery upfront, not even imaging per se, unless there's a red flag. They should be encouraged to do physical therapy. They should be given some behavioral health support, because it could be difficult to adhere to a physical therapy program, particularly when you're in pain, and they should be given some education to better understand their condition, to understand their pain, understand the risk factors, but also that particularly understanding that movement, even if it makes you a bit sore, is not bad. So you know, we realized that when we abstracted the treatment it was, you know, it's physical therapy or exercise therapy, it is patient education and it's that behavioral health support. And we're like really solid agreement across all the literature.

Daniel Perez: 16:46

But then in all the research papers, at the end of every research paper, there's often a discussion section and almost invariably in these discussion sections we would read the authors would lament about the fact. Oh, but, by the way, nobody does this, it's too difficult to do this. You know, nobody has the time to like go to the physical therapist office three days a week for the next 12 weeks, take time off, work, pay the copay, pay for childcare, and so typically, particularly in America, people eventually get shunted to surgery. Or they'll get shunted to opiates because it's just easier, or they'll just deal with the pain you know, pop Tylenol, pop Advil, until the pain gets so bad that they have a knee replacement or they have a spinal fusion.

Daniel Perez: 17:22

So we thought, golly, could we use technology to simply better deliver the evidence that research shows already exist? And could we use technology to go beyond the evidence base in the future, in a digital-first, mobile-first world and this was 10 years ago could we use technology to redefine what best practice care should be for people with knee, back, joint and muscle pain? And that was our inspiration and we've been pushing it. It's an open door since then and people have really enjoyed the convenience of our program and our average pain reduction is about 68 percent for people. We Stanford published a study looking at 10,000 consecutive patients going through Hinge. They showed a 68 percent reduction in pain for the average participant and we're avoiding two and three surgeries for people going through the program. So it really works and from baseline through the, through the end of the program, we're also reducing depression and anxiety rates by about 50%.

Daniel Perez: 18:11

So, great reduction in pain, great avoidance of surgery, which nobody necessarily wants to do surgery, they just want their pain to go away. So, giving you an alternative surgery and helping with your mood disorders as well.

Lacy Wolff: 18:21

That is amazing. So you and I understand you were at Oxford. Your partner is at Cambridge, so you're two smart guys. Sure, you're like okay, we see there's a gap here and you're able to fill that gap. You built this product. I can only imagine the challenges, because I think this is a pretty competitive space that you're in, but y'all have built this and are definitely the front runner, in my opinion, in the musculoskeletal digital space. Where did it all like? Can you share your first customer, your first client? Your first member experience.

Daniel Perez: 18:58

So I'll talk to our first member and then I'll talk to you a little bit about our first client as well. So the first patient who used our program when we founded Hinge, we were actually shutting down another startup that didn't work out. So we were founding startups in our PhDs. Again, poor PhD students committed entrepreneurs, but we, as co-founders, we didn't want to split break out. We were in our late 20s at the time.

Daniel Perez: 19:21

It was about 10 years ago and we thought you know what let's go to like what we're absolutely passionate about, which is musculoskeletal munitions, what we both had experience with, and we whiteboarded what the type of rehab we wish we would have had. And we did all the clinical research and we're like, very quickly, we're like this is what everybody's aligned with. Could we use technology to better deliver this? And we set a goal for ourselves. This was October 1st of 2014.

Daniel Perez: 19:44

So we're almost exactly 10 years ago today and we said let's have our prototype ready in eight weeks and put it on our first patient and let's see if we could do it. We missed our deadline by two weeks, but 10 weeks later, so mid-December our prototype was ready and we sent emails around our campuses just trying to recruit volunteers Any students who might have knee pain. We were focused on knee pain for our prototype at the time. Please raise your hand and we'd love for you to trial our program. No students really signed up, but all the reception desks. When you send it to the department reception desk there was typically an older lady who's working the reception at a few of the buildings and all of them raised their hands.

Lacy Wolff: 20:24

I would personally like to volunteer for this.

Daniel Perez: 20:26

And our first patient was a 55 year old or maybe 60 year old lady We'll call her Maggie at the university and she raised her hand and we went and we saw her in person. We had wearable sensors. Then we gave it to her in a Tupperware box and with a tablet computer was, you know, preloaded with software, and she, she did five quick exercises right there in front of us and we were scared that it was going to be buggy. It wasn't going to work. It worked perfectly. And then she looked at it and was like, can I keep this? And she kept using it and within like three weeks her pain had reduced by 41%.

Lacy Wolff: 21:01

Wow, and we're like I think we're onto something. Yeah.

Daniel Perez: 21:03

And we tried to figure out from there how do we expand coverage? Because physical therapy we expect our health insurance to kick in, so we knew we need to partner up with health insurance companies. We're in the UK at the time and I'm obviously American. I wanted to come home and it was a bit more difficult to crack into the NHS and in America there's a lot more health innovation and we thought could we transition the company back to the US and we started going to health care conferences here in the US and a lot of folks in the US get their health care from their employer and what's interesting about that is that every employer is a potential backer for you. As an early stage company or a state plan that covers benefits for their members or a state plan that covers benefits for their members.

Daniel Perez: 21:56

They are individually trying to innovate and trying to improve the health of the members on their plan and they each have their own approach to doing that and in some ways that could lead to waste, but in other ways it leads to a remarkable innovation, and so I think most digital health innovation is happening in America because you have so many different entities trying to innovate, so they're all trying new things and that means when something works, it could quickly spread for other sponsors, for other states, for other employers. And our first customer I met him at a conference and he was giving a talk. I emailed him the night before. He had not replied. That's fine, so I showed up to his talk anyways and I beelined after his talk and he actually remembered. He was like actually I didn't have time to reply, but I saw your email.

Daniel Perez: 22:41

Muscle skeletal conditions, back joint and muscle pain is like 20% of our healthcare costs. It was a ski resort in Colorado. It was a resort and we started talking. He had to fly back to Denver. The conference was in Vegas and he came to give the talk, but he was very busy and he needed to leave and so I kept walking with him out of the conference room. Then I walked with him to the casino and then we hit the escalator.

Daniel Perez: 23:03

He looked at me, I looked at him and I went down the escalator with him and then we got to the taxi cab line and he's like you're not getting into the cab with me. I would have gotten to the cab with him if it meant continuing the conversation, but then they agreed to do a pilot. I flew the team from the UK to Colorado and we did the pilot in person and it worked and I'll tell you it's. One of the beautiful things about American healthcare is that we were able to kick off the revolution in digital physical therapy from one of the best resorts. Don't get rid of the fail. Resorts is the number one, I think, hospitality company in the world, but they're also an incredible healthcare innovator and I they deserve a lot of credit for being so forward thinking. Yeah.

Lacy Wolff: 23:46

A lot of. I think a lot of people can be risk averse to anything new. Um, a lot of people also don't realize that maybe work for the state or higher education institutions that receive health insurance from ERS, that we are a self-funded plan. I think a lot of people just expect their health insurance picks up and that we are really trying to be innovative, to think about ways that we can help our members feel better so that they can enjoy long retirement, to improve their health and then, at the end of the day, when we help members reduce risk and chronic conditions, it helps all of us and cost savings as well, so that we can have a sustainable health plan for a long time. So, absolutely yeah.

Daniel Perez: 24:28

And so you keep covering new benefits and you're charged with how do you create a great experience, improve their outcomes? But you have a finite budget and so you have to get creative in terms of like how you're delivering these healthcare benefits, and it's everybody has a challenge. The federal government has a challenge, like employers have a challenge with healthcare benefits going up, or I should say, healthcare costs going up, and so, yeah, we all have a role to play.

Lacy Wolff: 24:49

It really does give me a lot of hope when you know the fact that we're bringing in solutions that I believe are very sustainable, like Hinge, hello, heart, learn to Live the benefits that we launched September 1. And just hearing your story is quite incredible, and the growth of your company over 10 years is amazing. What's next for you? Do you have any? What's in your roadmap?

Daniel Perez: 25:11

Well, we are. We're focused on several things. One is digital physical therapy. There was a lot of work to do to just make this experience even better than it is today, so that if you are, if you have back, joint or muscle pain, you come to us first and we are your first port of call if you're looking for physical therapy, and we have an extensive roadmap to continue to improve our exercise therapy experience. We're hiring a ton of providers. Physical therapists are in all 50 states, but particularly here in the state of Texas, we have a really big footprint a lot of members, a lot of employers and a lot of state plans here in Texas that we're working with. We're really focused on improving digital physical therapy, but we're also focused on in-person care and how can we better integrate with in-person care.

Daniel Perez: 25:52

I actually I've been running a digital health company for 10 years. I am a. After 10 years of running a digital health company, I am more committed than ever to in-person care and how important in-person care is for all of us and how important in-person care providers are for our communities as well, and so I don't think the future of healthcare is digital or in-person. I think it's a mix of the two and points of care. I want to see an in-person provider, maybe for an initial assessment or to see me, and then follow-up visits could be digitally. It could be rendered digitally, and I think most people out there would like a mix of the two. They like the comfort and rigor of an in-person interaction and they like the convenience of digital interactions as well, and we shouldn't have to choose between the two. So we're really focused on how can we better integrate with in-person care moving forward.

Daniel Perez: 26:39

And the last bit is around AI.

Daniel Perez: 26:41

Ai is permeating tech right now, but for healthcare it could serve a really great purpose of helping personalize programs better for you, helping to speed the convenience of information back to you as a member and we're investing very, very deeply in the AI and also to scale our care team to allow them to reply much more quickly to our members, to give them a snapshot of every member when they're interacting with somebody. If they have a panel of 150 members, how could they know about John Smith, who they're interacting with now, and could the AI help summarize? This is his condition. This is how he's been over the last two weeks. This is how engaged he's been, and here are some challenges he's faced, to help give you a leg up as you're trying to wrap your head around this particular clinical case. So we are investing in AI. So those are the three things Digital physical therapy we're not done yet. How do we interact with in-person care and how can we weave AI through our program to make sure that the end user has a phenomenal experience?

Lacy Wolff: 27:40

That's amazing. I am so honored to get to spend time with you and hear directly from you about this incredible company that you've built and that we are able to offer this solution to our members. Is there anything else that you, that I missed, or that people should know about Hinge Health?

Daniel Perez: 28:00

Well, first, of all, just I am so grateful to be able to work with ERS and members here in Texas. It's been really exciting to see just how committed your team is to getting the word out, but also how committed your team is to just healthcare innovation. Healthcare is really tough to tackle. That's the reason why it's so expensive in America and it's going to take creativity, and so what I want your members to know is that when they join Hinge Health, whatever they see today is going to be even better tomorrow. We have 500 people on our R&D team, and every every week we're pushing out new updates, and so it's going to be radically different even six months from now and 12 months from now. So we commit to you know, members here in Texas, is that it's going to get better and better every time you interact with our program, and that's what we're committed to never being satisfied with.

Lacy Wolff: 28:52

I love that. It's great today. It's going to be better tomorrow. Yeah that's wonderful. Well, thank you so much, daniel. I really appreciate your time and your innovation, and we look forward to great things supporting our members.

Daniel Perez: 29:03

Thank you, Lacey.

Lacy Wolff: 29:05

Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the ERS Walk Talk podcast. I hope you enjoyed our conversation with Daniel Perez and learn more about how Hinge Health may be able to help you with managing chronic pain and improve your overall well-being. If you're ready to take the next step in your health journey, be sure to check out our show notes for details on how you can enroll in Hinge. This is a fantastic benefit that's now available to Health Select of Texas and consumer-directed Health Select participants at no cost. If you enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to subscribe. Leave a review, share the podcast with your coworkers, your family members that may also be eligible for this benefit. Your support and feedback helps us to continue to bring valuable health and wellness information to you. Until next time, keep walking, keep talking and stay well. Take care everyone.