Addressing Liver Health through Collaboration and Innovation: Donna Cryer, Global Liver Institute

·33 min·2 clips

A pharmacy app can become a barrier when seniors cannot make a vaccine appointment.

1. The Real Chemistry Podcast episode with Donna Cryer focuses on liver health, patient advocacy, and healthcare innovation. 2. Aaron Strout hosts the conversation, and Donna Cryer is the founder, president, and CEO of the Global Liver Institute, a JD and liver transplant survivor who gives the episode its personal and policy lens. 3. The episode asks how GLI is trying to move liver disease from a siloed specialty into mainstream healthcare conversations and public health action. 4. Cryer says she is "28 years and counting" after her transplant and notes that she started GLI on the 20th anniversary of that transplant. 5. She says she finished law school after her transplant and worked at the Justice Department, on organ transplant policy, in public relations, in clinical trial recruitment, and in consulting. 6. Cryer describes GLI as shaped by that mix of legal, policy, and communications experience rather than as a conventional consulting or communications firm. 7. She cites GLI's website claim that gaps in liver health advocacy leave 1.5 billion people living with liver disease, many undiagnosed, undertreated, and overstigmatized. 8. Cryer says there are more than 100 types of liver disease, including autoimmune liver disease in children, viral hepatitis, and fatty liver disease or NASH. 9. She argues that the liver must be part of prevention, treatment, vaccination, hepatitis C cure efforts, nutrition, and alcohol education. 10. She says the first job is "getting liver in the conversation" because people will not invest in solutions if liver disease is absent from the dialogue. 11. Cryer says collaboration was the innovation in liver health and points to GLI councils in liver cancer, NASH, pediatric liver disease, and rare liver disease. 12. She names the NASH council's 80-plus members, including the American Heart Association, endocrinology groups, and the American College of Sports Medicine. 13. She says those groups had not previously built liver into annual meetings, newsletters, or strategic plans, and GLI changed that. 14. Cryer says liver cancer is now part of ASCO discussions and that GLI participates in multi-cancer screening initiatives that can detect liver, GI, and other cancers with a single test. 15. She says GLI helped create National Cancer Institute special programs of research excellence in liver cancer at institutions including Mayo and MD Anderson. 16. Cryer explains that e-health advanced through EHRs and patient portals, but equity still lags, using a COVID vaccine booster story about her mother and app-based pharmacy scheduling. 17. She says mostly Black, brown, and Asian seniors were being turned away because they could not get on the app, which she calls a digital divide. 18. Cryer says GLI trains community ambassadors in its advocacy academy to help people use portals and pharmacy apps, showing her practical, interview-driven style. 19. Listeners interested in liver disease policy, patient engagement, and digital health access will get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners wanting celebrity gossip or light entertainment will probably skip it.

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