Catching Up With Adi Diner, CEO of iFocus Health

In this episode I catch up with Adi Diner, CEO and co-founder of iFocus Health. Adi gives us an update on the groundbreaking tool she's been working on. Tune in to see how you can use this free tool to check whether your medicine's working all while helping the iFocus team improve upon their tool!

Summary

This episode of the "Adulting with ADHD" podcast features host Sarah in conversation with Adi Danaer, CEO and co-founder of IFocus Health. The discussion centers on a new, free, web-based tool developed by IFocus Health that uses eye-tracking technology to help people with ADHD—and potentially other brain health conditions—measure their concentration and track their progress over time. The episode also covers the role of AI in the tool, the importance of user feedback, and the personal motivations behind the project.

In this episode

"People with ADHD and we know it personally, tend to take the blame on themselves. I can't do it, so it's my problem. So I can't emphasize enough that anything that is hard for you is our problem and we need you'll help us by sharing that with us because we're working on improving how easy it is to use."

• Overview of the IFocus Health too

• Importance of user feedback in improving the tool’s usability

• Commitment to data privacy and anonymization

• The role of AI in the product

• How to access the tool (IFocustest.com)

Transcript

Today, I'm very excited to have with me again, Adi Danaer, CEO and co-founder of IFocus Health. Welcome to the show.

[Adi]
Hi Sarah, great to be here again.

[Sarah]
Yes. I wanted to go back and reintroduce you again because it's been a while, so our new listeners can get a feel for what you're all about. Do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself?

[Adi]
Yes, happy to introduce myself. Uh, so I'm Adi, I have ADHD. I was diagnosed in my 30s. I have a kid with ADHD. I have a PhD in physics and I spend a lot of my career developing products, hardware products, lasers and stuff like that. And in the past years, I changed direction and I'm dedicating my time to IFocus where we are creating for the first time way to measure ADHD and actually more than that. So progress for our brain and brain health.

[Sarah]
Awesome. So, when you say more than that, what are some areas of the brain health you're referring to there?

[Adi]
So, so what I learned in this journey is that all brain health and psychiatry is kind of the the black sheep of healthcare because they don't have any measures. And they really need it and the big problem is how do you know what's happening between appointments? So even the best doctor cannot know what's happening, what's happening when he's not there. And the thing is we are measuring concentration, but so many things affect your concentration. So if you're depressed or you're in anxiety or substance abuse or so many other things affect your ability to concentrate and not only ADHD. And that's why our measure actually works beyond ADHD. We are starting with ADHD because we recognize personally and also after talking with people, there is a huge need there, but it's not limited to that.

[Sarah]
Well, that's exciting. That's new information for me. So yeah, you want to walk us a little bit through, I shared in a recent episode that you guys are out, you've released your product. Do you want to walk us through a little bit of how to find the product, how to use the product?

[Adi]
Yeah. So, so the product, basically what it does, it it tracks your eyes when you're reading texts and gives you a measure of your progress. This is our beta product. Uh, right now we're using text we uploaded. They are about 300 to 350 words, so it's two minutes. The idea is we compare you to yourself. So you can see your own progress. So you log in and I'm sure you'll have the link when we uh, in the episode. You log in, you put in some basic details like, you know, age and and uh, stuff like that. And then you choose, you need to start doing a baseline, meaning without medication, and you need to do that four times. It can be one or two time one after the other. The idea is to get some idea of your performance without the medication and it's better to have the range, so not only one day. And then you get tested with the medication. So you put in, you add new meds, you put in the meds you took and what time you took them. You need to get tested within one to three hours after taking them because that's when it's supposed to be the peak effectiveness. And in a in a second I'll say something about doing more than that. And uh, you do need to do that at least twice and then you get a score. You also record your how you feel. So your subjective feeling as well as side effects. In this way, we collect everything you and your doctor want to know to make decisions because how you feel is very important. We can't disregard that. But we're adding another measure. Now, if you want to see how well your medication works in the afternoon, for example, that's not hard. All you need to do is to add another medication that's called afternoon in the others at the time you want to get tested. I did that recently and I saw huge differences actually when trying new meds and with how they work in the afternoon for me....

[Sarah]
Very cool. And this is all powered by eye tracking software, right? So, um, do you have to install anything or do you just use what you have?

[Adi]
It's web-based, you don't need to install anything, you use the webcam we all use 20 times a day on Zooms.

[Sarah]
Yep.

[Adi]
The only thing is the camera needs to be able to see your eyes. That's it.

[Sarah]
Okay. That's it, huh?

[Adi]
So, not too much reflections in the glasses, not big strong light in the back, stuff like that. But it's pretty straightforward and it works for very rarely there are problems.

[Sarah]
Awesome. What were the other things you were going to mention later? Is that, is that my next question?

[Adi]
So that was part of the afternoon or if you want to measure something that is not pharmaceutical meds, you can add in the others, I drank coffee and I want to see how it affects me or I went for a run. We are not limiting you to testing specific meds. We do have the meds in there so you don't have, you know, if you type one and then you mistype the next time, you want to make sure you have the information and it's clear, but you can add anything. I also want to mention, so we are three founders, all women, all have ADHD.

[Sarah]
Yeah.

[Adi]
Yeah. And I can tell you the best customers are women with ADHD. Because I think we all know we need to figure out our health. It's on us. And we also do it for our kids. So we had some great discussions with our customers and we're always happy to answer any questions. This is not some company out there. It's people trying to make a difference. There is no stupid questions. And and I want to emphasize this even more. The main thing we're trying to do now is to make sure we're making the product easy to use. We know it too well to judge how well it's how easy it is to use and it has to be easy to use for our customers. So if you are struggling, it's our problem. We need to hear about that and make it easier for next time. People with ADHD and we know it personally, tend to take the blame on themselves. I can't do it, so it's my problem. So I can't emphasize enough that anything that is hard for you is our problem and we need you'll help us by sharing that with us because we're working on improving how easy it is to use. And that's why it's very important for us to hear any issues, questions, anything you might have or any thoughts, there's nothing that is not useful for us.

[Sarah]
Right. And this is a completely free tool to use, correct? Completely free.

[Adi]
Right now it's a beta, it's completely free. Down the line it will be paid, but for now it's free because we want your input....

[Sarah]
Excellent, excellent. So wow, that's so exciting. I I really need to get on there and try it. I keep forgetting, insert the obvious ADHD joke, but I I can't wait to dig in there. I'm going to actually put something on my calendar after we're done here. And for all you listeners, go check it out and let Adi know how it's working out and tell all your friends and I'll put the link in the show notes for you guys to share. I wanted to zoom out a little bit and ask you a little bit about AI because that's what everyone cannot stop talking about. So I would be remiss if I did not ask you, how does AI play into this?

[Adi]
So, AI is what they call chat GPT and all that is generative AI. We're using AI which is a more basic concept. And basically the idea is if we think about math, there's always an equation, right? This leads to that. Now, we know our brains are more complex than that, especially for people with ADHD. So it's not that if you read fast or read slow, there is no one parameter or one direction. Using AI means you take information, which we had to study of people, the differences between people with and without medication and it comes up with, it learns how to separate and gives you the score. It's not about exactly which parameter changes how. So that's uh, basically the idea of AI here. And the the reason it's so strong for people with ADHD is because how much we vary, you know, each person day-to-day and be amongst ourselves. And when you try to put us into a box, it fails, right?

[Sarah]
Oh yes.

[Adi]
So AI is a more flexible box, a more flexible way to look at it.

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[Sarah]
So, to that point, you could even recalibrate like the results again, like you mentioned menopause, like if you're, if your body's different, you could go through this again, right? And it'll get a whole new baseline?

[Adi]
Yeah. So, so there are two sides for it. As a product, one of our plans for the future is to let you use the product and get cycles and see how you change from day-to-day and kind of see how match things to the cycles of the month or the day and all that. But, uh, as far as AI is concerned, as we get more people using the product, we'll get a more accurate result. And for example, we might have differences, maybe the algorithm will become much more different between men and women. Right now, it's not effective, but we we tested for that, but for the data we have, the differences were not big. I think the difference between one person to the next is larger.

[Sarah]
Yeah.

[Adi]
And we compare you to yourself, which makes it easier. But as we get more data, the algorithm will be more accurate. I want to highlight here, we are, the data we are using for the algorithm is anonymized. So you get your report for yourself, but the data we're keeping has a code and we're not connecting it with your name. We're almost collecting any videos or anything like that. So we are very, very careful with how we use the data, but we are using the data as a statistical data. So person number 345 and 792 respond like this or like that and that helps us build a more accurate algorithm as we move forward. And the dream is that we'll be able to make the whole process of finding the meds less trial and error. So we'll be able to tell you that people that responded like yourself to, I don't know, Ritalin or Adderall, whatever is the first one you tried, did better with this drug at this dose and avoid the need to having all these cycles or relying on the experience of the doctor, which sometimes has a lot of experience and sometimes doesn't. So that's where we want to go, but for that we need the data and we need the users.

[Sarah]
That's super exciting. So, as far as the path goes, you need the data and then once you have the data, what happens? Where where do you go from here?

[Adi]
So, our thought or the way we see it and the way the psychiatrists we work with see it is in the future, that's how you care for ADHD, right? Where you get a diagnosis and now there's no more this try and tell me how it's going or let's see, your primary care physician will say, okay, use IFocus with, I don't know, 10 milligrams Ritalin and then you get a report and it tells you try this med and that's it....

[Sarah]
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's really exciting. And then, you know, when they ask you, what's your most effective time of the day? I know, it's so hard to say, right? But you'll be able to have it working in the background. And the product in the future will actually not need anything active from you. It will be plugin that like Grammarly knows when you type, we'll know when you're reading and we'll track the reading so we can give you the report through the day, through the months without needing to do anything active.

[Sarah]
That is so exciting. The future is here. Wow. So, I know your life experience informed a lot of this. How did you get into this field, period? You have a math background, is that?

[Adi]
I have a physics background.

[Sarah]
Physics background, that's right.

[Adi]
I I was not doing, I'm joke, I'm not the technical person in this project. One of my co-founder, who's also my sister, she's the data scientist and the AI expert.

[Sarah]
Oh, how nice.

[Adi]
But I got into this because my son was diagnosed and you know how it is, we're willing to suffer through things, but we don't want our kids to suffer through them.

[Sarah]
Yep.

[Adi]
And I said there has to be a way to measure this. And I looked into studies and talked to people and there was no data.

[Sarah]
Yeah.

[Adi]
Because it's so hard to get data. You know, if you need to use MRIs or have psychiatrists interview the participants, it's so expensive. So they have the big experiments have 200 people. That's nothing, right? We know we vary more. And that's why I was looking for a solution and finding a way to measure it. Now, what happened in parallel is that the technology for eye tracking and webcams all moved forward really fast, which made this possible.

[Sarah]
Okay. That's so exciting. Oh my goodness. It it's all surreal. I mean, I just it it just seems so far out there, but it's like you needed something it wasn't there, so you just created it. Like, I mean, how does that feel?

[Adi]
It's I have to say I'm, you know, starting a company and a startup is hard and, you know, when you tell the story, it always looks nice, but it's not easy. But when I talk to, you know, I talk to these professors and psychiatrists and in the beginning I was very careful because I'm not from this space. And you see the responses and you talk to parents and to people with ADHD and you see how much you can impact, how big is the need here. And it's actually amazing. Every time I I keep being surprised by how strong the responses are. And it's, you know, and I can't tell you, you know, I was doing complex tech and the way this is less complex than a lot of the things I did before. It doesn't have moving parts, it doesn't have expensive components, right? It's all the webcam that we know that is not expensive. But somehow it clicked, you know, when you ask the right question, I think that's the point. When you keep asking questions and keep your mind open, then things come up, especially for us, people with ADHD because we see things differently and that sometimes is a good way to get innovation.

[Sarah]
Oh, that's that's so awesome. Is there anything you wanted to add to this conversation before we close out?

[Adi]
Don't give up.

[Sarah]
Yeah.

[Adi]
I know some days are hard. I know, I feel some days are hard, but it gets better. You find the right tools, you learn what you need, but it's on us. It's on us to figure these things out. There are some great doctors there, but it's hard to get to them and they're very busy and we need to take ownership of our health in general, especially women's health and our mental health. So take care of yourself.

[Sarah]
Awesome. And on that note, where can they go to get started with this tool?

[Adi]
So we'll put the link in the show notes. description or you can look up our website is IFocustest.com in one word. IFocus with an I. And if you reach out through there, we'll send you the link as well.

[Sarah]
All right. Adi, it was so great to have you again. Thank you so much for being here. And catch you next time.

[Adi]
Yes, definitely. Thank you.

[Sarah]
Thank you....