Episode #147. The Sound of Health: How AI and Voice Are Transforming Diagnostics, with Henry O’Connell, CEO and Co-Founder of Canary Speech

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Risk Never Sleeps – Episode #147

The Sound of Health: How AI and Voice Are Transforming Diagnostics

Host: Ed Gaudet
Guest: Henry O’Connell, CEO and Co-Founder, Canary Speech
Release Date: November 20, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode explores how artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and voice analysis are pioneering new frontiers in healthcare diagnostics. Ed Gaudet sits down with Henry O’Connell, CEO and Co-Founder of Canary Speech, a company leveraging vocal biomarkers to identify diseases and help clinicians make faster, more accurate decisions. The conversation covers technical breakthroughs, the evolving nature of healthcare work, personal stories behind Canary Speech, and future outlooks on AI in patient safety.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Introduction to Canary Speech and Its Origins

• Canary Speech is a vocal biomarker company focused on healthcare diagnostics through analysis of speech data.
  • Analyzes around 15.5 million data elements per minute, across dozens of diseases.
  • Founders: Henry O’Connell (background in neurology) and Jeff Adams (NSA mathematical modeling and speech recognition).
• Machine learning and AI enable the analysis of vast, previously untapped data sets in speech:
  • “When you add on top of that AI you just have something that is a wonderful Italian meal.”
    — Henry O’Connell [00:43]

2. AI’s Game-Changing Impact on Diagnostics

• A decade ago, disease detection via speech in clinical settings wasn't feasible—data was too limited.
• Deep neural nets and AI now enable real-time analysis from minutes of speech, focusing on central nervous system diseases (e.g., Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, mild cognitive impairment, MS).
  • “Accuracies are 98, 99% in a 40 second sample. And so that's a wonderful tool in the hand of a clinician.”
    — Henry O’Connell [03:19]

3. Information to Action: AI as a Decision Accelerator

• AI's greatest contribution is turning massive information streams into actionable knowledge.
  • “Information is fantastic, but as you put it all together, it becomes knowledge, and knowledge becomes actionable.”
    — Henry O’Connell [04:06]
• Analogies: Moving from digging holes by hand to the shovel, then pyramids, and finally Mars exploration—AI will accelerate, not replace, human capabilities.

4. AI, Jobs, and the Future of Work

• AI and automation won’t eliminate jobs, but rather transform roles and require humans to adapt and learn.
  • “I think the jobs will be more entertaining. They'll be more challenging. They'll push us to be better. We are going to be better than any tool we ever make, and that includes AI tools.”
    — Henry O’Connell [06:18]
• Historical perspective: Technology increases productivity and creates new work, not less.

5. Pop Culture Tangent: Robot Overlords?

• Light-hearted discussion on sci-fi scenarios like robot takeovers.
  • “No, I don't think that's what's going to happen, you know?... I'm tired of cleaning your bathroom. Pick up your clothes.”
    — Henry O’Connell [06:53]
  • “IRobot had a, you know, a less tragic outcome than Terminator.”
    — Henry O’Connell [07:15]

6. Personal Journey and the Birth of Canary Speech

• O’Connell recounts his partnership with Jeff Adams, who co-created the Amazon Echo and has deep roots in speech tech.
• Pivotal career moment: The decision to apply speech/language tech to human health arose from a soul-searching conversation at a bagel shop, leading to Canary’s founding.
  • “He said, ‘Well, I always wanted to apply speech and language to human condition and disease.’ And I said, ‘Well, why don’t we do that?’”
    — Henry O’Connell [09:27]

7. Advice and Reflections

• Looking back, O’Connell emphasizes patience, lifelong learning, and being open to new challenges—even starting Canary at age 63.
  • “Be patient. I'm 72 now. We started this when I was 63... It takes time.”
    — Henry O’Connell [09:43]
• Stories from his upbringing and early work: Hard work, resilience, and adaptability are keys to success both then and now.
  • “If it's hard work, I don't care. Give me the shovel. Yeah, I'll dig the hole.”
    — Henry O’Connell [19:33]

8. The Origin of the Name: Canary Speech

• The company name and logo were inspired by his daughter Megan, referencing the "canary in the coal mine" as an early health warning and lifesaver.
  • “That was their warning. But the bird was important to them because it was saving lives.”
    — Henry O’Connell [20:58]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On AI’s Impact:
  “AI is going to get us there years earlier, not years shorter.”
  — Henry O’Connell [05:12]

• On AI and Human Progress:
  “We're going to accelerate all that… We're going to be sharper. We're going to learn from that. We have the capacity to keep growing.”
  — Henry O’Connell [06:18]

• On Building a Career:
  “I learned that a lot of it was attitude. And if it's hard work, I don't care. Give me the shovel. Yeah, I'll dig the Hole.”
  — Henry O’Connell [19:33]

• On Family and Roots:
  “We love songs that tell a story. We're Irish.”
  — Henry O’Connell [17:39]

• On Entrepreneurial Risks:
  O’Connell shares his wildest risk—escaping an icy, out-of-control car run without imminent danger; a metaphor, perhaps, for entering uncharted business territory.
  [16:19–17:04]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Canary Speech origins and expertise: [00:43–01:40]
• Speech data breakthroughs via AI: [01:46–03:19]
• Actionable insights from AI in medicine: [04:06–05:34]
• Job displacement and AI's future: [06:00–06:33]
• Sci-fi robots and real-world AI future: [06:38–07:28]
• Personal journey into speech tech and Amazon Echo: [07:38–09:27]
• Naming Canary Speech and the canary as a symbol: [20:07–21:13]
• Advice to young professionals: [18:11–19:52]

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Episode Takeaways

• AI and voice analysis are revolutionizing disease detection by converting massive streams of human speech into reliable, real-time clinical tools.
• Jobs will evolve, not disappear—adaptability and a growth mindset are more vital than ever.
• Personal connection and inspiration matter both in building a company and in finding one's path.
• Hard work, patience, and attitude trump talent alone when innovating in health tech.
• The name "Canary Speech" encapsulates the company's mission: early warning, sensitivity, and saving lives.

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For more information or to increase your risk awareness and safety in healthcare, visit www.censinet.com.

Transcript

[Henry O'Connell]

Foreign.

[Ed Gaudet]

Welcome to Risk Never Sleeps, where we meet and get to know the people delivering patient care and protecting patient safety. I'm your host, Ed Gaudet.

[Ed Gaudette]

This is Ed Gaudette from the Risk Never Sleeps podcast. Today I am pleased to be joined by Henry o', Connell, the CEO and co founder of Canary Speech. Good day to you, sir. How are you, Ed?

[Henry O'Connell]

I'm wonderful. It's good to be with you. Thank you.

[Ed Gaudette]

Good to see you again. Yeah, yeah. Saw you at the AGC conference a couple weeks ago. You were on stage talking about AI. So before we get into that, tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, your role and your organization.

[Henry O'Connell]

I will, thank you. So Canary Speech is a focal biomarker company. We focus on healthcare and we listen to about 15 and a half million data elements every minute. Wow. We process Those in a 10 millisecond window and we have about a dozen different diseases that we currently analyze for. Jeff Adams and I are the co founders of the company. Jeff and I met each other about 40 years ago. So 40 years ago, Jeff was at the NSA, I was at the National Institutes of Health. I was doing research in a neurological group, and Jeff was building mathematical models to de encrypt spy messages. The interesting thing is that speech and language technology is really mathematical models that interpret, manipulate. And then machine learning came along that just accelerated the capacity to do that. And then you add on top of that AI and you just have something that is a wonderful Italian meal.

[Ed Gaudette]

You know, what are some of the things you're able to find today that you couldn't find a decade ago?

[Henry O'Connell]

Given.

[Ed Gaudette]

Given AIs?

[Henry O'Connell]

Oh, even a decade ago, there wasn't a single disease that could, outside of a research study, be identified in a clinical setting in any practical way.

[Ed Gaudette]

Okay, and what was that?

[Henry O'Connell]

The initial approach looked at what words were speaking, and the words that we speak generate about a thousand data elements a minute. If you consider syllables and spaces and filler words and everything else. It's just not large enough data set to do any real analysis on something as complex as a central nervous system disease or behavioral health or anything. And so there had never been a launch with the advent of deep neural nets and machine learning, that gave us a computational power to do this work. But the data set needed to be measured in the millions, not in the thousands. You know, and so their approach at the surface, which is really a tertiary data layer, their approach was consistent with speech pathology, but not applicable to analysis for disease in human condition.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah, you must be seeing some interesting correlations. That we couldn't see without AI to help with treatments, to help with diagnoses.

[Henry O'Connell]

You really do. I mean, in the progressive neurological disease area, where the disease itself is a central nervous system illness, the central nervous system is controlling everything we do in speech in this phenomenal way. I mean, you and I are talking right now. We're not streaming it live in our brain.

[Ed Gaudette]

Right.

[Henry O'Connell]

It's coming out of our mouth, you know, which is why we have foot and mouth disease sometimes. And so in things like Huntington's and Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and mild cognitive impairment and other diseases, Ms. That we're working on, accuracies are 98, 99% in a 40 second sample. And so that's a wonderful tool in the hand of a clinician. You know, they've got expertise that dates back 10 years, just if they're two years out of medical school.

[Ed Gaudette]

Do you ever hear of the disease Charcot Marie Tooth?

[Henry O'Connell]

No, I have not.

[Ed Gaudette]

Oh, okay. That's a neurological disease. That's, that's pretty rare. So, you know, as you think about what you're seeing here, any predictions about the next couple of years, either in your space or just Jason or outside.

[Henry O'Connell]

So the application of AI into what we're doing is allowing all of us, and I think anticipating that all of us are going to step up. Information is fantastic, but as you put it all together, it becomes knowledge, and knowledge becomes actionable. And so moving from just information, which AI then allows us to assist on making that knowledge, coordinating diverse pieces of information into understandable, consumable pieces allows us to make decisions faster, more accurately. And I think we're going to see that. You know, at the conference we were at together, I mentioned the first people out of the caves, they're digging holes with their hands and someone comes along with a makeshift shovel. It didn't mean that there were less holes to dig.

[Ed Gaudette]

Right. More holes.

[Henry O'Connell]

And there were more holes. In fact, after that, we built the pyramids.

[Ed Gaudette]

Right.

[Henry O'Connell]

You know, so it's that kind of progression we're going to see. When I think of the efforts by like an Elon Musk to get us to Mars, AI is going to get us there years earlier.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

Not years shorter.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

The design of the propulsion system, even just the ergonomics within such a capsule, the storage, all of those things can be worked out in AI with people who understand what's going on, maybe deeper. They're using their AI tool, we call it a brain, but their AI tools and looking at that and putting the pieces together.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

So we're going to accelerate all that. I think the example I gave was around the calculator. When I went to college, I was using a slide rule until I was a junior, and then junior and senior year, since I couldn't afford $350 to buy the HP.

[Ed Gaudette]

The HP.

[Henry O'Connell]

HP or the Texas east area.

[Ed Gaudette]

Texas. Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

I used a side rule, and I would beg to use the calculator, even just to play with it, you know?

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

That's how far we've come.

[Ed Gaudette]

I know, it's incredible. And specifically, you were talking about jobs, and your belief is there'll be more jobs, not less jobs.

[Henry O'Connell]

Oh, absolutely, yeah. I mean, there weren't less holes dug. You know, there was a need. I mean, do we think we use less labor when we built the pyramids?

[Ed Gaudette]

But do you think there'll be some adjustment, though, in terms of the jobs and the roles?

[Henry O'Connell]

I think the jobs will be more entertaining. They'll be more challenging. They'll push us to be better. We are going to be better than any tool we ever make, and that includes AI tools. We're going to be better. We're going to be sharper. We're going to learn from that. We have the capacity to keep growing.

[Ed Gaudette]

Let's get a little dark here. Do you foresee the robot overlords in our future?

[Henry O'Connell]

Oh, like a Terminator type of thing. We are. Absolutely. If you think back on iRobot, we are going to have robots like that. There's no question in my mind. We're definitely having iRobots, but.

[Ed Gaudette]

Well, will they be alive still or.

[Henry O'Connell]

And will they come after us? No. I'm tired of cleaning your bathroom. Pick up your clothes.

[Ed Gaudette]

You know, you clean the bathroom. Damn it.

[Henry O'Connell]

Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna go make television. I. I really don't think that's what's gonna happen, you know?

[Ed Gaudet]

I hope not.

[Henry O'Connell]

No, I don't think so. What a challenge that would be.

[Ed Gaudette]

Terror. I don't like cleaning bathrooms.

[Henry O'Connell]

Yeah. IRobot had a, you know, a less tragic outcome than Terminator.

[Ed Gaudette]

That's true. That's true.

[Henry O'Connell]

Sarah Connor.

[Ed Gaudette]

Connor.

[Henry O'Connell]

Sarah Connor.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. You remember Sarah.

[Henry O'Connell]

God bless the woman.

[Ed Gaudette]

God bless the woman.

[Henry O'Connell]

Save civilization, saved the world.

[Ed Gaudette]

We need more Sarah Connors out there. All right, so how did you get into this job, this field? Healthcare technology.

[Henry O'Connell]

So Jeff and I from that time became friends. Lifelong friends.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

I remember when Caitlin was 8 years old, he wrote a happy birthday song for. He's a great musician. Multiple instruments. Typical genius type of person. You know, the kind of person who's so smart. You hate him, but you can't. I mean, his personality is so loving. And so he wrote this song for her and sat down, picked her up and plopped her down next to him on a piano seat and just the keys started flying.

[Ed Gaudette]

Oh, wow.

[Henry O'Connell]

And she was this year into piano learning type of person. It gave her a vision of what the piano could do. It cost me a lot because my wife and I bought a grand piano for her years later and she was like a concert level pianist.

[Ed Gaudette]

Really?

[Henry O'Connell]

Yes. Still she now is a mother and place for church.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. Oh, that's good.

[Henry O'Connell]

Yeah.

[Ed Gaudette]

It is the hardest job in the world.

[Henry O'Connell]

It is. And so Jeff was finishing up a small project. He led the team to build the Amazon Echo. And that's a small project, you know, something that never existed before. I had an echo.

[Ed Gaudette]

I love the echo.

[Henry O'Connell]

Yeah. He had like 12 of them. Every room had them.

[Ed Gaudette]

That's obnoxious.

[Henry O'Connell]

Yeah. I mean, you could hear him talking back to you from rooms away, you know?

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

And you're in the bathroom and you.

[Ed Gaudette]

Hear Jeff, that's not.

[Henry O'Connell]

And so after he got that done with that, we were in a bagel shop in Provo, Utah. He had been talking at Brigham Young University where he had graduated, and he was looking at and put together an engineering firm called cobol. And we were talking about that and getting my advice on that, I jumped on board and helped him with a little bit of it. But at the end of the conversation, I asked him, I said, jeff, you're a rare commodity on the planet. What's left on the table? What haven't you done that you wished you did? Because an engineering firm doing things other people could never do. Fine, go do that. And it's going to be entertaining.

[Ed Gaudette]

Let's go big or go home.

[Henry O'Connell]

Yeah. So what do you want to do? And he said, well, I always wanted to apply speech and language to human condition and disease. And I said, well, why don't we do that?

[Ed Gaudette]

Awesome.

[Henry O'Connell]

Yeah, that's great.

[Ed Gaudette]

What a great story. You go back in time and see your 20 year old self, what would you tell them?

[Henry O'Connell]

Be patient. I'm 72 now. We started this when I was 16.

[Ed Gaudette]

Folks. He does not look 72, looks 52.

[Henry O'Connell]

But I started this when I was 63. I had two patents issued before this. I now have 24 patents to my knee. Why don't we do that? When I said that to Jeff, I did not realize that we really could change the nature of healthcare delivery. And there are a lot of things that do. There are Many, many things that do. But being part of one, that's important. And nine years ago, we weren't thinking, this is AI. We were thinking that this was speech and language. And then in order to make it practical in the hands of the individual, we really had to embrace AI, pull it into everything we were doing. 22 years ago, I was training for the Olympic trials. Ran in the 80 and 84 Olympic trials, in the marathon. I was never sleeping. I was always tired. I don't think I would change that part of it. Be patient, you know.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

Really. Honestly, I. It takes time.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah, it does.

[Henry O'Connell]

And so often I would have gotten married earlier, but I didn't meet the woman that is the dream of my life. Yeah. Until later, you know, So I couldn't change that, you know. So how did you meet? Oh, it's so funny. So we're both members of the same church. We're lds, Latter Day Saints. I joined a church when I was older. I was 32 years old, and I was not married, which is really an oddity in the Mormon Church. I mean, it's almost like.

[Ed Gaudette]

Sounds like you were a little bit of a rebel, Henry.

[Henry O'Connell]

Yeah, definitely. And so I owned a place in Washington, D.C. i was working at the National Institutes of Health still. And I had this townhouse which had, you know, three or four bedrooms in it. It was a nice place. And I got a call from one of the bishops, one of the leaders in the church, and he said, could this young man stay with you for the summer? And I said, sure, why not? And he came home, he got a job working at the temple there in Washington on the ground, you know. He came home one Saturday, I was home, and he said, hey, are you going to the dance? And I said, sorry, what dance? I'm 32 years old. And he goes, no, there's a church dance. And I said, no, no, I'm not going to go to the dance. I need to find a way down there. I said, I'll give you a ride. Okay, I'll give you a ride.

[Ed Gaudette]

This is great.

[Henry O'Connell]

So on the way down, it turned out to be about 40 miles away. And I thought, hey, I've already reached the level of my charity. My charity level has already met. And so I thought, I've got to find someone to give him a ride home, you know.

[Ed Gaudette]

So you went in the dance?

[Henry O'Connell]

So I went in the dance.

[Ed Gaudette]

You got to go in the dance.

[Henry O'Connell]

I went in a dance, yeah. And I see this. The only guy I knew was Bert, and he was wearing a tuxedo which tells you a little bit about Bert. But he had a group around him and as he was introducing me to these people, I shook the hand of this young lady and I thought, this is the woman I'm going to be married to.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah, that's what happened to me. Same thing.

[Henry O'Connell]

Yeah.

[Ed Gaudette]

When it happens, a spark. It's amazing, isn't it?

[Henry O'Connell]

Amazing?

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. It's life changing.

[Henry O'Connell]

Of course. Yeah. Five children later, my grandchildren, nine. Yes.

[Ed Gaudette]

Oh, I just.

[Henry O'Connell]

And. And my daughter told me two days ago, she's expecting.

[Ed Gaudette]

Congratulations.

[Henry O'Connell]

I know, that's incredible. I have knock on board somewhere. There we go.

[Ed Gaudette]

We just had our first grandson.

[Henry O'Connell]

Oh, congratulations. Thank you. What's his name? Rory. Rory, yeah.

[Ed Gaudette]

A good Irish name.

[Henry O'Connell]

It is a great Irish name.

[Ed Gaudette]

My son in law is an o'. Callahan.

[Henry O'Connell]

Oh, my God.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah, that's right. O. Yeah, there you go. And I guess there's some significance with the O and the names that don't have an O.

[Henry O'Connell]

Well, I know that story. Okay, so. Oh, four generations back, it was Connell for us.

[Ed Gaudette]

Okay.

[Henry O'Connell]

And somewhere along the line it became o'. Connell. And it's o' Connell in Ireland and it's o' Connell in the US too. And we wondered if the O was added coming through Ellis Island. My four grandparents all are immigrants. Sharon and Cody and o'. Connell. And another one, which I don't remember. Black sheep of the family maybe. And. But it's o' Connell now in Ireland too. And going back was Connell, and then prior to that it was even a little more Irish.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah, like a Gaelic.

[Henry O'Connell]

Yeah. We're in Ireland, near Galway, but east and south of Galway area. They were dingle or. Yes. And they were dairy farmers.

[Ed Gaudette]

Oh, yeah? Yeah. I worked in Ireland for three years.

[Henry O'Connell]

Oh, you did?

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah, I worked for a middleware company, Iona Technologies, if you remember them, they did Corba development. So this is the Risk Never Sleeps podcast. I gotta ask you this question. What's the riskiest thing you've ever done, Henry, Other than going into that dance?

[Henry O'Connell]

Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm not a high risk taker.

[Ed Gaudette]

Okay.

[Henry O'Connell]

I'm really not. Like, I don't ski and mainly because I was running all my young years and I didn't want to risk adverse. I didn't want to. I don't drive motorcycles because I'm the worst driver in the world too. Now I have been off the road during ice storms five times. Now, that's not like risk because it wasn't intentional. And so this one time my roommate broke up with his girlfriend and they had Tickets to go to the Black Watch, the British Drum Fife corps. And I was in a FIFA drum corps when I was young. And so his girlfriend had the tickets and wanted to still go and said, would you go with me? And I said yes. I wasn't dating at the time. And so.

[Ed Gaudette]

So she said, hopefully your wife's not listening to this podcast.

[Henry O'Connell]

And so she said, will you come and pick me up? Because I don't want to have to come to your place. Even though we were much closer to where we were going. So I picked her up. And then on the way home, typical New England. Connecticut.

[Ed Gaudette]

Oh, you're in Connecticut.

[Henry O'Connell]

I was in Connecticut.

[Ed Gaudette]

Whereabouts? I'm from Connecticut.

[Henry O'Connell]

Oh, are you? I grew up in Weathershield, but I was born in Hartford.

[Ed Gaudette]

I grew up in Southington.

[Henry O'Connell]

Oh, wow.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

Amazing little things.

[Ed Gaudette]

Little things. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

So on the way out, out of. It's icy and snowy, we used to.

[Ed Gaudette]

Have these incredible ice storms in Connecticut.

[Henry O'Connell]

Yes.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

And the road was like downhill and a left turn and then a right turn down to.

[Ed Gaudette]

Danger Will Robinson.

[Henry O'Connell]

Yeah, yeah. And so I made the left hand turn and I can see in front of me down this long hill and there's a house. And I didn't make the next turn. I went off the road. And so all these branches are flying. They're just flying, you know, And I'm in a Volkswagen Bug and everything's flying. And I'm headed for this house, you know, like, there's no steering, there's no breaking, there's nothing but just screaming, you know, And I'm alone and I'm screaming.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

And so. And I looked down there and this New Englander, heart and soul, had already shoveled his driveway. Ah. And so I cranked the wheel as far as I could get it over. And when I hit his driveway, the car did. 363 times. Wow. But missed his house.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

And so, you know, can you imagine the adrenaline? It's just fine. So I jump out of the car and I look up the hill and this path is coming right for his home. You know, you know, little bushes, I'm running over, you know, all kinds of things. And. And I look around and, you know, I'm on his driveway and there's no harm. I thought, you know.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah, yeah, you landed.

[Henry O'Connell]

No damage, no harm. Yeah. So I got back in and I drove home.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. And how was your date?

[Henry O'Connell]

It wasn't really. No, I know, but. But the Black watch is incredible.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

You know. Unbelievable.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

I mean, precision drumming, that kind of Thing.

[Ed Gaudette]

Cool. Cool. Let's see. If you were on a desert island, what five records or albums would you bring with you?

[Henry O'Connell]

Dan Fogelberg.

[Ed Gaudette]

Nice.

[Henry O'Connell]

John Denver.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. John Denver's great.

[Henry O'Connell]

Yeah. You know, I'm from that era, you know, so.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

You know the Seekers?

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

They're an Australian group. They're fantastic. You know, so. I love songs that tell a story.

[Ed Gaudette]

Okay.

[Henry O'Connell]

We're Irish.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah, of course.

[Henry O'Connell]

We love songs that tell a story.

[Ed Gaudette]

You like the Pokes?

[Henry O'Connell]

Yes, I do.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

I'll bring them along just because you like them. Just in case you go to your desert island. Henry.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah, we'll hang out.

[Henry O'Connell]

So I. I mean, I could play that all day long. And it's. You know, what's really terrible is you can put things on repeat and I'll be out for a walk or a run now even, and I put one of the songs on repeat, and I'll just. That's the only thing I'll listen to.

[Ed Gaudette]

Oh, nice. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah. What advice would you have for folks that are coming out of school that want to break into health care or technology or both?

[Henry O'Connell]

I think that, you know how we did it growing up.

[Ed Gaudette]

Fate.

[Henry O'Connell]

Yeah. Luck.

[Ed Gaudette]

A lot of hard work.

[Henry O'Connell]

Yeah. But the hard work part was being willing to recognize that there was a few years of just tough, long hours.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yes.

[Henry O'Connell]

And that's going to make it tough, long hours. I. After my father passed away, we had to work every month, all of us, the five kids that my mom had and herself. We were working just to pay the mortgage the next month. And I delivered the newspaper along with other things that I did. And when I turned 16, the gas station that the only gas station I delivered to said, why don't you take a job with us? And then I had that job the summer after my first year in college, even. It was owned by five brothers. And the five brothers had their children working there, and they had one worker, me. And so they would just stand around while I was doing, you know, working four or five cars at a time, you know, and at first, the very first thing I did was I hated it. And then I realized I was hating every day of my life. And so I gave that up and I started talking to people.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

And people would invite me to go to their Cape Cod cottage, you know, and they would come in and bring me birthday presents and things like that. So I learned that a lot of it was attitude.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yes.

[Henry O'Connell]

And if it's hard work, I don't care. Give me the shovel. Yeah, I'll dig the Hole.

[Ed Gaudette]

I love that.

[Henry O'Connell]

I think that's what we need to do.

[Ed Gaudette]

We've lost recognize.

[Henry O'Connell]

We've lost that to some degree. We have.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

I don't think there is as many. There are those that are. But they learn it from their parents.

[Ed Gaudette]

That's right. Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

And so don't keep it invisible how hard you're working.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah, no, that's really great advice. This is Ed Gaudette from the Risk Never Sleeps podcast. I'm here with Henry o', Connell, the CEO and founder of Canary Speech. Each. Yeah, I got to get the Canary speech in there. I love it. How did you come up with the name?

[Henry O'Connell]

You know, both our logo and the name of our company comes from Megan, the young girl. There are always going to be young girls. Yeah, it's my middle daughter.

[Ed Gaudette]

Oh, okay. Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

And she's expecting now our 10th.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. I have three daughters.

[Henry O'Connell]

I do, too.

[Ed Gaudette]

And you have two sons.

[Henry O'Connell]

Two sons, yeah.

[Ed Gaudette]

Because you had five.

[Henry O'Connell]

Yeah. So Caitlin, Megan and Rachel.

[Ed Gaudet]

Very nice.

[Henry O'Connell]

And then Patrick and Ethan. And so she came up with the idea of Canary in the coal mine. Were an early warning system. And few people know this, but when they would take. Not all the time, but when they would take the canaries in, they'd be in a cage. And that cage had a separate oxygen source. And if the canary fell because it was more sensitive to carbon monoxide and other nauseous gases, they would of course, get out of the mind. That was their warning. But the bird was important to them because it was saving lives.

[Ed Gaudette]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Henry O'Connell]

So. And then she came back to me after suggesting the name and, you know, you do searches to make sure you can get them. She came back with the canary logo and said, here, what do you think of this? I said, perfect.

[Ed Gaudette]

That's such a great story. Great way to end the podcast. Ed Gaudette. Risk never Sleeps. You're on the front line protecting patient safety and delivering patient care. Remember to stay safe because Risk never sleeps.

[Ed Gaudet]

Thanks for listening to Risk Never Sleeps. For the show, notes, resources and more information and how to transform the protection of patient safety, Visit [e-mail] that's C-E N S I N E T dot com. I'm your host, Ed Gaudet. And until next time, stay vigilant because Risk never Sleeps.