The Beat

We know that diverse founders only receive a fraction of VC funding. And that healthcare inequality is exacerbated by the lack of diverse perspectives and solutions in healthcare tech. But what if there was a venture fund that focused on diverse founders building healthcare technology for the communities they come from? Justin Williams is Principal at Seae Ventures , an investment firm specializin...

About  Russ Richmond: Russ Richmond has diverse work experience spanning various industries and roles. Russ is the CEO and Co-founder of Laudio, a healthcare leadership company that improves frontline actions. Russ has also served as a Member of the Innovation Growth Board at Mass General Brigham. In addition, they have held positions such as Executive Chairman and Independent Board Director at Va...

About Nasim Afsar: Nasim Afsar is relentlessly focused on advancing the health and care of the world through Healthy People, Healthy Workforce, and Healthy Business. As Chief Health Officer, Dr. Afsar leads Product Strategy, Global Market Strategy, and Entry and Third Party Partnerships. Last year, her team delivered higher quality care for over 2 million people (Healthy People), saved physicians...

In 2009, David Goldhill’s father died of a hospital-acquired infection. And he realized that preventing medical errors was not an economic imperative in the American healthcare system. In fact, our third-party payment system creates a misalignment of incentives, making insurers and governments the customer rather than the patients themselves. So, David wrote a cover story for The Atlantic entitled...

WebMD is the most trusted online platform for health education. But as we know, information does not equal transformation.  So, how do we engage people throughout their health journey? How do we encourage them to apply what they’ve learned about good health and implement the behavior changes necessary for long-term health? Can AI and other emerging technologies support this kind of patient engagem...

Did you know that there is a team of techies who serve the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services or CMS? What is their role in this federal agency? How is CMS changing with emerging technologies?  And how might software engineers, project managers and other tech professionals help innovate from the inside to reform the complicated healthcare system in the US? Andrea Fletcher is the first Chief...

About Stephanie Trunzo: Stephanie Trunzo is senior vice president for Oracle Health & Industries. While Stephanie is a tech geek across cloud, AI, and emerging tech, she is also a storyteller committed to usability and design thinking. This is reflected in the mission of Oracle Health: to create a human-centric healthcare experience powered by unified global data. Stephanie helped lead the launch...

About Diana Gelston: Diana Gelston is the chief commercial officer of Best Buy Health for Best Buy Co. Inc. In her role, she is responsible for building and strengthening the company’s commercial relationships that aim to enable care at home for everyone.   Diana leads a large, diverse team in creating and executing high-impact, go-to-market strategies that support the company’s mission to enrich...

AI has the potential to revolutionize healthcare, from predictive analytics to operations management to remote patient monitoring. But with so many possibilities, where do we begin? And how do we use AI responsibly with our health information? Harjinder Sandhu is CTO of Health and Life Sciences Platforms and Solutions at Microsoft , where he helps chart Microsoft strategy around the application of...

About Malekeh Amini: Malekeh Amini is the Founder and CEO of Trayt, a healthcare software company dedicated to improving diagnosis and treatments in brain-based disorders, including Autism, ADHD, Depression, Anxiety, substance use, and Alzheimer's, among others. Prior to Trayt, Malekeh was the Senior Vice President of Products & Business Development at Base Health, where she provided the vision co...

About Rajeev Ronanki: Rajeev Ronanki has over 25 years of experience in innovation-driven industry and social change across healthcare and technology. As the CEO of Lyric, his leadership is marked by a commitment to reimagine healthcare through the lens of artificial intelligence to reduce complexity and help simplify the business of care.  Previously, Raj spearheaded the transformation of Elevanc...

In traditional journalism, reporters work to present information in an unbiased way. And if you ask Sony Salzman , it’s not difficult to maintain those same standards in creating content for social media.  What is difficult is competing with a hyperbolic, fearmongering post designed to go viral. So, how do we know who to trust when it comes to health and medical news? Whose responsibility is it to...

About Justin Dearborn: Justin Dearborn is a seasoned executive with a proven track record of leadership in the healthcare and technology sectors. Currently serving as the CEO of Praia Health, based in the Greater Chicago Area, Justin brings extensive experience in driving innovation and strategic growth initiatives. With a background in digital healthcare, Justin has been instrumental in the devel...

About Ken Washington: Ken Washington brings over three decades of experience in leading technical endeavors for Fortune 100 companies, government contractors, and research laboratories. His leadership roles have involved team-building and shaping strategic visions for large organizations. Notably, he was honored as the 2012 Black Engineer of the Year in Research Leadership and later inducted into...

The US scores low on healthcare quality compared to other developed countries due in large part to inequities in the system. But how do we address the needs of underserved communities and improve outcomes for BIPOC populations? And what do we do when the data doesn’t tell the whole story? Jackie Ejuwa is Vice President of Health Transformation at Blue Shield of California , where she leads pilotin...

About Steve Cagle: Steve Cagle is CEO and a board member of Clearwater, a leading cybersecurity and compliance partner to organizations across the healthcare ecosystem. He assumed the CEO position at Clearwater in May 2018, bringing extensive experience leading, innovating, and scaling healthcare and technology businesses, including having guided a number of companies through critical transformati...

About Syam Adusumilli: Syam is a seasoned healthcare leader and strategist, with deep product and strategy expertise across all business lines in Healthcare Payor Organizations. He has deep expertise in cutting-edge technologies, including Data Science and AI, Blockchain, Medical IOT, Voice Biometrics, Computational Epidemiology, Digital Therapeutics, Human Centric Design, Behavioral Nudge, and Ca...

How do you know if a particular medicine is working? Traditionally, it takes guesswork on the physician’s part and time to find a drug that works for any given patient. But what if we could leverage digital biomarkers to measure the efficacy of a medication very quickly and course correct as needed? Rich Carter serves as Chief Digital Officer at Eli Lilly, where he oversees the teams focused on in...

About Mary Varghese Presti: As GM of Dragon Medical, an AI-powered voice assistant used by clinicians to document in the EHR, Mary Varghese Presti leads the development of AI-based clinical workflows for Microsoft Healthcare & Life Sciences. Mary is a seasoned healthcare executive whose career spans nursing, policy, pharma, and tech. Things You’ll Learn: How the influx of new nurses due to the pan...

About Zane Burke: Zane Burke is an internationally recognized healthcare IT leader. Burke has a clear, forward-looking vision for digital healthcare, a unique understanding of the challenges in global healthcare delivery, and a vision for how Quantum Health navigation can better the experience. Burke is focused on creating great healthcare experiences for all and addressing the imbalances in healt...

The healthcare system has lost its way in large part due to technological advancements, pulling clinicians away from patients to read electronic health records at a computer terminal. But Dr. David Feinberg believes that technology has the potential to solve the problems it created and put doctors and nurses back in front of the people they serve. So, what is Dr. Feinberg’s vision for the future o...

About Scott Schell: Dr. Schell is an accomplished senior executive, surgeon, and healthcare futurist with over 30 years of experience spanning the healthcare, biotech, and technology sectors both in the US and globally. His leadership roles have included CEO, CMO, Chair, Director, and Executive Consultant, and he brings an extensive background that includes healthcare delivery and operations, phar...

About  Ann Louise Puopolo: Ann Louise is an accomplished and highly respected safety professional and has held many prestigious positions, including Vice President of Enterprise Patient Safety and the Enterprise PSO LLC at CVS Health (until her retirement in 2020) and Vice President of Patient Safety for CRICO (Risk Management Foundation of the Harvard Medical Institutions). More recently, she has...

Innovation in healthcare exploded during the pandemic. But many hospitals don’t have the infrastructure to take advantage of this emergent technology. And many people don’t have the devices or connectivity they need to manage their care. So, how do we promote technological equity (also known as techquity)? How do we bridge the digital gap for underserved populations? Gary Lynch is Global Practice...

About Dave Sohigian: Dave Sohigian is the CTO at Large at Workday and is tasked with helping customers get the most out of Workday. He is part of the Global Office of the CTO, responsible for communicating Workday’s strategy to customers and prospects, and informing the development organization about market needs to influence future innovation. Dave joined Workday 14 years ago and most recently se...