The Pulse by Wharton Digital Health

In this episode, we connected with Josh Hix , Co-Founder and CEO of Season Health . Season Health is a platform that connects members with healthy meal ideas and grocery options to help members and providers manage chronic conditions. Prior to starting Season Health, Josh co-founded the meal prep delivery service Plated , which led to an appearance on SharkTank . Season Health recently raised $34M...

In this episode, I sat down with Chris Altchek, CEO and Founder of Cadence. Founded in 2019, Cadence is a health tech platform that combines personalized clinical care with a breakthrough technology platform. With this Cadence offers consistent care for people managing chronic conditions, such as congestive heart failure, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and COPD, from the comfort of their home. Cade...

Our guest on this episode is Dr. Jerrica Kirkley , co-founder & Chief Medical Officer of Plume . Plume delivers gender-affirming care via telehealth for trans and non-binary individuals , currently operating in 41 states. Plume provides hormone-replacement therapy, such as estrogen and testosterone, as well as letters of support for gender-affirming surgery or changing name or gender markers f...

Our guest on this episode is Kelsey Mellard , founder & CEO of Sitka , a virtual specialty consultation company facilitating primary care and specialty communication via video consults, also known as eConsults or “curbside consults”. Sitka and their virtual specialty provider network, Sitka Medical Associates, work with payers, provider groups and accountable care organizations to improve acce...

In this episode, we chatted with Dr. Somi Javaid , Founder & Chief Medical Officer of HerMD . Dr. Somi Javaid is a board-certified OBGYN and pioneer in the women’s sexual healthcare space. She founded HerMD, a female-forward, insurance-based women’s healthcare center to help educate, advocate for, and empower women to take control of their health care. Recently, HerMD raised $10 Million in the...

In this episode, I sat down with Isabelle Kenyon , CEO and Founder of Calibrate . Founded in 2020, Calibrate is a metabolic health company on a mission to change the way the world treats weight. In August of 2021, Calibrate raised a $100M Series B round led by Founders Fund and Tiger Global. Since then, the company has hired hundreds of new employees and onboarded thousands of new patients, releas...

In this episode, I sat down with the co-founders of Equip , Kristina Saffran and Erin Parks, PhD . Equip provides virtual, evidence-based eating disorder treatment, and the company has expanded rapidly over the last few years. In February 2022, it raised a $58 million Series B funding round from The Chernin Group, Tiger Capital, General Catalyst, and other existing investors. Erin, Kristina, and I...

In this episode, we sat down with Virgílio “V” Bento , Founder & CEO of SWORD Health . SWORD Health aims to bring world-class musculoskeletal (MSK) care to patients around the world by connecting members with physical therapists and digital therapists through a member app that combines sensor technology with telemedicine to prevent, relieve, and accelerate the healing of acute conditions, chro...

This episode’s guest is Frank Cheung , CEO and Co-Founder of Cerebrae , a startup that aims to accelerate the adoption of value-based care by helping providers and payers measure, forecast, and validate the financial ROI of emerging approaches to patient care. Through this work, they aim to radically simplify the process of commercializing value-based care delivery. They are backed by several inve...

Our guest on this episode is Stephen Smith , CEO of NOCD , a digital health company delivering high-quality virtual care for patients with obsessive compulsive disorder , or OCD . NOCD performs over 140,000 virtual therapy sessions annually, and has established a community-driven model that connects patients around the world to peers and licensed therapists. Last year, NOCD raised a $33 million Se...

In this episode, we sat down with Jia Jia Ye , CEO & Co-Founder of Springtide Child Development , a company that provides integrative, evidence-based, and family-centered care for children with autism spectrum disorder, or ASD. With four clinics open across Massachusetts and Connecticut, and a fifth coming soon, Springtide’s rapid growth is enabling families to better plan for the future, prov...

In this episode, we sat down with Andrew Hines , Founder & CEO of Canvas Medical . Andrew and his team at Canvas Medical build software and APIs to power collaboration between caregivers and developers. Canvas Medical raised $17M in Series A funding in April, 2021. We discussed: Canvas Medical’s vision of building a software platform that connects electronic medical records (EMR) with clinicia...

In the latest episode of The Pulse Podcast by Wharton Digital Health , we interview veteran entrepreneur, Allon Bloch. His latest venture is K Health , a company that is seeking to democratize access to medical information. They do this by allowing users to interact with an AI chatbot that gives them access to data on how millions of people with similar symptoms were diagnosed and treated. On top...

In this episode, we connected with Yury Yakubchyk , the founder and CEO of Elemy . Elemy is an industry leading tech enabled provider of high quality pediatric behavioral care. Inspired by his own personal journey in overcoming childhood ADHD, Yury co-founded Elemy to repair the flawed model of care for childhood behavioral conditions such as autism. Under Yury's leadership, Elemy has grown from 1...

Our guest on this episode is Holly Maloney , a Managing Director at the venture capital firm General Catalyst, where she has a focus on healthcare specifically. She has invested across the digital health space, with companies including Cityblock , Olive , SonderMind , Transcarent , and, most recently, Ribbon Health .

Our guest on this episode is Dr. Ashwini Zenooz (“Ash”), CEO of Commure , a platform that enables health systems, digital health companies, and 3rd party developers to more quickly build interoperable data-driven products for healthcare. Their goal is to facilitate new clinical and operational workflows that leverage a health system’s data infrastructure to improve the patient experience, perform...

In this episode, we sat down with April Koh , the CEO and founder of Spring Health , a comprehensive mental health benefit for employers. April is currently the youngest female to run a unicorn company. We discussed: Spring Health’s focus on providing precision mental healthcare through its proprietary predictive algorithms and science-backed methodology of collecting patient self-reported data Th...

In this episode, we interview Chris Severn , the Co-Founder and CEO of Turquoise Health , a company working to bring real price transparency to healthcare. With recent and upcoming waves in pricing legislation, combined with its fundraise led by a16z earlier this year, Turquoise is tackling the transparency problem from several angles by creating new tools for patients, payers, and providers.

In this episode, we sat down with Karan Singh , Co-Founder & COO of Ginger , now Headspace Health , through a merger with Headspace that was announced in August, 2021. Headspace Health is the world’s leading provider of mental health and wellbeing solutions. We discussed: Ginger’s mission to address mental healthcare gaps by creating a comprehensive digital on-demand solution offering full sta...

In this episode, we interview Fay Rotenberg, CEO of Firefly Health . We chat about her experience joining Firefly Health in 2017, discussing how what started as a virtual-first primary care offering has developed into a solution that will help consumers get, find, and pay for care. Firefly Health is trying to deliver concierge medicine at scale. They began with a virtual-first primary care offerin...

In this episode, we interview the GoodRx co-founder and CEO, Doug Hirsch . We chat about his experience founding GoodRx, covering topics ranging from a time when his father literally knocked on pharmacy doors in NYC to get drug prices to their recent public offering. GoodRx seeks to expand access and affordability for prescription drugs. To do this, they process ~200 billion daily cash-pay price p...

In this episode, we interview   Michelle Carnahan , President of Thirty Madison . We discuss Michelle’s pivot from pharmaceutical executive to leader of a health tech unicorn and what that means for Thirty Madison going forward. Thirty Madison’s mission is to be a human-first healthcare company delivering specialized care and treatment to everyone. They recently completed a $140M Series C rai...

In this episode, we interview Saeju Jeong , the Co-Founder and CEO of Noom . Founded in 2008, the company’s mission is to help people everywhere lead healthier lives through behavior change. Although today they are best known for their weight loss app, the company is making a push to extend its behavior change platform further into chronic care, supported by their recent $540 million Series F grow...

In this episode, we chatted with Vijay Patel , Co-Founder and Partner at CVS Health Ventures , a $100M fund dedicated to investing and partnering with high-potential health technology startups aimed at building towards CVS’ vision of creating more consumer-centric care. We discussed: The establishment of CVS Health Ventures as a fund dedicated to digital health opportunities, creating the potentia...

In this episode, we interview Jonathan Bush , the founder and CEO of Zus Health . We discuss his broad vision for Zus as well as some of his learnings from founding and leading athenahealth and from serving as the Executive Chairman of Firefly Health . Zus Health is seeking to enable the new wave of digital-first provider organizations by building a unified patient record and a toolkit with which...