Category Archives: Uncategorized

GE Healthcare’s Karley Yoder Builds Bridges With AI

March 16, 2021Business, Health, Innovation, Startups, UncategorizedAccess to care, Cost to Zero, Cure Disease, GE, karley yoder, Logan PlasterStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:39 — 77.8MB)

Karley Yoder made a name for herself in the digital health world at Doctor on Demand and Apple before launching a career at GE Healthcare, where she now serves as Vice President and General Manager of Artificial Intelligence. Today, she works to find the signal in the noise surrounding AI, helping the company leverage its potential to improve patient outcomes, rather than to apply, as she puts it, “technology for technology’s sake.” Yoder joined the StartUp Health community at a recent Fireside Chat, where she explained how impact-driven AI can help to expand care teams, why effective partnerships are built on practical approaches to problems, and how an ecosystem of “GE-plus-others” can help ensure positive, sustainable change.

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Cleveland Clinic’s Dr. Toby Cosgrove Sees Moonshot Potential in an After-COVID World

March 2, 2021Business, Health, Innovation, Startups, UncategorizedAccess to care, Pandemic Response, Steven Krein, Unity StoakesStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:27 — 61.1MB)

While this may be the first global pandemic Toby Cosgrove, MD, has experienced, he’s seen a lot in his nearly 50-year career. The Executive Advisor and former CEO and President of Cleveland Clinic is also a former heart surgeon, a Vietnam War veteran, and now a member of the StartUp Health board of advisors and our Health Moonshot Impact Force. As Dr. Cosgrove sees it, COVID-19 has shifted the national healthcare puzzle to reveal its missing pieces, creating new openings for improvement and innovation. These include new delivery systems for healthcare, greater collaboration, better use of data, and accelerated innovation. In a recent conversation with the StartUp Health community led by Steven Krein and Unity Stoakes, Dr. Cosgrove shared his thoughts on our current moment and what comes next.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
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The Surprising Secret to Doctor.com’s Success

February 16, 2021Business, Health, Innovation, Startups, UncategorizedAccess to care, andrei zimiles, doctor.com, Logan Plaster, reed mollins, StartUp HealthStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:25 — 74.7MB)

Andrei Zimiles and Reed Mollins, founders of Doctor.com, are longtime friends and longtime friends of StartUp Health. The two met as pre-teens at summer camp and led parallel lives before becoming partners and entrepreneurs, dropping out of high school at age 16 and transferring out of and into the very same colleges. And just as their friendship has been something of a journey, so, too, has their professional relationship, from Doctor.com’s origins at rented desks in a dusty Soho co-working space (the two vividly recall a garbage bag duct-taped over a broken window) to its acquisition this past fall by Press Ganey.

Zimiles and Mollins joined StartUp Health back in 2013 and returned to share their hard-won wisdom at a recent Fireside Chat. In a wide-ranging conversation amongst friends, the duo explained how their attitude towards sales and approach to building partnerships took Doctor.com from its humble beginnings to its lucrative exit.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com

Walmart Could Magnify Americans’ Access to Healthcare — With the Help of Key Startups

February 11, 2021Business, Health, Innovation, Startups, UncategorizedAccess to care, dentistry, diagnostics, Doctor, Doctor visits, Evan Schnur, Logan Plaster, Moonshots, Primary care, StartUp Health, Walmart, Walmart HealthStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:31 — 57.0MB)

In the era of social distancing, a doctor’s appointment looks a little different than it did a year ago. But Evan Schnur, Director of Healthcare Information and Strategy at Walmart, says the experience will continue to evolve, even after in-person visits resume. Schnur trained as a pharmacist and currently leads the development of the growing range of healthcare services at Walmart Health, which now include primary care visits, diagnostics, and dentistry. The massive scale of the world’s largest company by revenue offers new avenues for prevention and treatment that could shatter the paradigm for medical care. In a recent StartUp Health Fireside Chat, Schnur explained what that future might look like and why healthcare startups might play a key role.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com

UCSF’s Dr. Michael Blum Talks How COVID-19 Changed Expectations Around Virtual Care at the Highest Institutional Levels

December 15, 2020Uncategorizedcoronavirus, Covid 19, COVID19, Logan Plaster, Pandemic ResponseStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 58:24 — 80.2MB)

As a cardiologist and the Chief Digital Transformation Officer at the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Michael Blum assesses and deploys digital health technology across UCSF’s multi-layered health system. In this week’s podcast episode, we get an inside look at how one of the biggest, most advanced hospital systems in the United States thinks about health innovation, what successful integration looks like, what he looks for in a startup partner, and how COVID-19 changed expectations around virtual care at the highest institutional levels. This episode is pulled from a recent StartUp Health Fireside Chat where StartUp Health’s Editor-in-Chief, Logan Plaster, interviewed Dr. Michael Blum in a live session, which was attended by a panel of founders from the Startup Health portfolio.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
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Conversa Health Built on Its Virtual Care Platform to Quickly Launch COVID-19 Screening Tools for Frontline Workers

December 8, 2020UncategorizedAccess to care, coronavirus, Cost to Zero, Covid 19, COVID19, Cure Disease, Logan Plaster, Pandemic ResponseStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:30 — 68.0MB)

Today’s episode is a conversation with Murray Brozinsky, CEO of Conversa Health. Before COVID-19 struck, Conversa was working with big health systems, supplying them with a type of chatbot that kept patients and doctors connected between appointments. Turns out a few well-worded and well-timed questions, even if they’re automated, can improve care and reduce costly bouncebacks. When COVID-19 hit, Murray and his team knew they had the technology – and institutional relationships – to really make a difference. They quickly scaled up multiple COVID-specific products using automated chat and have seen massive growth in 2020 as a result. This conversation with Murray is pulled from a recent Expert Office Hour, which was attended virtually by an audience of other founders from the StartUp Health portfolio. We dug into how Conversa was able to stay nimble and grow in spite of uncertainty, and other Health Transformers weigh in with their thoughts as well.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
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Brand Newland Is Fighting Opioid Overprescribing by Improving and Standardizing the Surgery Experience

November 24, 2020UncategorizedAccess to care, Addiction, Cost to Zero, Logan PlasterStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:43 — 34.0MB)

Established with the goal of improving recovery time and bettering outcomes for patients undergoing surgical procedures, the Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) protocols have revolutionized that experience. Unfortunately, variations in surgical practices do not allow every patient to benefit. Brand Newland, CEO and Co-founder of Goldfinch Health, hopes to change that. Through Goldfinch, Newland is making sure that employers are able to provide their patients with the best surgery options available; An opportunity for patients to recover faster, employers pay less in sick leave, insurance companies pay for fewer complications and setbacks. Finally, and perhaps most importantly at this moment in history, faster recovery times mean less reliance on opioids. And Newland sees his work at Goldfinch as a critical upstream component to fighting the opioid crisis.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
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How LifeBio Is Using the Power of Storytelling to Improve Mental Health for Seniors

November 10, 2020Business, Health, Innovation, Startups, UncategorizedBeth Sanders, coronavirus, Covid 19, COVID19, elder care, Healthy Longevity, LifeBio, Logan Plaster, Loneliness, Longevity, memory care, mental health, Pandemic Response, senior, StartUp HealthStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:52 — 42.4MB)

In 2020, the coronavirus caused a societal lock-down like this generation has never seen before. Many who were already isolated and lonely — like seniors – were put into a desperate situation. Beth Sanders, CEO and Co-founder of LifeBio, a startup that’s been with StartUp Health since 2014, has always had a heart for isolated and lonely seniors. She’d worked with them for years, helping them to tell their stories, using what’s called reminiscence therapy. But COVID-19 put LifeBio and this important work into overdrive. Not only was the work needed more than ever, but LifeBio was able to connect the dots between fighting loneliness and improving health outcomes. Turns out a phone call with a trained conversationalist can fight depression, anxiety and keep you mentally nimble. Their findings got the attention of health systems, insurance companies, and even won them a coveted SBIR grant. Logan Plaster, Media Director at StartUp Health, caught up with Sanders to learn more about how LifeBio works and the critical role of storytelling in healthcare in a post-COVID world.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com

New VC Funds Put Women’s Health Moonshot Front and Center

November 4, 2020Business, Health, Innovation, Startups, UncategorizedBlack Female Entrepreneurs, Covid 19, female entrepreneurs, health innovation, investing, investment, Katya Hancock, Maria Velissaris, StartUp Health, SteelSky Ventures, VC firm, Venture, womens healthStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:47 — 62.9MB)

In today’s venture capital world, the vast majority of decisions are made by male investors – by one recent estimate, 87% of partners at digital health venture funds are men. This imbalance has resulted in an overall lack of investment in women’s health innovations, and in female founders. That’s shifting thanks in part to investors like Maria Velissaris, our guest on this week’s episode. Maria was a successful entrepreneur and business development maven before she became a managing Partner at SteelSky Ventures. SteelSky is a VC firm with a laser focus on women’s health, and a desire to see women-run startups get the funding they deserve. Today’s conversation has been pulled from an expert office hour held by StartUp Health and attended by entrepreneurs from the StartUp Health portfolio. So in addition to Maria’s insights – on investment trends, how to pitch, and how COVID-19 has changed the game – you’ll get to hear real-life questions from founders who are working in the trenches. The session was moderated by Katya Hancock, StartUp Health’s Investor Network Director. Enjoy.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
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Venus Williams Gets Candid About Entrepreneurship, Wellness and Bouncing Back From COVID-19

October 27, 2020Business, Health, Innovation, Startups, UncategorizedAlison Harmelin, Covid 19, COVID19, entrepreneurship, Health, health innovation, invest, investing, Logan Plaster, Longevity, massage, Startup, StartUp Health, Tennis, Venus Williams, ZeelStartUp Health NOW

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:23 — 28.0MB)

Tennis icon and Olympian Venus Williams has built on her success on the court to become a savvy and successful investor, advisor and entrepreneur. Now she’s making her mark on health innovation. Venus Williams has partnered with Zeel, the wellness company that invented the idea of massage-on-demand. Now, Zeel has expanded to a tech-platform that offers a range of wellness on the go services. Recently, Zeel Co-founder Alison Harmelin sat down with the iconic tennis star to get her candid thoughts about health, entrepreneurship, and how startups can bounce back from COVID-19 even stronger than they started.

Entrepreneurs: How to get investment from StartUp Health startuphealth.com
Investors: How to invest in StartUp Health Moonshots healthmoonshots.com