Clinical Research Coach

You can build groundbreaking technology. But can you get people to trust it, adopt it, and actually use it?

In this episode of The Clinical Research Coach, Leanne Woehlke sits down with Arvita Tripati, Founder of Vahana Labs and Fractional COO, for a thought-provoking conversation about what it really takes to turn healthcare innovation into meaningful impact.

From AI adoption and clinical trial workflows to leadership, resilience, and the power of human connection, Arvita brings a refreshing perspective shaped by her unconventional journey from studying history to leading across quality, regulatory affairs, and health technology.

Together, they explore why promising innovations get stuck in endless pilots, how organizations accumulate "trust debt," and why the people who ultimately determine whether AI succeeds often aren't technologists at all.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why AI initiatives fail: The overlooked role of trust, workflow integration, and the people expected to use new technology.

• The hidden cost of "trust debt": Why a technically successful solution isn't necessarily ready for real-world adoption.

• AI governance vs. governance theater: What responsible oversight actually looks like when technology continues to evolve.

• The last 20% of innovation: Why change management, stakeholder engagement, and operational readiness can make or break a promising product.

• Building for the whole patient journey: Moving beyond isolated point solutions to create meaningful, lasting improvements in healthcare.

• Lessons for founders and leaders: What investors look for, how to build genuine professional relationships, and why resilience is about more than simply pushing harder.

Arvita also shares lessons from navigating rapid regulatory change during the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of staying curious, and a personal reflection on what it means to lead a life defined by more than work.

Whether you're developing AI solutions, running clinical trials, building a health tech company, or navigating your next career chapter, this conversation challenges you to think differently about innovation, leadership, and lasting impact.

Connect with Arvita:

• Vahana Labs: https://vahanalabs.ai/

• Operating in Health Tech newsletter: https://operatinginhealthtech.com

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/atripati

What if the biggest opportunity for AI in clinical research isn't developing more technology, but solving the problems that have frustrated research teams for decades?

In this episode of The Clinical Research Coach, Leanne Woehlke sits down with Miles Wingfield, founder of Intake AI, for a candid conversation about innovation, entrepreneurship, and what it really takes to bring meaningful AI solutions into clinical research.

From automating time-consuming study startup tasks to rethinking how we support research coordinators and patients, Miles shares his journey as a young founder navigating a highly regulated industry. He also opens up about an early business pivot, the importance of listening to research sites, and why technology should solve real problems rather than create new ones.

Together, Leanne and Miles explore where AI can make the greatest impact, what should remain in human hands, and how the industry can balance innovation with patient safety, data privacy, and trust.

In this episode, you'll hear about:

• Why clinical research needs fewer solutions looking for problems

• How AI can reduce administrative burden and accelerate study startup

• Lessons learned from building, testing, and pivoting an AI startup

• Where AI belongs in patient engagement and where human oversight matters

• Navigating data security, regulatory requirements, and accountability

• The potential for AI to improve health equity and access to clinical trials

Whether you're a clinical research professional, site leader, technology innovator, or simply curious about the future of AI in healthcare, this conversation offers a fresh perspective on how meaningful innovation happens.

Connect with Miles Wingfield:
LinkedIn: Miles Wingfield
Website: https://useintake.ai

Follow The Clinical Research Coach for conversations with the people, leaders, and innovators shaping the future of clinical research.

What happens after a patient expresses interest in a clinical trial?

In this episode, Leanne talks with Daniel Johnson, Commercial VP at OpenClinica, about the “leaky bucket” of patient recruitment and why so many potential participants fall through the cracks between initial interest and enrollment.

Daniel shares how OpenClinica’s StudyHub connects recruitment, lead management, patient engagement, and electronic data capture into a more streamlined experience. They also discuss the role of automation, analytics, personalized communication, and the future potential of AI to help study teams stay connected with patients.

The conversation reinforces an important point: successful recruitment is not just about generating leads. It is about helping patients feel informed, supported, and valued throughout the journey.

Enjoy this episode!

More about Daniel Johnson:

Daniel Johnson is the Commercial Vice President at OpenClinica, where he leads the company's commercial strategy across sales, customer success, and go-to-market execution. Since joining BuildClinical in 2023 and helping lead its integration into OpenClinica, Daniel has focused on helping research organizations improve participant recruitment, clinical trial operations, and study execution. 

His experience spans customer success, commercial leadership, and operational execution, with a passion for connecting technology to the real-world challenges faced by sponsors, CROs, and academic research teams. Today, he is focused on expanding adoption of solutions like Study Hub and helping research organizations run more efficient, connected clinical trials.

To connect with Daniel on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-johnson19/

To learn more about OpenClinica:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/openclinica/

https://www.openclinica.com/

In this episode of The Clinical Research Coach, host Leanne Woehlke sits down with Angela Radcliffe for a powerful conversation about empathy, innovation, and why the future of clinical research must remain deeply human.

Angela shares the personal experiences that shaped her passion for healthcare and clinical research, including the profound impact clinical trials had on her own family. Together, Leanne and Angela explore how the industry can embrace AI and emerging technologies without losing the trust, compassion, and human connection patients need most.

From patient experience and purpose-driven leadership to the balance between technology and empathy, this episode is a reminder that innovation works best when it serves people first.

If you care about the future of clinical research, patient trust, and keeping humanity at the center of healthcare innovation, this conversation is one you won’t want to miss.

Learn More:

About Angela:

Angela Radcliffe is a dynamic speaker, best-selling author, and impact influencer who advocates for teaching children (ages 8-14) health, data and AI literacy to provide them with the necessary skills and knowledge to thrive in a data-driven world. She’s the author of “Quantum Kids Guardians of AI”, an activity book that introduces elementary and middle school students to AI fundamentals through seven engaging missions. The book weaves concepts like neural networks, large language models, data ethics, and prompt engineering into relatable stories about school, social media, and robotics. It empowers young readers to: - Apply AI knowledge to homework and hobbies- Navigate Internet safety - Understand technology's role in addressing societal challenges- Make informed decisions about health and personal data protection.With 20+ years of experience, Angela drives progress in medical research, healthcare marketing, and healthcare data and artificial intelligence. She understands the intricate interplay of trust, value, and risk in unleashing power from petabytes of data. Frequently at the helm of global endeavors, including as Head of Digital Performance Improvement and Innovation for Research and Early Development IT, Head of Enterprise Digital Strategy Innovation, and Head of Enterprise Data Governance at Bristol Myers Squibb, she's orchestrated transitions from molecular concepts to market-ready solutions and from boardroom strategies to tangible implementations that transform customers into champions. Over the years, Angela has worked closely with thousands of patients participating in clinical trials, partnered seamlessly with tech luminaries and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with industry peers with a single focus: pushing, often pulling, clinical research and healthcare forward. Angela’s compelling thought leadership combines technical insights on AI’s growing impact with her personal stories of overcoming adversity. Her experiences such as growing up poor, leaving an abusive spouse, losing her 21-year-old brother to an undiagnosed heart condition, and raising a neurodivergent daughter fuel her mission to advance health, data and AI literacy. This unique background and her stellar communications and interpersonal skills make her a sought-after speaker for podcasts and with life sciences, patient education, mental health, data privacy, teacher and parent organizations.

Connect with Angela Radcliffe on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-radcliffe-2560256/

Angela's Website:

https://intelligenceapplied.ai/

Angela's Books:

The Five Laws of Applied Intelligence: Why Your Humanity Is Your Superpower and How to Use It to Win in a World of Machines

Quantum Kids Guardians of AI: Story Quest and Activity Book

In this episode of The Clinical Research Coach, Leanne sits down with Lindsey Wahlstrom to explore how one family’s experience with rare disease is helping reshape conversations around pediatric care, patient advocacy, and human-centered healthcare.

Lindsey shares the story of her daughter Rona, a joyful and science-loving child diagnosed with acquired aplastic anemia at five years old. What began as Rona’s dream of creating a YouTube show called “Rona’s Rockin’ Fun Lab” evolved into Rona's Fun Lab, a mission-driven initiative focused on improving the experience of children and families navigating serious illness.

Together, Leanne and Lindsey discuss the realities caregivers face behind hospital doors, from navigating complex medical decisions in the middle of the night to becoming fierce advocates for loved ones during the most vulnerable moments. Lindsey also shares how her background in clinical research shaped her role as what hospital residents jokingly called a “momatologist,” a parent who quickly became an expert in her child’s condition and care.

This conversation explores grief, resilience, trauma, healing, and the importance of balancing breakthroughs in treatment with breakthroughs in joy, compassion, and human connection. It is a powerful reminder that patients and caregivers are not just participants in healthcare. They are people deserving of dignity, understanding, and meaningful moments along the way.

Listeners will walk away inspired to think differently about patient care, communication, advocacy, and what it truly means to humanize healthcare.

For more information:

Lindsey Wahlstrom, Momatologist, works at the intersection of medical research, caregiving, and meaning-making. After more than a decade supporting patient engagement across 200+ clinical trials, Lindsey’s understanding of success in healthcare was radically reshaped when her daughter, Rona, was diagnosed with and died from a rare disease in 2023. She is the co-founder and Chief Momatologist of Rona’s FUN LAB, a nonprofit supporting critically ill children and the teams who care for them, alongside her ongoing work in patient engagement and research. Her work challenges how we define outcomes — and what it truly means to help.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindseywahlstrom/

Rona's Fun Lab:

https://www.ronasfunlab.org/

Rona's Fun Lab on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@RonasFUNLAB

Instagram:

@Ronasfunlab

Lindsey will be speaking at TedX Mt Hood on May 16th, 2026. Check back for a link to her talk.

In this episode, Leanne Woehlke sits down with Dr. Anastasia Christianson, a seasoned pharmaceutical leader with over 30 years of experience across major companies including AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Johnson & Johnson. Now a consultant and advisor to emerging innovators, Anastasia shares a grounded perspective on the evolving role of AI in life sciences.

The conversation moves beyond AI hype to practical application, emphasizing that while AI is already improving operational efficiency across drug discovery and clinical trials, its greatest potential lies in unlocking innovation, surfacing insights hidden within complex datasets that humans alone cannot easily detect.

A central theme is the need to address systemic bottlenecks in clinical trials holistically rather than incrementally. Anastasia highlights how optimizing one step often shifts inefficiencies downstream, advocating instead for end-to-end transformation. The discussion explores persistent challenges in patient recruitment, including site bias, limited access to diverse populations, and underutilized direct-to-patient strategies.

Leanne and Anastasia also examine the importance of patient-centric design, ensuring trials are accessible, understandable, and engaging to improve retention and outcomes. They discuss the promise of AI-enabled solutions such as virtual waiting rooms, decentralized trials, and multi-trial matching systems that could dramatically improve the patient experience.

The episode closes with insights for entrepreneurs entering the AI healthcare space, stressing the importance of data integrity, bias mitigation, validation, and clear market positioning. Ultimately, Anastasia frames AI as a potential “universal equalizer” in healthcare, if implemented responsibly, ethically, and with the right data foundation.

To learn more about Dr Anastasia Christianson:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/anastasiac/

In this episode of The Clinical Research Coach, host Leanne Woehlke sits down with Alen Hadzic, Founder and CEO of CT Scan, to explore how data, digital advertising, and AI are reshaping the way patients are enrolled into clinical trials.

Coming from a background in consulting, marketing strategy, and lead generation, Alen brings a fresh lens to one of the industry’s most persistent challenges—patient recruitment and enrollment. Rather than relying on traditional recruitment models, his company has developed a methodology called Predictive Enrollment Engineering, designed to calculate and optimize cost-per-enrollment using real-world advertising data.

Alen shares how CT Scan’s patent-pending AI platform, Dyno AI, analyzes millions of dollars in digital advertising performance across dozens of clinical research projects to model enrollment funnels—from ad engagement and qualification to phone contact, eligibility, and final enrollment.

During the conversation, Leanne and Alen discuss:

• Why traditional patient recruitment models often fail to deliver results

• The hidden friction points that cause patients to drop out of the enrollment funnel

• How digital advertising can be used to measure and optimize patient interest

• The importance of rapid follow-up and human engagement in improving response rates

• How CT Scan achieves a 65% phone answer rate through immediate outreach and optimized workflows

• Why focusing on cost per enrollment—not cost per lead—changes the entire recruitment strategy

Alen also shares his unconventional journey into the clinical trials industry—from early exposure to research through his physician father to a career in consulting and entrepreneurship that ultimately led him to rethink how clinical trials approach patient enrollment.

If clinical trial recruitment has ever felt unpredictable, inefficient, or frustrating, this episode offers a data-driven perspective on how AI, marketing science, and operational discipline could transform enrollment into a measurable and predictable process.

Tune in to learn how predictive modeling and digital marketing principles may help bring new optimism to clinical trial enrollment.

Alen Hadzic is a healthcare technology entrepreneur focused on bringing predictability and operational rigor to clinical trial enrollment. He is the Founder and CEO of CT SCAN™, a company developing systems to remove uncertainty from patient recruitment by engineering enrollment as a measurable process rather than a marketing outcome. His work centers on Predictive Enrollment Engineering™, a methodology that models each stage of the patient journey, from initial awareness through screening and enrollment, using probability-based performance metrics. The company’s patent-pending enrollment technology, DYNO Ai™, analyzes operational and advertising data to forecast cost-per-enrollment and reduce study timelines.

Hadzic holds a graduate degree from Columbia University and completed a Master’s in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Vlerick Business School, a top-ranked European program in the field. His background combines business strategy, systems thinking, and applied analytics in clinical research operations.

Outside of his professional work, he is an active musician who records and performs his own material, playing guitar, drums, and vocals. He approaches both technology and music with a similar philosophy: structured systems can create reliable outcomes, but creativity determines how far those outcomes can be pushed.

In this episode of the Clinical Research Coach, I sit down with Ella Balasa, a cystic fibrosis patient advocate whose lived experience is shaping how our industry understands trust, transparency, and meaningful patient engagement.

Diagnosed in infancy with cystic fibrosis, a progressive genetic lung disease, Ella has spent her life navigating hospital systems, breakthrough therapies, and clinical trials — not as an abstract participant, but as someone whose health and future depend on research progress. Along the way, she has become a powerful voice for improving how industry partners with patients.

In this conversation, Ella shares what sponsors, sites, and biotech leaders often overlook:

* Patient experience is never one-size-fits-all — even within the same diagnosis.

* Patients learn about trials through trusted networks, not just databases or digital ads.

* Transparency builds confidence and drives long-term participation in research.

* Dropout affects more than timelines — it influences trust and future enrollment decisions.

* Technology should support patients, but never replace human connection.

Ella’s perspective challenges us to think beyond enrollment metrics and toward something deeper: relational trust. Because sustainable progress in clinical research depends on listening to patients as individuals, partners, and experts in their own lives.

To learn more about Ella:

Https:/ellabalasa.com

In this episode of Clinical Research Coach, host Leanne Woehlke sits down with Dr. Rohan Lall for a candid, thought-provoking conversation on what it truly takes to modernize clinical research—without losing sight of patients, providers, or purpose.

Dr. Lall brings a rare dual perspective as a practicing physician and clinical research leader, offering firsthand insight into the structural, cultural, and operational challenges that slow progress across trials today.

Together, Leanne and Dr. Lall explore how clinical research must evolve to better reflect real-world care, rebuild trust with patients, and support sites and investigators who are stretched thin.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• Why many clinical trials still feel disconnected from everyday clinical care—and how to close that gap

• The growing tension between protocol complexity and patient participation

• What physicians actually need to stay engaged in research long-term

• How trust, communication, and operational empathy impact enrollment and retention

• Where technology helps—and where human connection remains irreplaceable

• Dr. Lall’s vision for a more sustainable, clinician-friendly, patient-ready research ecosystem

This conversation is a must-listen for sponsors, CROs, sites, and innovators who believe the future of clinical research depends not just on better technology, but on better alignment between medicine, operations, and the lived experience of patients.

Rohan Lall, MD M Health FarviewUniversity of Minnesota Medical Center  

Spine Surgery / Neurosurgery/

Chief Medical Officer SynerFuse BIO:Dr Rohan R. Lall is a neurosurgeon in Edina, Minnesota and is affiliated withmultiple hospitals in the area, including M Health FairviewUniversity of Minnesota Medical Center and M Health FairviewSouthdale Hospital. He received his medical degree from University of Chicago Division of the Biological Sciences The Pritzker School of Medicine. He has expertise in treating spinalfusion, spinal stenosis and spondylosis, among other conditions 

Dr Lall is a former investigator of the SynerFuse Proof of Concept trial and pioneered the e-TLIF procedure He performed the world’s firstsolo SynerFuse e-TLIF procedure as well as the first 2-level procedure. SynerFuse®e-TLIF™ procedure, a ULE™ Therapy (Ultra Low Energy), is used to addresschronic low back and leg pain for spinal fusion patients.

Dr Lall specializes in robotic and minimally invasive surgery, complex spinal surgery, brain for brain and spinal tumors and skullbase surgery/ pituitary tumor surgery.  He has been a leader in robotic spinal surgery and actively involved in the development of new technologies in spine surgery. The Innovative procedure integrates conventional spinal surgery techniques with targeted nerve stimulation to address chronic back pain at its source. These nerve stimulators fundamentallyalter the nerve’s ability to transmit pain signals to the brain. The innovative implant allows patients to control nerve stimulation via smartphone, with early trial participants reporting significant pain reduction and improved quality of life without opioid dependence.  

In this powerful and eye-opening conversation, Leanne Woehlke sits down with Dr. Ruchir Gupta, a double board-certified pain specialist and founder of Mountain View Headache and Spine Institute, to explore the evolving world of chronic pain treatment and clinical research.

Dr. Gupta shares his journey from anesthesiology into chronic pain medicine and research, highlighting why traditional approaches often fail and how emerging therapies like ketamine infusions and stem cell treatments offer new hope. Together, they discuss the importance of changing the language around "experimental" medicine, improving access to clinical trials, and educating patients and physicians about cutting-edge but underutilized treatments.

They also tackle:

• The broken incentives in insurance-driven medicine

• How to ethically introduce new treatments to patients

• The power of AI and EMRs in revolutionizing clinical trial recruitment

• Rebuilding trust in the medical system through transparency and education

This episode is a must-listen for healthcare professionals, clinical researchers, and patients seeking alternatives to outdated treatments and a deeper understanding of how clinical research can drive real change in patient care.

Dr Ruchir Gupta:

Dr. Ruchir Gupta is a board-certified pain specialist and anesthesiologist with advanced training in chronic pain management from the Mayo Clinic’s Alix School of Medicine in Arizona. A New York native, he completed medical school at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse and his anesthesiology residency at New York Medical College – St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan.

With over 20 peer-reviewed publications and two medical textbooks to his name, Dr. Gupta blends cutting-edge Western medicine with holistic, nature-based therapies. His areas of expertise include interventional pain management, IV infusion therapy, bone marrow concentrate procedures, and regenerative orthopedics.

Dr. Gupta is a member of several leading professional societies, including the American Society of Pain and Neuroscience and the American Headache Society. He currently practices in Mesa and Phoenix, Arizona, where he is also part of the elite Regenexx network of interventional orthopedic physicians.

To connect with Dr Gupta:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruchir-gupta-3187326b/

https://mountainviewheadacheandspine.com/