TalTech Digital Health

In this episode of TalTech Digital Health Podcast, Jarno Habicht, former World Health Organization (WHO) Representative in Ukraine and incoming CEO of North Estonia Medical Centre, shares insights from his career in international healthcare leadership.

We discuss his experience and career path at WHO in Estonia, Moldova, Kyrgyztan and Ukraine, putting a particular focus on how Ukraine's healthcare system has adapted to the challenges of war. Ukraine’s remarkable resilience shines through in the determination of its society and health system to adapt, innovate, and keep delivering care, even under the most difficult circumstances.

Jarno reflects on crisis management and learnings of how to maintain essential health services under immense pressure. The conversation also digs into the role of digital health and innovation in resilience-building. 

Finally, we look ahead to his new role in Estonia and discuss the opportunities and challenges of leading country's largest hospital.

In this special State of Baltic HealthTech episode, Priit Kruus and Sigvards Krongorns look at where health tech and digital health stand across the Baltic region.

Priit covers Estonia. Sigvards takes us south of the Gauja River, covering Latvia, Lithuania and the wider regional picture.

They discuss the mood in each market. Are new companies starting? Are they growing? Are they raising money? Are exits happening?

The episode looks at the differences between Baltic markets and asks whether the region can produce real global medical “rocketships” from the many new early-stage companies now emerging now by the 100s.

Priit and Sigvards also talk about what founders need to understand: how to stay realistic, keep their eyes open, and know whether they are building a unicorn with a less than 1% chance of success (but with huge upside) or something more traditional with much higher odds but a smaller outcome. Also asking the question, which we need more?

A practical discussion for founders, investors and everyone following Baltic health tech.

In this episode Priit Kruus moderates a panel discussion on artificial intelligence in healthcare, recorded during the North Estonia Medical Centre Science Week.

The discussion brings together clinical, technical, cybersecurity and healthtech perspectives: Georgio Francis from Gleamer, Mart Kull from Viljandi Hospital, Jaagup Saare, e-hospital manager at North Estonia Medical Centre and Kristjan Hinn, information security manager at North Estonia Medical Centre.

Together, they explore what AI already means in healthcare today, from radiology AI and clinical decision support to shadow AI, ambient scribing, hospital workflows, data quality, cybersecurity, regulation and the everyday reality of implementing new technologies in clinical practice.

We learn that AI is exposing how inefficient our workflows already are. While at the same time reminding us that its biggest risk isn’t replacing doctors, but confidently getting things almost right.

The conversation asks practical questions: where can AI genuinely improve care, where are the risks still too high, and how should hospitals balance innovation, patient safety, data protection and regulation?

A timely and grounded discussion on how AI is moving from hype into real healthcare work.

Priit Kruus sits down with Dr. Kerli Luks, physician and founder of Muun Health, a startup developing what aims to become the world’s first wearable device for continuous female hormone monitoring. The technology seeks to provide real-time insight into ovulation, fertility, and broader reproductive health -  an area of medicine that has long remained difficult to measure continuously and objectively.

Drawing on her clinical experience as ER and primary care doctor, Kerli shares how years of treating patients with hormonal and fertility challenges revealed a fundamental gap in women’s health: despite rapid advances in digital health and biosensing, reliable tools for monitoring female hormones have remained limited. This realization became the starting point for Muun Health’s ambitious mission.

Together, Priit and Kerli explore the realities behind building breakthrough medical technology -  from biosensor development and physiological complexity to MDR regulation, fundraising, and the long innovation cycles typical of healthcare startups. The conversation offers an honest look at both the promise and the challenges of bringing deep-tech medical innovation from idea to clinical impact.

In this episode, Priit Kruus talks with Professor Erkki Karo, Director of TalTech’s Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance. The discussion was inspired by this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics, awarded for research on creative destruction - Schumpeter’s innovation theory widely taught and applied at Nurkse.

Priit and Erkki ask: Is creative destruction needed, happening, or even possible in healthcare? They explore how change unfolds in a complex and tightly regulated system. Erkki explains how innovation takes place at different levels and through many interacting actors.

They discuss why timing and framing are crucial for reform. Regulation and incentives can both enable and hinder transformation. The conversation concludes with reflections on why healthcare is so hard to change, how measuring real outcomes remains a challenge, and why payment models must evolve to strengthen primary care and value-based innovation.

  In this episode, Priit Kruus talks with Elli Valla, a recent TalTech PhD graduate, about her research using AI and microkinematic analysis to detect Parkinson’s disease through fine motor skill assessment & handwriting on tablet devices. With 96.6% accuracy achieved through synthetic data and deep learning, Elli shares how this method could transform remote diagnostics.

We also dive into the realities of healthcare AI—regulatory hurdles, real-world implementation, and the promise of digital twins in personalized medicine.

Live from the Health Data in Motion conference, a panel of leading experts explored one critical question: Can data standards actually fix the mess in healthcare data? 

Moderated by Priit Kruus, the discussion featured Grahame Grieve (FHIR), Kerli Linna (TEHIK), Hanna Pohjonen (openEHR), and Sulev Reisberg (University of Tartu). From HL7 v3 and CDA to FHIR, openEHR, and OMOP, the conversation went far beyond formats. Panelists tackled the limitations of Estonia’s document-based system and the pressure to move toward event-based, API-driven architectures. They questioned whether Estonia’s centralized approach is a powerful asset—or a growing bottleneck. AI readiness was a hot topic: can we really train useful healthcare algorithms with imperfect, siloed data? The discussion also hit on the true cost of transformation—not just in money, but in shifting mindsets across the system. Everyone agreed: the challenge isn’t choosing a standard, it’s agreeing on how and why to use it. Whether you’re a policymaker, developer, or clinician, this episode unpacks the real-world complexity.

Kust tuleb arstitarkvarasse nupu tellimus – kas praktiseerivalt arstilt või hoopis ministrilt? Sotsiaalminister Karmen Joller avab ausalt tervishoiusüsteemi kitsaskohti, räägib sellest, miks digiarendus ei tohi toimuda arstist mööda minnes. Juttu tuleb ka tervishoiu rahastusmudelite kohatisest absurdsusest ja sellest, kuidas süsteem võib premeerida mõttetuid uuringuid, aga ei toeta piisavalt ennetust ja tulemuslikkust. Lisaks arutleb saatejuht Priit Kruus Karmen Jolleriga meditsiinieetikast, regulatsioonidest ja inimese motivatsioonist püsida terve.

🎙️ #21 Sigvards Krongorns: It’s not just about the product—it’s about the fit.

Kicking off our first-ever special episode on Baltic Health Tech with Sigvards Krongorns, Associate at Verge HealthTech Fund and ex-founder who dared to 3D-print a smarter cast (yes, like Iron Man, but for broken bones) and shake up a system that doesn’t like being shaken. He’s battled the three-headed beast of clinical inertia, regulation hell, and scale-up chaos—so you don’t have to.

💡 Sigvards shares the highs, lows, and “did-that-just-happen?” moments from his startup journey, and how those lessons shape his work now backing early-stage founders at Verge.

In this episode, Sigvards and Priit get real about:

• What it really takes to get innovation into the hands of doctors (spoiler: it’s not just building cool stuff)
• Why the Baltic health tech scene is quietly cooking up some serious magic.
• How  Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania differ in the approach to health tech landscape.
• How cross-border collabs might be the secret sauce to making it all scale.

👉 👀 P.S. This is just the beginning. More Baltic stories coming soon. Follow-up episodes will dive deeper into the ecosystem—because one episode ain't enough!

Our 20th episode dives into policy, as our guest is Jaarika Järviste, Head of Development at the Estonian Health Insurance Fund. In addition, Jaarika shares her experience of working in a hospital and the deeply rooted hierarchy in healthcare as compared to other fields. Jaarika and Priit also talk about what is the government’s role to incentivize the emergence of publicly procured and privately owned digital solutions. The episode is wrapped up with a discussion about the importance of a product manager’s skillset and how to acquire it.

In addition to her work at the Estonian Health Insurance Fund, Jaarika contributes to the development of the Digital Health Master’s programme as a member of the Programme Council.