The Beat

About Peter Micca:

Peter Micca is an Audit & Assurance Partner and National Health Tech leader at Deloitte & Touche LLP. He has 30 years of experience serving a broad array of clients in all sectors of the healthcare, technology, and life sciences industries. He has significant experience with health technology organizations, software as a service (SaaS) organizations, pharmacy benefit management, clinical and diagnostic operations, emerging growth, as well as private equity–financed organizations in life sciences and health technology and services. Micca applies a deep knowledge of industry sector business issues regarding the emerging trends surrounding consumerism, convergence, cost considerations, regulatory and compliance issues, and consolidation.

About Navid Farzad:

Navid is a partner with Frist Cressey Ventures. Prior to joining FCV in 2019, he worked with Morgan Noble, an investment firm that focuses exclusively on companies determined to change the future of healthcare. Before Morgan Noble, he was with Enhanced Equity Funds, a healthcare-focused private equity firm based in New York, and has also previously held positions with Lehman Brothers’ healthcare investment banking division, Ernst & Young’s Transaction Advisory group, and Arthur Andersen’s healthcare practice.

Navid has also served as the Chief Strategy Officer of Continuum Health, a physician enablement company providing practice management and population health services to medical groups. He has been an investor and/or served on the board of directors of Mindoula Health, Continuum Health, Captify Health, Privia Health, and Trusted Health Plans.

He holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts from Loyola University.

About Marcus Osborne:

Marcus Osborne is the Chief Executive Officer at RightMove Health. He is a leader in healthcare, having served in many positions that include almost 15 years at Walmart, where his last role was senior vice president of Walmart Health. He also served on the board of many companies, including Health Here, ZealCare, WebPT, and many others. Marcus got his Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Government from Transylvania University and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Harvard. 

Things You’ll Learn:

• Digital health can only be successful with brick-and-mortar knowledge and the legacy of delivery systems.
• Collaboration can’t be inconsistent and variable, as it needs to have a defined process that can be reproduced.
• Companies that attempt to control another’s innovation get less of its benefit.
• Technology, people, and physician-empowering solutions are the future of health.
• When collaborating, the two parties should be able to bring their best selves to the table.
• Companies should act more and take risks with innovations, as even the things that don't work bring lessons to move forward.

Resources:

• Connect with and follow Peter Micca on LinkedIn.
• Connect with and follow Navid Farzad on LinkedIn.
• Connect with and follow Marcus Osborne on LinkedIn.
• Follow Deloitte on LinkedIn.
• Discover the Deloitte Website!
• Read this paper from Deloitte about Reimagining Innovation Systems in Healthcare.
• Follow Frist Cressey Ventures on LinkedIn!
• Explore the Frist Cressey Ventures Website!
• Follow RightMove Health on LinkedIn.
• Visit the RightMove Health Website!

50% of women distrust the healthcare system in the US. Yet women make up 51% of the population and control 80% of the healthcare dollars.

So, what does it look like to build trust with women in a healthcare setting?

Carolyn Witte is Cofounder and CEO of Tia, the modern medical home for women. Carolyn’s team is dedicated to treating women holistically rather than by body part or life stage.

Tia's Whole Woman, Whole Life care model fuses gynecology, primary care, mental health and evidence-based wellness services to treat women comprehensively.

On this episode of The Beat, Carolyn joins hosts Dr. Jessica Shepherd, Dr. Gautam Gulati and Dr. Jordan Shlain to discuss how Tia was created out of her frustration as a patient and describe the company’s evolution from the Google for women’s health to care delivery platform.
 

Carolyn explains how point solutions exacerbate the fragmentation of healthcare for women and what Tia is doing to serve the whole woman, addressing her physical, mental and reproductive health.

Listen in to understand how Tia builds trust by listening to what real women want and learn what Carolyn’s team does to make women feel seen, heard and cared for.

Topics Covered

• How Tia was created out of Carolyn’s frustration as a patient
• Tia’s evolution from the Google for women’s health to care delivery platform
• Why 50% of women distrust the healthcare system and why it matters
• Carolyn’s take on the politicization of women’s health
• How point solutions exacerbate the fragmentation of healthcare for women
• How Tia serves the whole woman within the framework of health insurance coding and reimbursements
• The biggest users of virtual care (on Tia and among the general population)
• How Tia is supporting women in a post-Dobbs world
• The obstacles Tia faces in terms of reproductive health restrictions, regulations and investment in women’s health
• What Tia does to make women feel seen, heard and cared for
• Carolyn’s dream to give every woman access to Tia-style care
• How Tia builds trust by listening to what real women want

Connect with Carolyn Witte

Tia

Connect with Dr. Jessica Shepherd, Dr. Gautam Gulati & Dr. Jordan Shlain

HLTH

Dr. Shepherd on Twitter

Dr. Shepherd on LinkedIn

Dr. Gulati on Twitter

Dr. Gulati on LinkedIn

Dr. Shlain on Twitter

Dr. Shlain on LinkedIn

Resources

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization

Tim Urban’s Life Calendar

About Aamer Mumtaz:

Aamer is a healthcare operations and growth expert with over 20 years of broad-based experience as a transformation leader. In addition to advising complex healthcare systems and facilities on strategies to address systemic operational and strategic challenges, Aamer has served as a successful growth and operations executive in multiple digital health labor marketplaces. He has a particular focus on workforce transformation and is passionate about developing and implementing equitable and sustainable labor solutions in healthcare.

Things You’ll Learn:

• There was about a 27% turnover for nursing in the United States in 2022; after 2023 more than half of healthcare systems will be in a severe shortage.
• A third of all staffing dollars and a quarter of all staffing hours are provided by contract labor. 
• Most travel nursing contracts range from 12 to 13 weeks on average.
• Nurses have never had the right financial structures or incentives to consider patient care a career.
• ShiftMed works with W-2 employees and pays their payroll taxes, giving them workers' compensation and other benefits like transportation.
• ShiftMed allows health systems and facilities to book employees weeks in advance and change their needs as the time comes close. Still, it also allows them to book guaranteed shifts, which are appealing to employees as they will have some security.

Resources:

• Connect with and follow Aamer Mumtaz on LinkedIn.
• Follow ShiftMed on LinkedIn.
• Explore the ShiftMed Website.

Breakthrough health tech is useless if it fails to meet people where they are, especially when it comes to underserved populations.
 

So, how do we encourage VCs to invest in culturally competent digital health solutions? How do we direct capital in a way that promotes health equity for women and communities of color?

Deena Shakir is Partner at Lux Capital, where she invests in transformative technologies improving lives and livelihoods.
 

She is passionate about investing in women's health, digital health infrastructure, health equity and foodtech, and her portfolio includes notable startups like Maven Clinic, Everly Health and Gameto.
 

On this episode of The Beat, Deena joins host Dr. Jessica Shepherd to discuss the fertility and maternal health crises we face in the US and the $90 million Lux has invested to address these issues.

Deena describes some of the category leading companies in the Lux health tech portfolio and explains how she thinks about putting women’s health at the forefront of research, technology and innovation.

Listen in for insight on building technologies that meet people where they are and get Deena’s take on the future of the healthcare investment landscape.

Topics Covered

• Deena’s journey to becoming a VC in health and wellness tech
• The $90M Lux has focused on investing in women’s health
• Deena’s insight on the fertility and maternal health crises we face in the US
• The category leading companies in integrated women’s health in the Luxe portfolio
• Putting women’s health at the forefront of research, technology and innovation
• How the conversation around women’s health is changing among VCs
• How innovation has improved coming out of the pandemic
• Why women in leadership serve as champions for cultural competency in healthcare
• How time spent with her founders lifts Deena up on a bad day

Connect with Deena Shakir

Deena at Lux Capital

Connect with Dr. Jessica Shepherd

HLTH

Dr. Shepherd on Twitter

Dr. Shepherd on LinkedIn

Resources

Google Health

Maven Clinic

Everly Health

Alife Health

‘Temporal Trends in Sperm Count: A Systematic Review and Meta-Regression Analysis of Samples Collected Globally in the 20th and 21st Centuries’ in Human Reproduction Update

Gameto

Miga Health

Cityblock Health

Waymark

Anne Wojcicki

About Caitlin Donovan:

Caitlin Donovan is the Global Head of Uber Health. She joined Uber most recently from MyOrthos, an Orthodontic Services Organization, where she served as Chief Operating Officer. Prior to that, Caitlin developed her knack for tackling obstacles to patient care as Chief Operating Officer of Circulation and Executive Vice President of Operations at LogistiCare (now ModivCare), specialty benefit managers in the non-emergency medical transportation space. She also served as the Vice President of Operations at CareCentrix with a focus on home health and post-acute care. Early in her career, she worked in finance as an investor at Bain Capital and as a member of the internal consulting group at Summit Partners. She earned her bachelor's degree in Economics from Harvard University and lives in Dover, Massachusetts with her husband and two boys.

Things You’ll Learn:

• Medicaid has had transportation as a covered benefit since 1966, but it’s not a benefit many know how to access.
• Health plans are increasingly looking to include transportation within their benefits portfolio.
• According to a recent study, within 5.1 million employees under self-insured employers, 27% live at 200% of the poverty line or below. 
• The above-mentioned population uses preventative services 50% less, resulting in four times more avoidable admissions.
• To register for WIC, it is required to go in person to an office before getting groceries delivered.
• Logistics and value-based care will not solve healthcare’s problems on their own; It is important to think about the underlying issues to address them in a scalable way while they align with the system’s incentives.

Resources:

• Connect with and follow Caitlin Donovan on LinkedIn.
• Follow Uber Health on LinkedIn.
• Visit the Uber Health Website.

For most cancers, Black Americans have the highest death rate and shortest survival of any patient population.

And access to genetic testing is key to eliminating this disparity.

Feyi Olopade Ayodele is Cofounder and CEO of CancerIQ, a company on a bold mission to end cancer as we know it by giving providers and health systems access to the latest innovations in early cancer detection and prevention.

Under Feyi’s leadership, CancerIQ has grown its provider network to over 200 locations across the US and established a robust ecosystem of leading diagnostic and genomic testing vendors.

On this episode of The Beat, Feyi joins host Dr. Jessica Shepherd to explain how she built CancerIQ to solve for the disparity in access to genetic testing by making it part of everyone’s primary care visit.

Feyi describes how CancerIQ helps patients initiate conversations around cancer prevention with their providers and gives providers the right precision prevention program for each patient.

Listen in for Feyi’s insight on the emotional journey associated with a cancer diagnosis and learn how CancerIQ is helping African American and rural patient populations prevent cancer or detect it in its earliest stages.

Topics Covered

• Disparities in breast cancer outcomes between Black women and other patient populations
• Why Feyi built CancerIQ to solve for the disparity in access to genetic testing
• How CancerIQ makes it easy for providers to navigate patients to the right precision cancer prevention program
• Why Feyi encourages primary genetic care vs. specialty genetic care
• How CancerIQ helps patients initiate conversations on cancer prevention with their providers
• How CancerIQ is closing the gap for African American and rural patient populations
• What CancerIQ does to help patients adhere to a cancer prevention plan
• How CancerIQ recognizes the emotional journey associated with a cancer diagnosis
• Feyi’s vision to make CancerIQ part of everyone’s preventative care visit and detect cancer in its earliest stages

Connect with Feyi Olopade Ayodele

CancerIQ

Connect with Dr. Jessica Shepherd

HLTH

Dr. Shepherd on Twitter

Dr. Shepherd on LinkedIn
 

Resources

NCCN Guidelines

Small Talk Baby Podcast

About Jean Drouin:

Jean is a leader with over 25 years of experience in healthcare management, technology, operations, finance, and cultural change. 

As CEO, Jean focuses on creating the environment that allows Clarify to deliver on its mission by delighting customers and growing a great team. Jean leads the Executive Leadership Team which sets the company’s vision and strategy and is responsible for ensuring the company’s overall success. Jean believes that healthcare has been held back by a lack of actionable insights and that by integrating innovative analytics and incentives, we can power better health and outcomes.  

Prior to founding Clarify, Jean was a Senior Partner at McKinsey, where he led the Healthcare Digital and IT practice. He also built and served as the founding Head of McKinsey Advanced Healthcare Analytics (MAHA), which provided services and products on healthcare reform, consumer analytics, new payment and pricing models, and risk management. Jean spent several years in the UK, where he helped set up the hospital regulator and served as the Head of Strategy for NHS London, a $15 billion organization that oversaw London’s hospitals, primary and social care.   

Jean holds an MD and MBA from Stanford University and an AB in Molecular Biology from Princeton. He is a Trustee of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, and the former Vice-Chair of the Board of Lester B. Pearson United World College of the Pacific.

Things You’ll Learn:

• The United States Health System is the only one in the world with the granularity of information to understand patient journeys in an actionable way.
• The FDA has a very high standard around the data collected for a clinical trial, which is why recruiting patients takes a long time.
• Machine Learning and AI tools can be beneficial in automating data pipelines to turn them into the cleanest possible analytics fuel.
• Value-based payments haven't scaled as expected because doctors aren’t excited about a model that looks at their yearly performance to give them a bonus. 
• Paying clinicians shouldn’t be exclusively transactional but more collaborative and team-based.

Resources:

• Connect with and follow Jean Drouin on LinkedIn.
• Follow Clarify Health on LinkedIn.
• Explore the Clarify Health Website.

42% of adults in the US qualify as obese. But there are only a few thousand doctors board-certified in obesity, most of whom work exclusively in academic medical centers.

So, what can we do to address the obesity epidemic in our country? How do we give the 200 million Americans struggling with metabolic health access to the information and support they need?
 

Isabelle Kenyon is Founder and CEO of Calibrate, a metabolic health company on a mission to change the way the world treats weight.

In two years, Calibrate has raised more than $125 million and published clinically-reviewed results from its One-Year Metabolic Reset that exceeded the best outcomes from clinical trials across all metabolic markers.

On this episode of The Beat, Isabelle joins host Dr. Jessica Shepherd to explain how Calibrate partners medication and lifestyle interventions to promote long-term weight loss.

Isabelle discusses the biggest contributors to sustained success with Calibrate, describing how the program helps members improve their metabolic health.

Listen in for Isabelle’s insight on treating obesity like a chronic disease (not a failure of willpower) and learn how Calibrate tailors its program to your biology, your goals and your life for sustained weight loss—guaranteed.

Topics Covered

• How her mom’s struggle with weight inspired Isabelle to build Calibrate
• The 4 pillars of metabolic balance Calibrate uses to instill lifestyle change
• How metabolic health sets us up for long-term, sustained weight loss
• What it looks like to work through the Calibrate program
• Why Calibrate partners medication with lifestyle interventions
• How Isabelle thinks about educating consumers on metabolic health
• Why Calibrate is designed to prove sustained results after medication
• How engagement and community contribute to sustained success with Calibrate
• How Calibrate sets expectations with clients and guarantees results
• Treating obesity like the chronic disease it is vs. a failure of willpower

Connect with Isabelle Kenyon

Calibrate

Connect with Dr. Jessica Shepherd

HLTH

Dr. Shepherd on Twitter

Dr. Shepherd on LinkedIn

Resources

National Diabetes Prevention Program

The CDC Definition of Metabolic Health

About Thom Bales:

Thom is a Principal in Strategy&, a part of the PwC network. He leads PwC’s Health Services Sector with responsibility for our payer-provider and digital health growth. He has over 20 years of management consulting experience, originally with Booz Allen Hamilton/ Booz & Company merged with PwC to become Strategy&. He has expertise in health services growth, operations, technology strategy, and transformation. He has co-authored several articles including the industry-leading viewpoint “5 PMPM Healthplan”, “PwC’s Next In Health, 2022” and managing change and the investment bulge as well as a co-host of PwC’s Health 180 Forums.

Thom’s past work has included capabilities-based growth strategy, technology-enabled business, and cost transformations, payer-provider collaboration strategy, consumer engagement strategies, as well as assessment of merger, acquisitions, and divestitures for his clients. He has led some of the largest business-led payer technology transformations and growth programs in the industry in the past 10 years.

Thom earned his M.B.A. with high distinction at the University of Michigan; MS, Chemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology; and BA Chemistry, BA Economics, Cornell University.

About Patty Obermaier:

As Vice President of Microsoft US Health and Life Sciences business, Patty is responsible for growing Microsoft's solutions, services, and support revenues across enterprise health customers in the United States. She leads a 950-person team and is accountable for a $5B P&L. Patty holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.B.A. from the Darden School at the University of Virginia.

Things You’ll Learn:

• During COVID, many people couldn't access virtual health because they didn't have broadband or the appropriate devices to do so.
• Out of 8 billion people on Earth, 4 billion do not have access to healthcare, and a billion have disabilities, 70% of which can't be seen.
• The average family in the United States has a family income of around $60,000 of which roughly half does to insurance, healthcare, and out-of-pocket costs.
• Patients can now request their information, which has to be made available and stored for them, and they have to be able to take it with them wherever they want.
• Health equity is about understanding who we are as individuals, where we’re at, and what we need to get to our definition of health.
• Most healthcare companies are now focusing on improving patient experience.

Resources:

• Connect with and follow Thom Bales on LinkedIn.
• Connect with and follow Patty Obermaier on LinkedIn.
• Follow Strategy& on LinkedIn.
• Visit the Strategy& Website!
• Follow PwC on LinkedIn!
• Explore the PwC Website!
• Follow Microsoft US Health and Life Sciences on LinkedIn.
• Discover the Microsoft US Health and Life Sciences Website.

When Krista Drobac first started thinking about home-based health care, she assumed that the biggest barriers to adoption would be cultural. But she quickly learned that policy was the problem.

And then came COVID-19. Regulations were loosened, and we were allowed to experiment with caring for patients at home.

So, how do we convince policymakers to preserve the advances in home-based care made during the pandemic and change the rules for good?

Krista serves as Partner at Sirona Strategies, Executive Director of the Alliance for Connected Care and Founder of Moving Health Home,  a coalition working to change policy to enable the home to be a clinical site of care.

Krista has 25 years of experience in federal and state government policy and public affairs, and she consults on Medicare, Medicaid, digital health, social determinants of health and new care models.
 

On this episode, Krista joins hosts Dr. Jessica Shepherd, Dr. Gautam Gulati and Dr. Jordan Schlain to explore the innovations in hospital-at-home and SNF-at-home we achieved during the pandemic.

Krista discusses who benefits most from home-based care (and who might want to opt out) and describes how providers can identify environmental risks when they’re in a patient’s home.

Listen in to understand why Krista advocates for value-based reimbursement models and learn what you can do to help persuade legislators to embrace home-based care.

Topics Covered

• The regulatory barriers to moving health care into the home prior to the pandemic
• How Moving Health Home was launched to preserve the innovation and advances in home-based care made during COVID
• Who benefits most from home-based care and who might want to opt out
• What the hospital-at-home model looks like and how it took off during the pandemic
• The regulatory challenges Moving Home Health faces in executing SNF-at-home
• How home-based care allows providers to identify environmental risks
• Why value-based care reimbursement models are more appropriate for home-based care than fee-for-service
• How home-based care might improve a patient’s mental and emotional health
• Why we need a large-scale demonstration of the benefits of home-based care to change policy
• The power of patient voice in convincing legislatures and hospital systems to embrace home-based care
• How we might incentivize or persuade Americans to choose healthy food
• How the social determinants of health or SDOH are influenced by policy

Connect with Krista Drobac

Moving Health Home

Connect with Dr. Jessica Shepherd, Dr. Gautam Gulati & Dr. Jordan Shlain

HLTH

Dr. Shepherd on Twitter

Dr. Shepherd on LinkedIn

Dr. Gulati on Twitter

Dr. Gulati on LinkedIn

Dr. Shlain on Twitter

Dr. Shlain on LinkedIn

Resources

America’s Essential Hospitals

CMS COVID Waivers

Moving Health Home Studies

White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health

Social Determinants of Health