On the heels of raising $210 million at a $6 billion valuation, OpenEvidence is the fastest-growing physician app in history, now reaching over 40% of U.S. physicians and powering 17 million monthly clinical queries.

In this conversation, co-founder and CTO Zack Ziegler shares how his background in early large language models led him to build an AI that helps clinicians make better decisions at the point of care, without replacing their judgment.

We cover:

🧠 The strategies Open Evidence used to reach 40% of U.S. clinicians in a short time

💡 The unexpected reason they chose to go direct to doctors instead of via their employers

💰 How they make money

⚙️ What “Deep Consult” means for the future of clinical decision-making

🏥 Whether tools like this could ever—or should ever—be available to patients

About our guest: 

Zachary Ziegler is the cofounder and CTO of OpenEvidence, the leading medical information platform. Designed from the ground up for medical professionals, OpenEvidence organizes and expands the world's medical knowledge to make it more useful, open, accessible, and understandable. Launched out of the Mayo Clinic Platform Accelerate, OpenEvidence has become the most rapidly adopted tool by physicians in history, now used by over 40% of US physicians in over 15,000 care centers across the United States. Before founding OpenEvidence, Ziegler was a PhD student at Harvard University, where he worked with Professor Sasha Rush and was awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. He completed his undergraduate studies at Cornell University, where he received the Barry Goldwater Scholarship.

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A billion-dollar startup. A promise to change healthcare forever. And behind the scenes… a massive lie.

Tyler Shultz was just starting his career when he joined Theranos, only to discover that the company’s breakthrough blood tests didn’t actually work. Speaking up meant risking everything—his career, his family relationships, and his personal safety—but it also helped expose one of the biggest frauds in Silicon Valley history.

In this conversation, Tyler shares what it was really like inside Theranos, how he found the courage to blow the whistle, and what leaders today can learn about building ethical cultures that last.

We cover:

⚖️ What it was like working inside Theranos

💬 The one question he suggests job seekers ask potential employers

💡 What ethical leadership looks like when the pressure is on

🤨 His thoughts on Elizabeth Holmes’ new “blood testing” company

💰 Why rewarding whistleblowers might actually protect investors and patients

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About our guest: 

Tyler Shultz is a scientist at heart, a founder by nature, a whistleblower by accident, a speaker by day, a venture partner by night, and a dad 24/7. His professional life began by exposing unethical practices at Theranos, a revelation that led to the collapse of the $9 billion company and the criminal convictions of its CEO and COO. Since then, he has co-founded two diagnostics companies: a deep tech spinout from Stanford’s Center for Magnetic Nanotechnology and a direct-to-consumer diagnostics and telehealth company. Beyond building companies, Tyler advises startups and venture funds, helping them navigate the technical, commercial, and ethical challenges of scaling groundbreaking ideas. As a speaker, he shares his experiences with audiences worldwide, addressing lawyers, founders, executives, employees, students, investors, board members, regulators, and compliance experts. He explores themes of truth, courage, and integrity, demonstrating how ethical decision-making can be a competitive advantage.

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Does it feel like we packed in a decade of progress this year in digital health? We think so. 

Today, Halle and Steve break down the biggest digital health stories of the moment, from funding trends to AI rivalries and new rules shaping the future of care.

We cover:

💸 What non-AI healthcare startups should do in today’s AI-obsessed investor market

🧠 Is there room for more than one winner in clinical decision support tools?

⚖️ California’s new chatbot law

🩺 Why UnitedHealthcare just paid $9B to AARP despite Medicare Advantage headwinds

🌡️ Hims’ expansion into menopause care and what it means for vertical startups

🤖 How Mass General Brigham is using AI to ease doctor shortages

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Show notes:

• The Future of Healthtech 2025 (SVB)
• 2025: The State of AI in Healthcare (Menlo Ventures)
• Q3 2025 market overview: Signals out of sync (Rock Health)
• OpenEvidence scores $200M, 3 months after series B, boosting valuation to $6B (Fierce Healthcare)
• Wolters Kluwer’s new UpToDate Expert AI (Wolters Kluwer)
• New California ‘Companion Chatbot’ Law Imposes Disclosure, Safety Protocol and Annual Reporting Requirements (Skadden)
• UnitedHealth Group, AARP Extend Medicare Partnership Beyond 2025 (Forbes)
• Hims & Hers to Offer Treatments for Menopause (WSJ)
• One Mass. health system is turning to AI to ease shortage of primary care doctors. Some don’t like it (STAT)

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Over 3 million clinicians around the world depend on UpToDate to guide patient care, and now the gold standard in clinical decision support is integrating generative AI. But in a world where AI models often hallucinate, how do you build something that doctors can actually trust?

In this episode, Halle talks with Dr. Holly Urban, VP of Business Development and Strategy at Wolters Kluwer Health, about UpToDate Expert AI, a new tool trained exclusively on UpToDate’s physician-authored content — not the open internet — and what it means for the future of medicine.

We cover:

🤖 Why grounding AI in verified medical data matters for accuracy and trust

💬 How clinicians are using AI at the point of care today, and where they’re facing fatigue

📚 How medical education will evolve when memorization matters less than critical thinking

💡 Why patient-facing AI tools could help close the information gap between doctors and patients

🚨 The biggest risks Holly sees ahead for AI in healthcare

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About our guest: 

Holly Urban, MD, MBA has extensive experience in healthcare technology and believes in the power of evidence-based content to transform EHRs beyond transactional systems into tools that allow clinicians to provide improved patient outcomes. After practicing as a primary care pediatrician, Dr. Urban worked for several EHR technology and evidence-based content companies, and has served in healthcare IT leadership roles for over fifteen years. Before joining Wolters Kluwer Health, she served as CMIO at Oracle Cerner, Director of Product Management at MCG Health, and VP of Product Management at McKesson Horizon Clinicals.

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Show Notes:

• AI in UpToDate: New Generative solutions for Medical Professionals
• AI hallucinates more frequently as it gets more advanced — is there any way to stop it from happening, and should we even try? (LiveScience)
• Technology and healthcare costs (Annals of Pediatric Cardiology)

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Most people spend over 30 hours a year dealing with customer service—on hold, repeating account numbers, and navigating endless phone trees. But what if AI could fix that without losing the human touch?

Clay Bavor, co-founder of Sierra (now valued at $10B) and former VP at Google, joins us to explore how AI agents are reshaping how companies interact with customers and what that means for the most complex service industry in the world: healthcare.

We cover:

🧠 The difference between horizontal and. vertical AI solutions

⚙️ If systems of action will take over systems of record (like Epic) in enterprise AI

🫀 How empathy, tone, and even “voice sommeliers” help AI sound more human

📉 The risks of AI job displacement (and the new roles emerging in its wake)

🚀 Clay’s take on staying grounded as a unicorn entrepreneur when hype runs high in Silicon Valley

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About our guest: 

Clay Bavor is a co-founder of Sierra, which helps businesses build better, more human customer experiences with AI. A visionary product leader and technologist, Clay spent 18 years at Google, where he spearheaded some of the company’s most innovative efforts. As head of Google Labs, he led teams working on forward-looking projects, including augmented and virtual reality, Project Starline, and Google Lens. Earlier, Clay oversaw the product and design teams for Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive, and Google Apps for Enterprise (now Workspace), shaping tools used by billions worldwide. He also contributed to foundational Google products, including Search and advertising technologies.

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This milestone 200th(!!!) episode of The Heart of Healthcare Podcast features none other than Dr. Tom X. Lee, the serial physician-founder behind Epocrates (acquired for $293M), One Medical (acquired by Amazon for $3.9B), and now Galileo, a tech-enabled medical group aiming to rewire care delivery from the ground up.

We cover:

🧠 Why most doctors aren’t wired for management (and what traits he thinks translate to startup success)

📉 How medical education is falling behind the pace of change in care delivery

💸 Why healthcare’s biggest barrier is economics, not culture

🏥 What Galileo is doing differently to re-engineer care on the backend

📈 What founders need to understand about building for exit vs. impact

About our guest: 

Tom is the CEO and visionary behind Galileo. Prior to Galileo, Tom helped build One Medical into the leading independent primary care system in the country, and previously helped launch Epocrates, the #1 mobile app used by clinicians at the point of care. Tom is a board-certified internist who completed training at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He received his BS from Yale University, his MD from the University of Washington School of Medicine, and his MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.

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Happy Q4 Heart of Healthcare Listeners! We’re back with your monthly Digital Health Download, where we discuss the biggest industry headlines of the month. 

We cover: 

💊 Pharm tariffs, D2C drug ads, and TrumpRx? 

📉 The ACA tax credit standoff and how it could double premiums for millions 

🛒 UnitedHealthcare’s new storefront and what it signals about point solution fatigue

📈 The GLP-1 gold rush: Remedy’s $450M revenue, Virta’s $160M, and FDA’s warning shot 

⚖️ The Doximity vs. Open Evidence lawsuit that could define AI IP 

🤰 The acetaminophen-autism debate and why pregnant women deserve better data

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Show notes:

• Virtual GLP-1 startups: Pill mills or the future of obesity care? (Halle Tecco)
• TrumpRx: A Prescription for Political Theater (Drugstore Cowboy)
• The future of metabolic health and weight loss drugs: Projecting mortality reductions in the US and UK populations (Swiss Re)
• The Latest in Maternal Health Fear Mongering? Tylenol (Vogue)

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Cancer drugs cost more than ever, yet survival benefits are often modest—and in some cases, patients can’t even access the care that already exists. 

After losing his father, Steve Jobs, to pancreatic cancer, Reed Jobs committed himself to making this the last generation that loses parents to the disease.

Reed now leads Yosemite, a venture fund spun out of Emerson Collective in 2023, alongside Investor Matt Bettonville. Yosemite pairs life sciences and digital health investments with a grantmaking model to accelerate cancer research and ensure breakthroughs actually reach patients.

We cover:

📉 The tension between drug pricing, patient access, and real-world value

🩺 Digital interventions that have outperformed cancer drugs in survival outcomes

🧪 Why phase 3 clinical trials are so costly, and how synthetic control arms could change that

🧬 The promise and limits of early detection—from liquid biopsies to at-home pap smears

🌍 The global race for healthcare innovation and why the U.S. can’t afford to fall behind

About our guests:

Reed Jobs is an Investor at Yosemite and manages Yosemite. Yosemite works exclusively in the oncology space, using flexible capital to advance science with the goal of making cancer non-lethal in our lifetime. Over the years, Reed has supported hundreds of researchers and invested in dozens of therapeutic, diagnostic and digital health companies across the U.S. and Europe. Before the launch of Yosemite, Reed served as the Managing Director of Health at Emerson Collective. He serves on the board of directors at Conservation International, Harvard Medical School, PICI, Stanford Medicine and Waverley Street Foundation. 

Matt Bettonville is an Investor at Yosemite where he leads the team’s investment efforts in digital health and healthcare delivery. He previously worked on Emerson Collective’s Count Me In non-profit partnership with the Broad Institute. Matt started his career working on user interface software engineering at Apple, where he was on the Mac team and a part of the AirPods product team. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University with a focus in Human-Computer Interaction. Matt serves on the board of directors at Atropos, Maia Oncology, Turquoise Health, Count Me In and Getlabs. He serves as a board observer at Proximie. 

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Some founders win support because of their product, others because of their story. In healthcare, where trust is everything, the ability to tell a compelling and authentic narrative can make or break a company.

On this episode, Halle talks with longtime friend and colleague Christina Farr—reporter turned investor and now author of The Storyteller’s Advantage. Chrissy has spent thousands of hours hearing startup pitches, advising founders, and studying what makes certain stories resonate while others fall flat. She shares insights from her years as a journalist and investor, and lessons from her new book on how narrative power shapes companies and industries.

We cover:

📝 The three types of founder stories and why “personal experience” dominates in healthcare

📉 Why failure stories are scarce in healthcare—and how that holds founders back

🏆 The psychology of the underdog and how startups can use it to their advantage

📰 The double-edged sword of media attention, especially for women leaders

🎤 Why founder-led communications matter more than ever in an era of spammy PR pitches

About our guest:

Christina Farr is an editor-in-chief of the health-tech newsletter Second Opinion, which has 40,000 subscribers. She advises startups as a national advisor with Manatt, and she's a GP with the fund Scrub Capital. Prior to that, she worked as an investor at OMERS Ventures and a journalist with CNBC, Fast Company, and Reuters News. Her debut book "The Storyteller's Advantage" is now available. She was born and raised in London, U.K., and resides in New York with her husband and two children. 

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Thanks to improved accuracy and new form factors, wearables have evolved from novelty step counters to tools that can predict illness, nudge healthier behaviors, and even influence alcohol consumption. But can they really bridge the gap between consumer wellness and enterprise healthcare?

In this episode, ŌURA CEO Tom Hale discusses the lessons his team has learned from developing one of the most widely used health-tracking devices. We explore what draws people to wearables, what sustains their engagement, and how these tools may be shaping behavior and healthcare itself. 

We cover:

🕰️ The past, present, and future of wearables

🩺 What it takes to build trust with users, clinicians, and payers

🍷 The number one thing people do differently after wearing an Oura ring

🔑 Unlocking behavior change, and which habits are most malleable

🏥 Why payers and health systems are beginning to integrate wearables into care models

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About our guest:

Tom Hale is the Chief Executive Officer at ŌURA and a member of its board. As the CEO he sets the company’s business strategy and vision to make health a daily practice for members all over the world. He has over 30 years of experience across the technology and consumer product industry.

Before joining ŌURA, Hale was president of Momentive where he drove B2B strategy and led product growth. During his time there he was instrumental in taking the company public in 2018, leading the team in key acquisitions, and driving the evolution and rebranding of the company into a multiple SAAS business. Previously, he held leadership roles at HomeAway and Linden Lab as the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Product Officer, respectively, and held executive roles at Macromedia and Adobe.

Hale has a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University and sits on the boards of Cars.com, RocketReach, and NoiseAware.

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