The Pulse by Wharton Digital Health

In this episode of the podcast, I sat down with Marta Bralic Kerns, founder and CEO of Pomelo Care, a virtual-first maternity care company delivering high-quality, personalized care to pregnant people and newborns across the United States. Pomelo’s mission is to improve outcomes in maternal and infant health through proactive, data-informed, and accessible care. Marta and I spoke about her path from consulting to founding Pomelo, how she’s scaling care for the most underserved populations, and why she believes we’re only at the beginning of a new era for women’s and children’s health.

Mike Roaldi, President of Cityblock Health, joins us on the Pulse for our latest episode. Cityblock Health is a valued-based primary care company on a mission to radically improve health outcomes for Medicaid and dually eligible populations across the U.S. Cityblock Health is one of the most ambitious care delivery companies today, serving its eligible populations with a tech-enabled, community-rooted approach to care. Prior to Cityblock, Mike built his deep healthcare expertise at UnitedHealth Group, where he spent nearly a decade in executive roles across both UnitedHealthcare and Optum Behavioral Health. In this episode, Mike will share what he believes it takes to serve the most complex, high-need patients in America  —  and how Cityblock is rethinking trust, tech, and care delivery from the ground up.

Obesity and weight loss are among the most significant and complex challenges facing healthcare today. In our latest episode of The Pulse, we sat down with Evan Richardson, CEO and founder of Form Health, a pioneering virtual obesity medicine clinic. Richardson shared compelling insights about how Form Health is revolutionizing the obesity treatment landscape by delivering personalized, quality care through a robust virtual platform.

In this episode, I sat down with Dr. Rekha Kumar, Chief Medical Officer of Found. Found is one of the first telehealth startups focused on comprehensive obesity care. Since its founding, it has raised over $130 million and was valued at $600 million as of 2022. At the heart of their mission is combining medical treatment — including access to weight-loss medications like GLP-1s — with behavior change support to help people achieve lasting health outcomes.Dr. Kumar is a leading voice in the field of Obesity Medicine. She’s a board-certified endocrinologist, who served as the first Medical Director of the American Board of Obesity Medicine, and is currently a practicing clinician who serves as an associate professor at Weill Cornell.In this episode, we’ll dive into Rekha’s journey from clinical medicine to startup executive, what makes Found’s approach different, and her perspective on access, equity, and the future of GLP-1 therapies.

In this episode, I sat down with Caroline Xie, General Partner at ICONIQ Growth. ICONIQ Growth is the venture arm of ICONIQ, a leading investment firm backing exceptional technology leaders who are building category-defining businesses. Caroline leads investments in healthcare technology, and since joining ICONIQ, has helped manage over $1.7 billion in investments.We dive deep into her personal journey, her outlook on healthcare innovation in 2025 and beyond, and what ICONIQ looks for in founders. From navigating healthcare costs and workforce challenges to the revolutionary potential of AI in clinical settings, Caroline’s insights offer a front-row view into some of the most pressing and promising trends redefining the industry.

In this episode of The Pulse, I had the pleasure of speaking with Othman Laraki, the co-founder and CEO of Color Health - a company on a mission to transform cancer care through a digital-first, population-level approach. With a background spanning Google, Twitter, and a string of successful startups, Othman has spent the past decade building one of the most ambitious models in healthcare: a nationwide virtual cancer clinic focused on the entire spectrum of cancer care from prevention, catching cancer early, through survivorship.

In this episode of The Pulse, I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. James Lu, co-founder and CEO of Helix - a precision medicine company using genomics to power preventive care. With over $270 million raised and partnerships spanning major U.S. health systems, Helix is at the forefront of turning DNA into an actionable health asset.

In this episode of The Pulse, I sat down with Dr. Adam Wolfberg, Chief Medical Officer of Virta Health, a company pioneering a new approach to tackling metabolic disease. Virta Health has a mission to reverse type 2 diabetes and obesity through nutrition-first treatment and tech-enabled care. We discussed Adam’s unconventional journey from news reporter to startup exec, Virta’s science-backed outcomes, and why GLP-1s aren’t the only answer to America’s weight crisis.

In this episode, I sat down with Autumn-Kyoko (AK) Cushman, co-founder and CEO of ShiftRx, a platform using generative AI to transform pharmacy staffing. Backed by investors like Work-Bench, Inflect Health, Tau Ventures, and Opal Ventures, ShiftRx is tackling one of healthcare’s biggest challenges - staffing shortages - by empowering providers with more control, flexibility, and financial stability.AK’s path to founding ShiftRx is anything but conventional - she served as a hospital corpsman in the US Navy, worked in management consulting with the National Cancer Institute, and later joined IBM’s Watson Health. Her firsthand exposure to healthcare’s inefficiencies, combined with her co-founder Leann’s experience as a pharmacy technician, led them to build ShiftRx as a provider-first solution.AK and I discussed the founding story of ShiftRx, the root causes of provider burnout, and how AI can reshape healthcare staffing.

In this episode, I sat down with Michael Meng, co-founder and CEO of Stellar Health. Founded in 2018, Stellar Health is redefining value-based care delivery for primary care teams. Through Stellar's industry-leading micro-incentive platform, providers and their care teams using Stellar receive in-workflow prompts to close care and quality gaps efficiently. Every value-based care activity is rewarded monthly, real-time feedback loops are realized, and overall patient care is enhanced. By shifting the existing financial model, Stellar Health is ushering in a new era of shared accountability for primary care networks everywhere.Michael and I spoke about the evolution of Stellar Health, the successes and failures of value-based care to date, why so many people think the healthcare system is broken, and how recent innovations might be able to fix that.