The Pulse by Wharton Digital Health

In this episode of The Pulse Podcast, Vivien interviews Andrew Parker, CEO and Co-Founder of Papa, an on-demand assistance service to help people and their family members stay independent while living securely and happily at home. Andrew has a passion for healthcare, technology and people. Prior to founding Papa, Andrew ran Health Systems Sales and Strategy for MDLive.com, a large tele-health provider, where he was one of the first 15 employees. In 2017, Andrew founded Papa with the goal of supporting older adults and their families throughout the aging process. Today, Papa has grown to over 220 employees and over 15,000 Pals on the platform working across the nation, in all 50 states. Papa has raised $18M in Series B Funding in late 2020 from Comcast Ventures, Canaan Ventures, Initialized Capital, AirAngels Syndicate and more.

In this episode, we interview Dr. Jon Bloom, the Co-Founder and CEO of Podimetrics. The company’s mission is to improve patient lives through early detection and prevention of diabetic foot ulcers. They are a virtual care management company dedicated to preventing diabetic amputations through their SmartMat product and partnerships with both payers and at-risk providers, including the Veteran’s Health Administration. The company was founded in 2011 and has been backed by Norwich Ventures, Rock Health, Scientific Health Development, and Polaris Partners.

In this episode, we sat down with Brad Fluegel, lecturer at the Wharton School’s Health Care Management program and former Senior Vice President and Chief Healthcare Commercial Market Development Officer for Walgreens. Before that, he was the Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy and External Affairs Officer for Wellpoint, now Anthem, and Senior Vice President of National Accounts and Vice President of Enterprise Strategy at Aetna. What we discussed: Consumer behavior shifting to online purchasing combined with excess retail space is driving retailers such as Walmart and CVS to explore opportunities to leverage consumer familiarity with their brands to expand their presence in the growing healthcare industry. Retailers, providers, and payers are exploring the tradeoffs of different models for expanding into healthcare, from partnering to investing to build out independent outpatient health centers. Collaboration amongst payers, providers, and retailers may drive cost and care benefits for consumers while increasing health equity amongst disadvantaged populations. Near-term policy changes on allowing lower level healthcare practitioners to administer care currently dispensed by doctors as well as insurers considering maintaining pay parity for in-person and remote services should persist after COVID.

In this episode, we connect with Erin Lee, the VP of Global Operations and Managing Director of Babylon (U.S.). Babylon is a London-based telehealth startup leveraging AI to provide quality and affordable primary care around the world. Babylon has operations globally, including in the U.S., Canada, UK, Rwanda, and several countries within Asia and the Middle East and plans to continue expanding internationally. Since its founding in 2013, Babylon has raised $635M in funding to date from investors such as Centene, VNV Global, and Google DeepMind. Most recently, Babylon rallied $100M in Series C funding in September 2020. We discussed: Babylon’s mission to make healthcare more accessible and affordable globally by combining cutting-edge AI with best-in-class clinical care to reduce excess administrative costs and enhance practitioners’ ability to administer quality care How Babylon's capitated care model to manage holistic patient care is delivering proactive healthcare over sickcare, and how Babylon is utilizing its global knowledge and understanding of all of the external risk factors that can impact a person’s health, such as their environment and unmet social needs, to treat the whole person The impact of COVID and the rise in digital health providers and its impact on the consumer Professional and leadership advice on working across diverse, international teams

In this episode, Vivien interviews Naomi Allen, CEO and Co-Founder of Brightline, a behavioral health care technology company delivered for families and children. We discuss her amazing journey at the forefront of the new digital health wave as one of the founding team members of Castlight, her leadership lessons as Chief Growth Officer Livongo and the amazing story of Brightline and how they launched months before their plan to serve families during the COVID and behavioral health pandemic. In 2019, Naomi founded Brightline to reinvent the way behavioral healthcare is delivered for children and families. Brightline is delivering integrated care through innovative technology, virtual behavioral health sciences, services, and collaborative care teams focus on supporting children across the developmental stages in their families. Most recently, Brightline raised $20M Series A funding led by Threshold Ventures and Oak HC/FT.

In this episode, Sandy interviews Jannine Versi, COO & Co-Founder of Elektra Health. Elektra Health is on a mission to smash the menopause taboo by empowering 50M women in the US today navigating menopause with a full-stack digital solution. Elektra has been featured in Forbes, Pitchbook, the Financial Times and Crunchbase, and was selected as a "recommended platform" by both Katie Couric and Maria Shriver. Prior to Elektra Health, Jannine held positions at Google, The White House in the Obama Administration,  U.S. Department of Commerce, and Cityblock Health. Jannine earned her BA from University of Pennsylvania and her MBA from Harvard Business School, and was a Fulbright Scholar in India. In this episode, we discussed: -- What exactly perimenopause and menopause are, how women typically experience it over the course of 10 years, and the immense purchasing and decision-making power of this consumer -- Why the menopause space is highly-underfunded relative to the growing “femtech” category -- Chronic confusion around and lack of training for menopause care across OB-GYN providers, contributing to a lack of high-quality, evidence-based, content and care for menopausal women as they enter the second half of their lives: the very problem Elektra is trying to solve -- The high economic cost to payers and poor downstream outcomes of untreated menopause symptoms: $2,100+ PPPY, on par with uncontrolled hypertension -- Elektra’s early success in building a full-stack, digital solution including a telemedicine clinic with a distinctive NPS of 91, a cult-like following for its 1:1 and 1:many on-demand and live offerings, and expanding from DTC to B2B2C as forward-leaning enterprise partners seek to invest in female populations during this pivotal phase of life -- Three tokens of advice to female founders on battling imposter syndrome and staying grounded throughout the exuberant and tumultuous entrepreneurial journey

In this episode of The Pulse Podcast, Vivien interviews Gabriel Mecklenburg, President and Co-Founder of Hinge Health, the leading musculoskeletal (also known as MSK) solution for employers and health plans.   We discuss Hinge Health's journey from the early days for Gabriel and Daniel and finding product market fit to growing the business by more than 4X in the last year. Hinge Health has raised $300M in their latest Series D round in early January of 2021, and is now valued at $3B. Their investors include Atomico, Coatue Management, Tiger Global and Bessemer Venture Partners.

In this episode, we interview Steve Kraus, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. At Bessemer, Steve focuses exclusively on healthcare, where he’s made investments in and holds seats on the boards of some of the most successful companies in this space, including Bright Health, Ginger, Hinge Health, Aspen RxHealth, and, most recently, Folx Health. Each year, Steve and his team publish their healthcare predictions for the next 12 months. Bessemer’s 2021 predictions just came out, and on this episode I got the chance to sit down with Steve to chat about the story behind their annual predictions and dive into what 2021 might have in store for us, from BidenCare to interoperability finally moving forward.

In this episode, we interview Deborah Kilpatrick, Co-CEO Evidation Health. With a network of over 4M individuals across the U.S. and a platform that gathers key real-world data from patients’ day-to-day lives, Evidation is on a mission to enable and empower everyone to participate in better health outcomes. Since its founding in 2012, Evidation has raised money from investors like B Capital Group, Revelation Partners, Rock Health, McKesson Ventures, Sanofi Ventures, Section 32, and G Squared. It has also worked with a range of players in healthcare, from pharma companies like Sanofi to tech heavyweights like Apple to physician societies like the American College of Cardiology.

In this episode, we chat with Eren Bali, the Co-Founder & CEO of Carbon Health. Carbon Health is a technology-enabled healthcare provider with a mission to make high-quality healthcare accessible to everyone. Carbon Health meets patients where they are, providing seamless, accessible healthcare to patients across a variety of access points including primary and urgent care clinics, pop-up sites, video, the Carbon Health app, and on-site at their employers. Late last year, Carbon Health received $100M in Series C funding and is expanding rapidly, increasing its patient volume sixfold and clinic footprint from 7 clinics to 27 clinics across six states within the past year.