Delta: HealthTech Innovators

Discover the remarkable journey of Doximity, the 'LinkedIn for Doctors' that now serves 80% of US physicians. Learn how its founder, Jeff Tangney, transitioned from creating an early medical app to launching a platform that thrives amid outdated healthcare practices. The podcast reveals how COVID-19 skyrocketed its usage, transforming telehealth, and explores strategic acquisitions like Curative and Pathway to enhance AI capabilities. The discussion also touches on the challenges and controversies Doximity faces in the evolving healthcare landscape.

Join Dr. Rishi Khakhkhar, an emergency medicine physician and Chief Medical Officer at Counsel Health, as he shares insights on revolutionizing patient care through AI-enabled virtual tools. Discover how Counsel combines AI with real physicians to enhance the patient journey, from chat-based intake to consultations. Explore the dynamics of asynchronous and near-synchronous care and the importance of emergency protocols for safety. Rishi emphasizes AI as a supportive team member, allowing physicians to focus on meaningful patient interactions.

Preventing Dialysis Access Failure: How Auvi Labs is Building a Wearable Ultrasound Device | Rishab Veldur & Kevin VolkemaIn this episode, I sit down with Rishab Veldur (CEO) and Kevin Volkema (COO) from Auvi Labs to discuss how they're tackling a critical problem in dialysis care. 40% of dialysis patients experience fistula or graft failure within their first year—leading to endless hospitalizations and life-threatening situations.Auvi Labs is building "Beacon," a wearable ultrasound patch that patients can use for just 10 minutes a day to detect early signs of access failure. We dive deep into their journey from a university capstone project to launching clinical pilots, the challenges of building a healthcare startup, and their unique approach to networking and building clinical partnerships.Whether you're a healthcare founder, engineer, or just interested in medtech innovation, this episode is packed with actionable insights.Timestamps • 00:00 – Introduction • 01:00 – The Problem: Dialysis Access Failure • 03:15 – From Acoustic Device to Wearable Ultrasound • 10:06 – The 20-Patient Pilot Study • 11:52 – How to Find Clinical Pilots • 17:40 – Networking Playbook for Healthcare Founders • 21:01 – The Power of a Founder Newsletter • 23:45 – Business Model & Value-Based Care • 29:19 – Biggest Risks & Clinical Integration Challenges • 36:04 – Bottlenecks for ScalingKey Takeaways 1 Start with the problem, not the solution – They pivoted from an acoustic device to ultrasound after learning what patients and physicians actually needed 2 Healthcare is relationship-based – Cold outreach has low success; invest in building genuine connections over time 3 Skip the big conferences early on – Niche events and reaching out to researchers on Google Scholar yields better results 4 Use your student email – Everyone wants to help students 5 Send a newsletter – Share highs AND lows to bring people along on your journey 6 Value-based care is the path – Working with kidney contracting entities can bypass traditional CPT code reimbursementGuest Links • 🌐 Website: auvilabs.com • 💼 Rishab Veldur (CEO) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rishab-veldur/ • 💼 Kevin Volkema (COO) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinvolkema/Host • 💼 Roupen Odabashian LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roupen-odabashian-md-frcpc-fasco-183aaa142/ • 📧 Email: roupen@deltahealth.tech#healthcarestartup #medtech #dialysis #wearables #digitalhealth #medicaldevice #startup #healthcare #founders

Join Dr. Amit Phull, Chief Physician Experience Officer at Doximity and a board-certified emergency physician with a computer engineering background. Explore how Doximity is revolutionizing healthcare with AI tools designed by physicians for physicians. Discover the importance of clinician input in tech development, the evolution of HIPAA-compliant AI tools, and the impact of privacy-first AI scribe technology on saving time and improving patient care. Dr. Phull shares insights on bridging tech and healthcare, as well as lessons from product successes and failures.

Why do 30% of patients take medications differently than what's in their medical records? Dr. Eve Cunningham, Chief Medical Officer at Cadence, reveals the shocking gaps in traditional healthcare—and how remote patient monitoring is revolutionizing chronic disease management for 70,000+ patients across 20 health systems.In this episode, we dive deep into:✅ The hidden cost of episodic vs. continuous care✅ How a practicing OB-GYN broke into healthtech leadership✅ Why 20% of medication changes are actually DOWN-titrations✅ The future of AI-powered clinical decision support✅ Real outcomes: 18% fewer hospitalizations, $183/month savings per patientTimeStamps:Dr. Cunningham spent 20 years leading physician groups at Kaiser Permanente, CommonSpirit, and Providence before joining Cadence—a remote patient monitoring company backed by $141M from General Catalyst and Thrive Capital. She shares candid insights on physician leadership, technology transformation, and why clinicians MUST develop technical competency.🎯 Perfect for healthcare entrepreneurs, medtech founders, physicians exploring innovation, and anyone building the future of digital health.KEY TOPICS COVERED:Remote patient monitoring at scale (70,000+ patients)Clinical AI and machine learning in chronic disease managementBreaking into healthtech from clinical practiceValue-based care and Medicare reimbursement (CPT codes 99453, 99454, 99457, 99458)Medication reconciliation and polypharmacy managementVirtual care infrastructure: telehealth, virtual nursing, hospital-at-homeTechnology adoption in large health systemsThe emerging clinician-engineer hybrid roleDeprescribing and down-titration opportunitiesSocial determinants of health and caregiver engagementPUBLISHED OUTCOMES:📊 New England Journal of Medicine: Catalyst validates Cadence's model: https://catalyst.nejm.org/doi/abs/10.1056/CAT.24.0521CONNECT WITH DR. EVE CUNNINGHAM:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evecunninghammd/🔗 CONNECT WITH CADENCE:Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cadencerpmWebsite: https://www.cadence.care/Published Research: https://www.cadence.care/outcomes-report-2024

Malke Assad, a plastic surgery resident and the founder of Rank RX, shares his inspiring journey from war-torn Aleppo to prominent U.S. medical institutions. He reveals the shocking shortcomings of the residency application system, including how Nobel laureates can fall victim to arbitrary cutoffs. Malke discusses how Rank RX uses AI and large language models to efficiently screen thousands of applications, promoting fairness. He also shares insights on building a tech team without coding skills and offers valuable advice to aspiring clinician-entrepreneurs.

Discover how Sahil and his brother turned a simple ear cleaning device into a viral sensation, surpassing 1 billion views on social media. They share their journey of obtaining FDA clearance, which became a key competitive advantage. Hear about their pivot from a B2B model to a direct-to-consumer healthcare network serving millions. Explore innovative marketing strategies, including influencer partnerships and organic content, that propelled their success. They also reflect on the importance of credibility and mentorship in scaling their business.

A Stanford PhD researcher reveals alarming truths about AI in medicine, highlighting the stark contrast between claimed accuracy and real-world performance. She discusses how models can dramatically fail when faced with questions that have no definitive answer. The conversation emphasizes the need for more realistic evaluations of AI tools and advises clinicians to approach AI as a supportive co-pilot rather than a replacement. With cautionary insights on model performance and patient safety, this discussion reshapes our understanding of AI deployment in healthcare.

Charlene, CEO of Ember, dives into how AI is transforming healthcare by tackling revenue integrity. She reveals that hospitals lose millions from inefficient billing, but her platform recovers over 51% of denied claims. Discover the impact of ambient listening on accurate clinical documentation and how startup focus strategies help navigate regulated industries. Charlene shares insights on the $10B healthcare fraud problem and the vital role of smart AI tools in detecting fraud. Perfect insights for healthcare executives and aspiring entrepreneurs!

Can AI forecast ICU risk from the first 36 hours of EHR data?University of Washington researcher Sihan explains TrajSurv, a survival-prediction model that converts noisy, irregular ICU time series into interpretable latent trajectories using Neural Controlled Differential Equations (NCDEs) and time-aware contrastive learning aligned to SOFA. We cover how trajectories outperform snapshots, handle missingness without heavy imputation, and remain clinically legible via vector-field feature importance and trajectory clustering.Validated on MIMIC-III and eICU with reported C-index ≈0.80 and cross-cohort ≈0.76, TrajSurv points to safer escalation, de-escalation, and bed allocation in the ICU.In this episode: survival prediction basics; limits of Cox/RSF vs deep time-series models; NCDE explained in plain language; first-36h feature set (53 labs/vitals/demographics); metrics (C-index, Brier, dynamic AUC); interpretable clustering linked to outcomes; and what’s next—adding interventions for counterfactual simulation and extending to oncology.Link to the paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.00657Timestamps00:00 Why trajectories beat snapshots in EHR01:00 Guest intro: Sihan, UW Biomedical Informatics01:40 Survival prediction 101 and clinical use03:40 From Cox/RSF to deep learning on time-varying data05:03 What is TrajSurv (pronounced “traj-surf”)?06:16 NCDE explained with the “ship + weather” analogy08:14 Handling irregular sampling and missing data09:14 Time-aware contrastive learning aligned to SOFA10:47 Datasets: MIMIC-III and eICU; first 36h features (labs, vitals, demo)12:40 Results: C-index ≈0.80; cross-cohort ≈0.76; interpretability14:30 Workflow: CDS, monitoring, escalation, de-escalation16:15 Why humans miss multi-variable long-horizon trends18:21 Latent trajectory clustering and survival differences23:18 Next: interventions, counterfactuals, oncology applications25:40 ClosingRoupen Odabashian LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roupen-odabashian-md-frcpc-abim-183aaa142/Sihang Zeng: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zengsh/#HealthcareAI #ClinicalDecisionSupport #EHR #ICU #SurvivalAnalysis #DeepLearning #NCDE #MIMICIII #eICU #SOFA