Pear Healthcare Playbook

Today, we’re excited to get to know Vivek, AI researcher at Google and one of the lead researchers for Med-PaLM2, and Viswesh, CTO and Founder of Valar Labs! Vivek is a Research Scientist at Google Health AI advancing biomedical AI to help scale world class healthcare to everyone. Vivek is particularly interested in building large language models and multimodal foundation models for biomedical applications and leads the Google Brain moonshot behind Med-PaLM, Google's flagship medical large language model. Med-PaLM has been featured in publications such as The Scientific American and Forbes. Vivek graduated with his masters from UT Austin in Computer Science and Bachelors at National Institute of Technology in India. Viswesh is the CTO and Co-Founder of Valar Labs. Valar Labs is building clinical grade deep learning to analyze each patient's characteristics and provide clarity to oncologists during decision making. Their AI is built with oncologists at the center and provides interpretable and actionable insights. Prior to founding Valar Labs, Viswesh was a Research Assistant in Stanford's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL) leveraging cutting edge artificial intelligence to solve healthcare problems. He was also the founder of Kanna, a patented and clinically-validated method to detect Amblyopia in children in India. Viswesh graduated with a bachelors in Computer Science at Stanford. In this episode, Vivek and Viswesh shares how they got into Healthcare AI research and how they fell into different career paths, one leading Research at Google Health AI and the other as the CTO and Co-Founder of Valar Labs. We talk about the future of LLMs in healthcare, and also how to build defensibility in AI healthcare startups.

Today, we're thrilled to introduce you to Kevin Mahoney, an exceptional individual with an extensive background in healthcare leadership. Kevin has been an integral part of Penn Medicine since 1996, holding various leadership positions within the health system and the Perelman School of Medicine. His transformative projects have elevated Penn Medicine's clinical care, teaching, and research missions. Before joining Penn Medicine, Kevin displayed exceptional leadership as the vice president for Johnson and Higgins, focusing on risk transfer and alternative risk management strategies. He also held administrative roles at Bryn Mawr Hospital and Episcopal Hospital. Kevin's insights on health equity, access to quality care, and social justice have been featured in prestigious publications like the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Modern Healthcare recognized his influence by including him in its list of the 100 most influential people in healthcare in 2022. In this episode we talk about Kevin’s journey to healthcare leadership, the increasing costs of care, how founders can partner with Penn Medicine, and insights on the consolidation in healthcare.

Today, we're excited to get to know Dr. Andrew Schutzbank. Andrew spent almost a decade at Iora health, where he held the esteemed positions of Medical Director and Senior Vice President, overseeing clinical operations and product development. He was also the Chief Product Officer at Cricket Health, an organization dedicated to value-based kidney care. He was the Corporate Development Operating Partner at SCAN and now contributes as a board member, advisor, and investor for multiple startups. He is also a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Schutzbank completed his residency at Beth Israel and holds an MD and MPH from Tulane University, along with a BA in neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania.  In this episode we talk about his journey to medicine, experience with Iora and Cricket Health, what he looks for in a healthcare pitch, tips/tricks for founders, and insights on the high burnout rate among clinicians.

Today, we're excited to get to know Dr. Marketa Wills, Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Johns Hopkins Health Plans, who focuses on optimizing clinical and quality outcomes for approximately 700,000 Johns Hopkins health plan members while efficiently managing costs of care.  Marketa previously worked at several national health plans, including United Healthcare, WellCare Health Plans and Centene Corporation. She's also a McKinsey & Company alum (Cleveland Office) where she served a broad range of payer and provider clients on a variety of strategic and operational engagements. She holds an MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and an MBA in Finance and Healthcare Management from the Wharton School of Business. She also trained in adult psychiatry at Harvard's MGH/McLean Adult Psychiatry Residency Program. In this episode we talk about Marketa’s path in medicine, what her role as Chief Medical Officer entails, how she thinks about partnerships with payors, advice she has for founders, and what she is excited about for the future of medicine.  Note: since the recording of the podcast, Johns Hopkins HealthCare has changed its name to Johns Hopkins Health Plans.

Today, we’re excited to get to know Alexandre Lebrun, CEO and Cofounder of Nabla, a personalized AI assistant for doctors. Before founding Nabla, Alex was the Head of Engineering at Facebook AI research for almost four years, and is a seasoned entrepreneur, having sold his previous companies Wit.ai, an AI platform that makes it easy to build apps that understand natural human language, to Facebook in 2015 and VirtuOz, a customer service chatbot, to Nuance Communications in 2012. In this episode, Alexandre shares his experiences after 22 years and founding 3 startups, why proprietary data is more important than ever for defensibility, tactics on GTM and customer focus specific to healthcare buyers, and opportunities and safety for generative AI in healthcare.

Founded in 2014, Aledade works with over 11,000 physicians across 40 States accounting for 1.7 million patients under management in Medicare, Medicare Advantage, commercial and Medicaid contracts. Farzad Mostashari has spent his career in health care policy and Health Information Technology.  Farzad previously served as the National Coordinator for Health IT in the Department of Health and Human Services. Prior to his work at the Office of the National Coordinator, he founded the NYC Primary Care Information project, which equipped physicians and underserved communities with electronic health records. He completed medical school at the Yale School of Medicine and a Master’s degree in Population Health from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In this episode we talk about Farzad’s journey to healthcare, how he started Aledade, the importance of independent physicians in value-based care, how Aledade scaled as a profitable health tech company, and advice he has for founders.

Samir is on a mission with his team at firsthand to change the way that individuals who struggle with serious mental illness (SMI) access care and support. Severe mental illness (SMI) is defined as mental/behavioral health issues that cause functional impairment by limiting one or more major life activities (schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, etc.) firsthand helps SMI patients engage with the healthcare ecosystem by focusing on delivering real outcomes for a population that has historically been underserved, stigmatized, and deprioritized. In fact, only 64.5% of adults living with SMI received treatment last year.  firsthand was founded in 2021 and recently raised 30 million in series B funding led by Google Ventures.  In this episode, Samir talks about his path to entrepreneurship, being a serial entrepreneur, how he started firsthand, and his advice for founders in healthcare.

This week, we’re excited to get to know Sachin Jain, CEO of SCAN Group & SCAN Health Plan. Sachin Jain is charged with leading the organization’s growth, diversification, and emerging efforts to reduce healthcare disparities. Founded in 1977, SCAN Health Plan is a not-for-profit, Medicare Advantage plan that provides healthcare coverage to Medicare beneficiaries in California, Arizona, Texas and Nevada. SCAN’s revenues top $4.3B and the organization serves 300,000 patients. Under Sachin’s leadership, SCAN has grown its revenues by more than $1B. Previously, Dr. Jain was President and CEO of CareMore and Aspire Health. Dr. Jain is also an adjunct professor of medicine at the Stanford University. Prior to joining CareMore, Dr. Jain was global Chief Medical Information & Innovation Officer at Merck & Co. From 2009-2011, Dr. Jain worked in leadership roles at the US Department of Health and Human Services, where he was senior advisor to the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and many other leadership positions in healthcare policy.  Dr. Jain graduated from Harvard College with a BA in government and continued on to earn his MD from Harvard Medical School and MBA from Harvard Business School. He trained in medicine at the Brigham and Women's Medicine and Harvard Medical School, and continues to practice medicine.  This is a packed episode. Sachin shares his thoughts on toxic positivity in the healthcare industry, impact over virtue signaling, clinician burnout, and his predictions for the future of healthcare. 

Today, we're excited to get to know Dr. Rushika Fernandopulle, previous Chief Innovation Officer of One Medical, an organization dedicated to providing human-centered, technology-powered primary care to people across every stage of life.  In an acquisition that shook the healthcare industry in September 2021, One Medical completed the purchase of Iora Health - a primary care organization that prioritizes human-centered, value-based care. The deal, which amounted to a staggering $1.4 billion, was a testament to Iora Health's success in delivering high-quality care at lower costs, while improving patient satisfaction. The visionary behind Iora is none other than Dr. Rushika Fernandopulle, who spent decades improving the quality of healthcare delivered to patients. He was the Executive Director of the Harvard Interfaculty Program for Health Systems Improvement, and Managing Director of the Clinical Initiatives Center at the Advisory Board Company. He also serves on the staff at the Massachusetts General Hospital and on the faculty of Harvard Medical School.  In this episode, Dr. Fernandopulle talks about his path to medicine, describes how he started and grew Iora Health, the acquisition by One Medical, and the future of primary care.

Today, we’re excited to get to know Dr. Neil Patel, Chief Health Officer of Patina Health, a new model of primary care for adults 65 and over that reimagines the journey of aging through virtual and home-based care. Dr. Patel is a trailblazing healthcare leader who has been involved in innovation in the primary care space. Prior to joining Patina, Neil served on the executive leadership team of the Boston based startup, Iora Health, leading special projects across different regions in the US. He also served as the medical director at Grameen VidaSana, Harken Health, Freelancers Union, and the Atlantic City Special Care Center described in Atul Gawande’s influential 2010 “Hotspotters” article. Neil went to college at the College of New Jersey, and went to Rutgers New Jersey Medical School for his MD. He trained in family medicine at Boston University. Patina raised 50 million of Series A venture funding in a deal led by Andreessen Horowitz and Google Ventures, along with F-Prime capital, Rock Springs Capital, and Viking Global Investors. In this episode, Neil shares his journey in medicine, his work in healthcare leadership as one of the founding team members of Iora Health and Patina Health, and advice he has for founders who are trying to improve healthcare delivery.