The Beat

About Charlie Harp:Charlie Harp is the CEO of Clinical Architecture, where he has led the company for over 16 years in its mission to revolutionize healthcare data quality and interoperability. Under his leadership, Clinical Architecture has become the industry’s leading provider of healthcare terminology management solutions, empowering organizations to enhance the accuracy, usability, and value of clinical data across systems. With deep expertise in electronic health records (EHR) and healthcare information systems, Charlie has spearheaded the development of cutting-edge software products and driven major initiatives in process improvement, project management, and data strategy—boosting efficiency and profitability across the organization.Before founding and growing Clinical Architecture, Charlie held senior technology and leadership roles at First DataBank, Zynx Health, Medi-Span, Covance, and SmithKline Beecham Clinical Labs, where he consistently delivered innovative solutions that advanced healthcare IT infrastructure. Beyond his executive work, Charlie is a healthcare data quality evangelist and host of the Informonster Podcast, where he explores the evolving intersection of healthcare, technology, and data. A graduate of California State Polytechnic University–Pomona and the Hearst Management Institute, Charlie remains deeply committed to enhancing the healthcare ecosystem through improved data and advanced technology.Things You’ll Learn:AI in healthcare is only as good as the data it’s trained on; poor data leads to dangerous outcomes and lost trust.The Patient Information Quality Improvement Framework (PIQI) aims to measure and improve healthcare data quality through an open-source, industry-wide standard.Data quality has a direct impact on everything from reimbursement accuracy to clinical decision-making and patient safety.Healthcare’s transformation won’t come from disruption but from gradual, data-driven evolution focused on interoperability and usability.Investing in data quality is like adopting a healthy lifestyle; it’s hard work, but the long-term benefits far outweigh the short-term effort.Resources:Connect with and follow Charlie Harp on LinkedIn.Follow Clinical Architecture on LinkedIn.Visit the Clinical Architecture website. Listen to Charlie’s previous interview on the podcast here.Check out The Informonster Podcast here.

About Patrick Schinzel:Patrick Schinzel is the Chief Operations Officer at Strive Pharmacy, where he has been instrumental in driving operational excellence and patient-focused innovation since 2023. With over two decades of experience in pharmacy leadership, Patrick brings a deep understanding of both clinical care and business strategy. Before stepping into his current executive role, he served as a pharmacist at Strive Pharmacy and Walgreens, where he spent nearly 20 years ensuring top-quality patient care and operational efficiency. Beyond pharmacy, Patrick has also demonstrated entrepreneurial drive as the long-time owner of Potential Home Buyers LLC, a real estate venture he has led since 2008. He earned his PharmD and bachelor’s in pharmaceutical sciences from South Dakota State University, following his studies at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and Clarke Community. Based in Mesa, Arizona, Patrick combines his expertise in healthcare and business to advance Strive Pharmacy’s mission of delivering accessible, personalized, and high-quality pharmaceutical care.Things You’ll Learn:Usage analytics revealed five consistently effective testosterone formulations from 370 variations, enabling faster fulfillment, lower prices, and maintained clinical autonomy.A thoughtful cash-pay strategy can enhance affordability today, even as broader reimbursement for underserved populations remains a significant industry challenge.Proactive potency testing on sterile lines (including GLP-1s) goes beyond basic safety to verify therapeutic effectiveness.“Preferred” formulations can coexist with precision medicine, extracting bulk efficiencies without eliminating personalization.The next leap is software that coordinates interdepartmental nuance, paving the way for robotics to deliver true “lot size of one” at scale.Resources:Connect with and follow Patrick Schinzel on LinkedIn.Follow Clinical Architecture on LinkedIn and visit their website. Email Patrick here.

About Lori Logan:Lori Logan is the president and CEO of NASCO, where she leads with a vision to merge innovation with a strong foundation in healthcare. Based in Englewood, Colorado, she brings over two decades of leadership across healthcare’s payer, provider, and technology sectors. Known for her curiosity, analytical mindset, and collaborative leadership, Lori has consistently driven growth, transformation, and measurable impact. Her career includes leading multimillion-dollar projects, overseeing teams of hundreds, and managing large-scale integrations and mergers, and acquisitions (M&A) initiatives. Previously, she held senior roles at athenahealth, Geneia, Paladina Health, TriZetto, UnitedHealthcare, Cigna, and McKesson—where she launched groundbreaking products and strategies that improved care coordination and operational efficiency. Recognized for her strategic acumen and results-driven approach, Lori has earned industry accolades, including the TriZetto CEO Pinnacle Award and the Thomson Reuters Healthcare Advantage Award. Her mission remains clear: to reimagine healthcare and create healthier outcomes and lives.Things You’ll Learn:Legacy infrastructure hinders scalability; health plans require a modern administrative “chassis” to package benefits, administer payments, and operationalize innovation. This goes well beyond traditional claims systems.Analytics must merge claims, clinical, and engagement data with medical economics precision. Insights then have to reach providers and advocates so care is both effective and reimbursable.A significant amount of value now resides outside of claims in disease management, digital tools, and condition management programs. Members need clear navigation and transparency on what they have, where to go, and what it costs.Provider enablement is essential for value-based care. Success depends on aligned incentives, shared operations, coaching, and trust between plans and providers.Strategic investments should prioritize scalable administration, robust operations, and data pipelines. These foundations let plans attribute value, manage risk, and drive affordability at scale.Resources:Connect with and follow Lori Logan on LinkedIn.Follow NASCO on LinkedIn and explore their website.

About Dr. Julie Schulz:Dr. Julie Schulz, MD, MPH, is a physician executive and product leader based in Los Angeles with a proven track record of driving innovation at the intersection of healthcare, technology, and business. Over the past 15 years, she has built and led teams developing healthcare decision support, analytics, and consumer health products across value-based care, women’s health, and life sciences. As VP of Product at Avalon Healthcare Solutions, she leads strategy for next-generation diagnostics platforms. Previously, at HALO Diagnostics and Doctor Evidence, she guided product and business development efforts that integrated imaging, laboratory, and evidence-based analytics to improve patient and physician experiences. Earlier roles at Lumere and Sg2 honed her expertise in clinical data, product-market fit, and scaling evidence-driven solutions. Published in leading journals, Dr. Schulz combines deep clinical insight with strategic leadership to advance innovations that improve healthcare outcomes and drive measurable business impact.Things You’ll Learn:Diagnostic intelligence can transform diagnostics from a cost center into a strategic asset that improves quality and lowers costs.Physicians face overwhelming volumes of new tests and guidelines, and AI-powered decision support can ease their cognitive burden.By removing prior authorization barriers, patients can transition from diagnosis to treatment in just 15 days, rather than the typical 60 days.Data shows that healthier patients are more likely to receive GLP-1 prescriptions, revealing a need for better risk-adjusted care strategies.True innovation in healthcare depends on communication, simplifying complexity and aligning clinicians, payers, and technologists toward shared goals.Resources:Connect with and follow Dr. Julie Schulz on LinkedIn.Follow Avalon Healthcare Solutions on LinkedIn and explore their website.Read Avalon Healthcare Solutions’ Annual Lab Trend Report here.

In this episode, host Sandy Vance sits down with Haris Shuaib, the CEO at Newton's Tree to explore how AI is transforming healthcare. Newton’s Tree partners with leading health systems and AI vendors to make AI adoption safe, effective, and scalable. Haris shares practical insights on where health systems should begin, how to design for agility, and what it takes to evolve alongside rapidly changing technology. Together, they look ahead to the future of AI in healthcare, where innovation and compassion go hand in hand because helping people still remains at the heart of every advancement.In this episode, they talk about:The birth of Newton’s TreeHealth systems should start small and design for agilityTechnology adoption best practicesNewton’s Tree’s four-step framework to aid health systems through their entire life cyclesBalancing the need to implement quickly and properly at the same timeThe future of standards for AI in healthcareWe must evolve with technologyA Little About Haris:Haris Shuaib is Founder and CEO of Newton’s Tree, a startup dedicated to AI transformation at scale in health and care. He is Director of the Fellowships in Clinical Artificial Intelligence, the world’s-first clinical training programme for healthcare professionals to develop practical AI skills. He is also a Consultant Clinical Scientist and former Head of the Clinical Scientific Computing section at Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS FT. Finally, he also holds a NIHR Doctoral Research Fellowship, where he is leading a national multi-centre trial to see whether AI can improve the treatment of glioblastoma. 

In this episode, host Sandy Vance sits down with Dr. Bilal Naved from Clearstep Health to explore how AI is transforming the patient experience. From improving access and engagement to streamlining provider workflows, Clearstep’s AI agents are helping healthcare organizations deliver care more efficiently and effectively.It’s a pivotal moment for the industry: AI isn’t here to replace expertise, but to amplify it. When developed responsibly, these tools can become powerful partners by reducing friction for patients, supporting providers, and ensuring care reaches those who need it most.In this episode, they talk about:How Clearstep uses AI to balance patient access with provider capacityWhat it really means to leverage expert AI systemsTangible benefits for provider organizationsCutting call center volume, boosting patient care, and seeing 3–10x ROIFlexible deployment: from pre-visit automation to call center efficiency to data insightsA Little About Bilal:Dr. Bilal Naved co-founded Clearstep while completing his MD/PhD at Northwestern University. With a passion for blending engineering and medicine, he’s dedicated to pushing the boundaries of how care is delivered. Today, Bilal focuses on using advanced informatics to both optimize healthcare systems and measure real-world outcomes: work that’s making healthcare more efficient, effective, and patient-centered.

In this episode, host Sandy Vance sits with Derek Lo, CEO and Founder at Medallion, to explore how technology is reshaping one of the most overlooked but critical parts of healthcare: managing provider networks. Derek shares the story behind Medallion, why he set out to tackle the complexities of credentialing, licensing, and provider management, and how his team is using automation and AI to make life easier for both providers and organizations.Medallion builds software that simplifies the complexity of running a provider network. From credentialing to licensing, the platform helps organizations get providers seeing patients faster while offering greater efficiency, visibility, and control.In this episode, they talk about:How Medallion helps accurately manage provider networks with AI automationThe complicated and complex process of credentialing—and why it sparked Derek’s journeyWhere Medallion comes into play in recruiting and hiring providersHow this benefits organizations beyond the administrative processThe future of AI management software in healthcareHow Medallion is helping drive transformation across the industryA Little About Derek:Derek Lo is the CEO and Founder of Medallion, the leading platform for provider network management. Since launching in 2020, he’s grown the company to over 300 customers, built a 150+ person team, and raised $140 million from top investors like Sequoia Capital and Optum Ventures. A second-time founder, Derek previously built and sold Py to Hired.com in 2019. He’s a Yale graduate in Computer Science and Statistics, a two-time Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, and is driving Medallion’s mission to simplify healthcare operations with AI-powered automation.

In this podcast, Vishal Iyengar, Principal at Deloitte\, and Mike Stimpson, CTO at enGen, discuss the strategic value that AI Agents can unlock to transform healthcare outcomes, operations, and stakeholder experience. They explore the practical use of Agents to answer foundational questions and address requests for information from members and providers that routinely cause abrasion, confusion, and administrative overhead. Vishal and Mike also highlight what is needed for these Agentic solutions to be deployed and adopted for organizations to achieve the expected results – data integrity, cyber security, governance and compliance, and targeted talent. In this episode, they talk about:How AI has grown from traditional machine learning to GenAI to today’s Agentic capabilitiesA simple 3-layer setup: domain agents (specialists), reasoning agents (the organizer), and an enterprise model (the professor)Real-life use cases, like “Is this service covered?” or “Why was my claim denied?”What enGen focuses on to succeed: fresh thinking, outside perspectives, curiosity, a willingness to rebuild, and the right teamenGen’s vision is transforming healthcare by supporting members on their whole health journey and creating seamless experiencesSmarter data with AI-enabled APIs that make information easy to use across different needsWhy speed matters but not at the cost of security and trustA Little About Vishal and Mike:Vishal brings over 2 decades of technology and business transformation experience in the Health Care industry. He specializes in the infusion and adoption of new-age technologies into today's complex ecosystem that enables Payers and Providers to manage, deliver, and reimburse for care. Most recently, he has focused on real-world use of AI to augment technologists, operators, and business experts to meaningfully change how Health Care systems support their stakeholders. Mike comes to enGen with over 25 years of experience in technology and operations within both the health care and financial services industries. For the past 20 years, he consulted with health care organizations in transforming their businesses through technology-enabled solutions and large-scale business transformations specifically focused in core administration and service transformation . Mike leads enGen’s person-centric solutions focused on digital, clinical and provider transformation that puts the member and patient at the center of their healthcare journey.

How much time do care team members spend piecing together a patient’s story—reviewing past visits, tracking what’s changed, and understanding their current needs? The answer is often too much. A large share of clinical energy goes into gathering and analyzing patient data, leaving less time for what matters most: direct care.That’s where virtual care platforms and AI-driven healthcare solutions come in. By streamlining workflows and surfacing the right insights at the right time, these tools cut the administrative load in half, giving providers more time with patients while reducing the risk of burnout.In this episode, host Sandy Vance sits with Peter Burns, from SoftServe, and Tim Wright from Teladoc to explore how their organizations are reimagining care team workflows. They discuss practical ways technology can boost efficiency, speed up patient support, and strengthen trust—the foundation for any successful digital health adoption.In this episode, they talk about:The vision behind SoftServe and Teladoc Health and how they’re shaping the future of care deliveryThe expanding reach of virtual care and what it means for patients and providersHow AI-driven healthcare tools are redefining care team workflows for greater efficiencyReal-world examples of how Teladoc and SoftServe are improving the way care teams collaborate and deliver patient supportThe role of smart hospital rooms and what they signal for the next era of connected careWhy the partnership between SoftServe and Teladoc is unlocking new possibilities in digital health innovationA Little About Peter:Peter Burns brings more than 25 years of healthcare experience to his role as Director of Consulting & Domain Solutions at SoftServe. He’s passionate about bridging the gap between technology and healthcare, helping payers and providers solve complex business challenges with innovative, real-world solutions.At SoftServe, Peter combines deep industry expertise with cutting-edge technical capabilities to design strategies that improve workflows, enhance patient outcomes, and drive lasting impact across the healthcare ecosystem.A Little About Tim:Tim Wright is passionate about using technology to make healthcare more accessible and effective. As Senior Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at Teladoc Health, he helps shape the future of virtual care by building collaborations that improve patient experiences and support care teams.Before joining Teladoc in 2020, Tim was a founding leader at InTouch Health. Prior to that he held management positions at HCR ManorCare, and even Marriott International, giving him a unique perspective that blends healthcare innovation with customer-centered strategy. He actually started his career in IT as an Information Systems Manager at King Broadcasting Company, a role that sparked his lifelong interest in technology and innovation.Tim holds an MBA from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Washington, and studied at Sciences Po Bordeaux.

In this episode, host Sandy Vance, along with Anand Iyer, discuss Welldoc's core philosophy of responsible innovation, particularly how they are pushing the boundaries of AI while maintaining a strong commitment to safety, compliance, and member trust. Anand reveals how Welldoc is shaping the future of AI in healthcare by collaborating with the FDA, addressing bias, and leading a national effort for interoperability. Discover why responsibility, trust, and consumer empowerment are the keys to turning digital health innovation into safer, more proactive care. Healthcare innovation must be responsible in order to be effective.In this episode, they talk about:Healthcare innovation must be responsible.The four levels of AI and how they are best usedWorking with the FDA to advance safe, high-risk features.Driving interoperability, reducing friction, and encouraging consumer empowerment.Addressing Bias by using diverse data, garnering trust, and establishing the right guardrailsGovernance through consistent standardsPartnerships are the key to growing AI responsiblyKey Takeaways:Trust, safety, and compliance are non-negotiable foundations of innovation.Regulators are partners in shaping the future of AI, not barriers.Responsible AI creates safer, more equitable, and more proactive careA Little About Anand Iyer:Anand is a respected global digital health innovator and leader, most known for his insights on and experience with technology, strategy, and regulatory policy. Anand has been instrumental in Welldoc’s success and the development of BlueStar®, the first FDA-cleared digital therapeutic for adults with type 2 diabetes. Since joining Welldoc in 2008, he has held core leadership positions that included President and Chief Operating Officer and Chief Strategy Officer. In 2013, Anand was named “Maryland Healthcare Innovator of the Year” in the field of mobile health. Anand was also recognized as a top AI thought leader globally when he was named to Constellation Research’s prestigious AI 150 list in 2024.