Podcast
The Beat
Hosted by HLTH · EN
The Beat, powered by HLTH, is a weekly interview series dedicated to paving a better path forward for the future of health. Each week a variety of hosts bring you authentic conversations with prominent thought leaders. Through these interviews with people at the forefront of change in healthcare, we hope to spark new ideas and encourage new collaborations among listeners.
51episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Rethinking Network Defense in Healthcare
2w ago00:24:09Tap to summarizeCybersecurity in healthcare isn’t just about keeping attackers out anymore. It’s about what happens after they get in. In this episode, Chris Boehm, Field CTO of Zero Networks, breaks down how organizations can move toward “Zero Trust” without disrupting clinical operations. From legacy systems and third-party access to the growing risks of AI, Chris shares how visibility, identity-based segmentation, and smarter automation are helping healthcare organizations stay secure while keeping care moving. As healthcare organizations struggle to secure complex environments and protect sensitive patient data, it’s time to prioritize resilience over reactive strategies. Learn how healthcare teams can proactively reduce attack surfaces and build self-defending networks that keep critical operations running – even during active cyber incidents. In this episode, they talk about: Traditional perimeter-based security is no longer enough to protect healthcare organizations from modern cyber threats. The industry is shifting from a focus on preventing breaches to a focus on containing them once they occur. “Zero Trust” in practice means continuously verifying identity and controlling access rather than assuming anyone inside the network is safe. Identity-based segmentation plays a critical role in reducing risk without disrupting day-to-day workflows. Healthcare organizations face a unique challenge in balancing strong security measures with the need to maintain seamless clinical operations. Most organizations achieve partial network segmentation, which leaves gaps that attackers can exploit. Solutions like those from Zero Networks enable full segmentation while still allowing normal business and clinical activities to continue. AI tools introduce new risks by potentially accessing more data than intended, especially without proper oversight. A lack of visibility into network activity remains one of the biggest gaps in modern cybersecurity strategies. Organizations must begin preparing now for upcoming regulatory changes, including evolving HIPAA requirements. Real-world challenges such as workforce turnover and limited IT resources make implementing and maintaining security even more complex. A Little About Chris: Chris is the Field Chief Technology Officer at Zero Networks, leading security strategy and revenue alignment globally. He drives enterprise growth by connecting customer realities to product, go-to-market, and executive decision-making across complex, high-value enterprise pursuits. Specialize in Zero Trust architecture, identity-based microsegmentation, and lateral movement prevention—helping organizations reduce risk while enabling scale and operational resilience. He’s also held leadership roles at SentinelOne during its post-IPO growth to ~$800M ARR and at Microsoft, contributing to the early adoption and enterprise scaling of security platforms such as Azure Sentinel. Not to mention, Chris has advised CISOs and executive teams on security strategy, risk, and transformation—translating complex challenges into measurable business outcomes.
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Hart Helps Change Data Chaos to Data Clarity in Healthcare
2w ago00:24:05Tap to summarizeAI may be the hottest topic in healthcare, but most organizations still aren’t ready to use it at scale. In this episode, host Sandy Vance chats with the CEO of Hart, Dominique Gross. Together, they break down the real barriers holding healthcare back: from fragmented data and legacy EHR systems to inconsistent standards and limited access. Dominique shares how building a semantic data layer is helping organizations unlock their data, scale innovation safely, and move from pilot projects to real enterprise impact. In this episode, they talk about: Many healthcare organizations are eager to adopt AI, but they struggle to scale beyond pilot programs due to foundational data challenges. The most immediate barrier to innovation is simply gaining access to all relevant data across fragmented and legacy systems. Data quality is just as critical as access, as organizations must normalize and clean their data before it can be used effectively. Legacy electronic health records often contain valuable historical data, even if organizations are hesitant to use it due to inconsistencies. Patients ultimately benefit when their full medical history is accessible, rather than only recent encounters. HART has developed a semantic data layer that acts as a “translation system” across different EHRs, enabling consistent data use. This approach allows organizations to aggregate, migrate, and stream data more efficiently across dozens of systems. One health system successfully scaled from connecting a small number of affiliates to centralizing more than 60 data sources over time. The same organization was able to complete a major EHR migration in under 12 weeks by extracting, normalizing, and preparing data for a new system. Proprietary data models within EHR systems create significant barriers to interoperability and data portability. Despite increasing regulation and improved standards, accessing complete and meaningful data remains a challenge across vendors. Market consolidation is likely to continue, as organizations seek fewer vendors that can handle multiple data needs. Clinical research remains an underutilized opportunity, with many organizations still relying on manual processes to identify eligible patients. Improving data accessibility could dramatically accelerate patient recruitment and engagement in clinical trials. Simple improvements in data completeness and standardization can have immediate impacts on reimbursement, efficiency, and patient care. A Little About Dominique: As CEO of Hart since 2023, Dominique Gross provides healthcare data leadership, guiding the company’s mission to eliminate healthcare data fragmentation and empower organizations to achieve true interoperability. With more than two decades of experience driving health IT innovation and go-to-market strategies, Dominique has shaped Hart’s focus on making the impossible possible every day, ensuring that every innovation at Hart advances both operational efficiency and equitable patient care. Prior to joining Hart, Dominique led strategy and growth initiatives at multiple firms, working as one of the industry's prominent healthcare technology executives to launch connected care solutions for veterans and major health systems. Her leadership philosophy centers on collaboration and integrity, guiding Hart to serve as both a technology provider and a trusted partner for healthcare’s most complex data challenges. Dominique is a frequent speaker on the future of healthcare data ecosystems and a strong advocate for patient empowerment through healthcare data accessibility.
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How MyFitnessPal Is Using AI to Transform Global Nutrition
3w ago00:20:24Tap to summarizeIn this episode, host Sandy Vance sits down with Mike Fisher, the CEO of MyFitnessPal, for an exciting and passionate conversation about what happens when twenty years of nutrition data meets modern AI. With over 300 million people impacted worldwide and a brand that has been a household name for two decades, MyFitnessPal is not resting on its laurels. From an AI coach backed by two decades of behavioral data to a ChatGPT integration that meets users wherever they already are, to the acquisition of Gen Z favorite Calaii, Mike paints a vibrant picture of where consumer nutrition technology is headed. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of consumer behavior, AI personalization, and population health. In this episode, they talk about: MyFitnessPal has impacted over 300 million people worldwide and has been building AI into nutrition tools long before LLMs existed The app's AI flywheel covers three areas: logging, meal planning, and personalized insights The new AI coach for premium users is backed by twenty years of behavioral data on what actually helps people hit their goals Users who scan meals are 32% more likely to hit their goals, a data point only possible after two decades of studying user behavior MyFitnessPal integrated with ChatGPT so users can access its nutrition expertise directly inside the LLM they already use The company acquired Calaii, built by high school students who scaled it to millions of users in under two years, to reach a younger demographic A new GLP-1 mode lets users track dosage, side effects, and nutrition in one place Agentic programming has lowered the barrier to building software, but cannot replicate twenty years of trusted data and behavioral science Bad data and missing data are just as dangerous as hallucinations, and guardrails around AI nutrition advice are non-negotiable A Little About Mike: Mike Fisher is the CEO of MyFitnessPal and a member of its board of directors. At MyFitnessPal, he focuses on driving strategic initiatives, enhancing the app’s technological infrastructure, and expanding its impact on global health and nutrition. He brings a wealth of experience from his previous role as Chief Technology Officer at Etsy, where he drove engineering and product innovation, and from Quigo, where he scaled technology infrastructure ahead of its acquisition by AOL. Co-founder of AKF Partners, Mike has advised numerous tech companies on strategic growth and held pivotal leadership roles at PayPal. A former U.S. Army Captain and pilot, Mike is also an active philanthropist and serves on the boards of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the West Point Association of Graduates. He has co-authored two books on scalability and one on customer misbehavior.
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Why Infosys Believes AI Will Rewire Every Function in Healthcare
3w ago00:24:06Tap to summarizeIn this episode of the AI at Health series on The Beat Podcast, host Sandy Vance sits down with Venky Ananth, Executive Vice President and Head of Healthcare at Infosys, for a wide-ranging and energizing conversation about what it actually means for AI to transform healthcare at scale. Venky brings a refreshingly honest and structured perspective to a conversation that is often dominated by hype, breaking down why AI is fundamentally different from every other technology wave healthcare has been through, laying out the five areas where Infosys is seeing real traction with payers, providers, and PBMs right now, and sharing the story behind two exciting developments: the acquisition of Optimum Health IT and the Pacesetters podcast and executive leadership community. If you are a healthcare leader trying to figure out where to start or how to think about AI as a whole-enterprise challenge rather than a point solution, this episode is essential listening. In this episode, they talk about: AI is not a point solution; it is a new operating system that will touch every function in every organization Healthcare is broken, fragmented, and frustrating, and AI is the first technology with the potential to fix all three at once Legacy modernization must come before AI adoption because you cannot layer intelligence on top of broken processes AI can now reverse engineer legacy systems that used to depend entirely on tribal knowledge The five pillars of AI transformation are strategy and engineering, legacy modernization, data, process reengineering, and physical AI Training AI on your own private data is the competitive wedge that separates leaders from followers Agents are the new team members, and organizations need to rethink how humans and agents orchestrate workflows together Infosys acquired Optimum Health IT, the number one-ranked Epic implementation partner according to KLAS, to deepen its provider capabilities Epic now covers an estimated 220 to 230 million distinct patients in the US and is growing internationally The Pacesetters podcast and annual executive gathering bring together CIOs, CTOs, academics, and analysts for candid, off-the-record dialogue about the future of healthcare A Little About Venky Ananth: Venky is a technology and transformation executive with deep experience leading a global business unit, scaling high-performance organizations, and delivering large-scale change through AI, cloud, and modern growth operating models. His career has focused on helping enterprises modernize core systems, improve operational efficiency, and unlock new growth through platform innovation and disciplined execution. He founded and scaled Infosys Helix, a cloud-native platform business that continues to shape payer and health platform modernization. In addition, he has led global teams across engineering, delivery, consulting, and product, giving him a broad view of strategy, technology, operations, and organizational scale. He operates at the intersection of technology, business model transformation, and leadership development, with a track record of strengthening enterprise performance and building organizations capable of sustained growth. Beyond his operating role, I host PaceSetters, a CXO leadership platform featuring conversations with leaders from healthcare, academia, private equity, and technology.
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How Bland Is Replacing Legacy IVR Systems and Fixing Healthcare's Phone Problem
4w ago00:22:04Tap to summarizeIn this episode, host Sandy Vance chats with Isaiah Granet, co-founder and CEO of Bland, for a sharp and eye-opening conversation about one of the most overlooked bottlenecks in healthcare: the phone call. Bland now handles 3.5 million phone calls a week, has raised over $100 million, including a $40 million Series B, and is backed by Emergence Capital, Scale, and Y Combinator. Isaiah brings a refreshingly honest take on what it actually takes to get voice AI into production in healthcare, why most vendors are just talking about it rather than doing it, and why the security risks hiding in third-party AI dependencies should be keeping every healthcare CIO up at night. In this episode, they talk about: Most people call a call center because they are at the end of the line and cannot solve their problem any other way The best voice AI systems conform to the caller, not the other way around Intake is the fastest path to ROI for health systems deploying voice AI for the first time Bland tracks emotional sentiment, call escalation rates, and a unique metric called utterances to measure patient experience quality Bland does not use OpenAI or any third-party LLM under the hood, meaning PHI never touches an outside vendor Health systems should demand that calls go live within 30 days and measurable automation within 60 days A single third-party dependency, three steps removed from a vendor, recently led to a class action lawsuit Always declare that it is an AI agent on the call; deceptive practices destroy the trust that voice AI depends on The CIO role is becoming one of the most important in any healthcare organization, as AI decisions multiply A Little About Isaiah: Isaiah values community, family, and impact above all else. He believes that building for impact is what makes life. In addition to being the cofounder and CEO of Bland, he also sits on the board of the nonprofit he founded, the San Diego Chill.
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How Limina Is Making Sensitive Health Data Safe for AI
Apr 2700:17:30Tap to summarizeIn this episode, host Sandy Vance sits down with Patricia Thaine, co-founder and chair of Limina (formerly known as Private AI), for a fascinating conversation about one of the most underappreciated bottlenecks in healthcare AI adoption: the privacy of unstructured data. With a background in natural language processing and privacy research, Patricia built the company from the ground up to solve a problem most organizations did not even know they had. Today, her platform helps health systems, research organizations, and payers de-identify everything from clinical notes to ambient listening data so they can train models, share data for research, and move their AI initiatives forward without putting patient privacy at risk. If your AI initiative is stalled because of privacy concerns, this episode is exactly what you need to hear. In this episode, they talk about: 80 to 90% of healthcare data is unstructured, and most organizations have no idea what sensitive information is hiding in it Cloud providers require you to send your data outside your environment, and that alone is a dealbreaker for many health systems De-identification is not just about removing names; quasi-identifiers like age ranges, locations, and diagnoses all factor into re-identification risk The goal is to keep re-identification risk below 0.04%, not just strip out obvious fields Training AI models on real PHI creates a memorization problem where the model can regurgitate patient information in production Providence Health has used Limina since the early days to train patient and physician-facing chatbots safely A mature privacy-to-AI operating model requires statisticians, product teams, IT, governance, and legal all at the table LIMINA rebranded from Private AI because the old name kept attracting requests for on-premise LLMs, which is not what they do A Little About Patricia: Patricia Thaine is the Co-Founder & Chairwoman of Private AI, a Microsoft-backed startup that raised their Series A led by the BDC. Private AI won the Privacy Innovation Award at PICCASO 2024, was named a 2023 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum, and was a Gartner Cool Vendor. Patricia is also the host of The Data Frontier podcast and was on Maclean’s magazine Power List 2024 for being one of the top 100 Canadians shaping the country.
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How Vital Is Using AI to Keep Patients Informed, Safe, and Loyal
Apr 2300:24:56Tap to summarizeIn this episode, host Sandy Vance sits down with Aaron Patzer, the founder & CEO of Vital.io, for one of the most energizing and candid conversations in the series. Aaron built Mint.com, saved consumers $9 billion in bank fees, and then turned his attention to one of the most anxiety-inducing experiences a person can have: sitting in an emergency room not knowing what is happening. Vital now guides 7 million patients through ER, inpatient, and urgent care visits in real time at hundreds of health systems, including Ascension, CommonSpirit, Emory, and MedStar. Aaron also shares his work on the AI Care Standard, a growing coalition of health systems and patient advocates building a framework to evaluate AI tools before they go anywhere near a patient. This one is packed with insight, sharp opinions, and genuinely important ideas. In this episode, they talk about: Vital sits on top of the EHR and guides patients through their ER or inpatient visit in real time, in plain language 65 to 70% of patients actively use Vital during their visit, one of the highest adoption rates in health tech Vital reduces leave without being seen rates by 35 to 50%, and those walkouts are worth $2,000 each, plus readmission penalties Health systems using Vital have seen up to 48 million dollars in additional top-line revenue across two hospitals Vital improves Press Ganey and HCAHPS scores by about 10 points and increases system retention by 30% Before showing any patient their doctor's notes, Vital runs 14 separate safety checks, including flags for new cancer diagnoses, pregnancy loss, and self-harm The AI Care Standard is a free, dynamic evaluation framework at aicarestandard.com that grades AI tools across 10 patient safety principles Most consumer-facing AI tools like ChatGPT cite Reddit and pop health blogs, not peer-reviewed clinical sources, and that is a patient safety problem A Little About Aaron: Aaron Patzer is Founder & CEO of Vital.io (AI-powered patient experience at 100+ hospitals), Mint.com (25m users), and five other startups. He served as Head of Product Innovation and an officer at Intuit. If you've used TurboTax, Quicken, Mint, or QuickBooks, you and 200M other people have used software he's designed. Fortune Magazine named Aaron one of the Top 40 Executives Under 40, has won 5 product design awards, and done over 600 press interviews, at one time appearing as a regular on CNBC, and writing a column for Parade Magazine. He is an angel investor in dozens of startups, including Carbon Health, Radix (now Relatient), HealthTap, and more. He holds degrees in electrical engineering & computer science from Duke, with PhD work at Princeton, and 10 patents as lead inventor, all in algorithms
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How DirectTrust Is Vetting Health Apps, Accrediting AI, and Gaps HIPAA Didn't Address
Apr 2200:19:42Tap to summarizeIn this episode, host Sandy Vance welcomes back Kathryn Ayers Wickenhauser, Chief Strategy Officer at DirectTrust, for her third time on the show. This time the conversation goes deeper than ever, covering three major developments: DirectTrust's role in vetting apps for the new CMS Medicare App Library, the launch of a groundbreaking AI accreditation program built on the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, and the urgent but widely misunderstood gap in HIPAA coverage that leaves millions of consumers thinking their health data is protected when it really isn’t. If you work anywhere in the health tech ecosystem, this episode is essential listening. In this episode, they talk about: HIPAA only covers covered entities and business associates, meaning most consumer health apps have little obligation to protect your data The CMS Medicare App Library is a vetted directory of trusted digital health apps, and DirectTrust is helping validate which apps earn a spot in it When CMS moves, the rest of the industry follows, making this app library a trust signal far beyond Medicare beneficiaries DirectTrust's AI accreditation program is built on the NIST AI Risk Management Framework and assessed by independent third-party reviewers The program will offer two tiers: a foundational version for organizations early in their AI journey and a comprehensive version for those with greater maturity The four pillars of the AI accreditation program are governance, management, mapping, and measurement AI is unlike any other technology implementation because it touches every aspect of an organization simultaneously DirectTrust's annual conference is October 20th and 21st in Kansas City at the Oracle Innovations Campus A Little About Kathryn: Kathryn Ayers Wickenhauser, MBA, FACHDM, CHPC, is Chief Strategy Officer at DirectTrust®, the national non-profit alliance and accreditor building trust in healthcare technology and secure information exchange. With nearly two decades of advancing interoperability, identity, privacy, and technical trust, she leads community engagement, communications, and strategic partnerships, shaping national standards and policy. Kathryn is a recognized thought leader featured in outlets like Healthcare IT Today and Health IT Answers, and under her leadership, DirectTrust has earned multiple HITMC awards, including Marketing Team of the Year in 2025. She has been named among the Top 50 Women Chief Strategy Officers and Becker’s 100 Women in Health IT to Know.
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How Vouched Is Helping Telehealth Providers Verify Patients Without Losing Them
Apr 2100:22:28Tap to summarizeIn this episode, host Sandy Vance chats with Matthew Stern, the CEO at MyStart Health, and Nick Mortek, Strategic Consultant at Vouched. They have a practical and energizing conversation about one of the most underestimated problems in telehealth: patient identity verification. Matt built MyStart Health to help patients access GLP-1 medications and other telehealth services, only to discover that a clunky ID upload process was costing him nearly 28% of his patients before they ever got started. Nick and the Vouched team solved that problem in under a month and delivered a 40% net impact to the business. If you are building or running a telehealth product and wondering why your funnel is leaking, this episode has the answer. Telehealth funnels bleed revenue at identity verification. Telehealth provider MyStart Health boosted patient intake through passive identity checks with Vouched identity verification, keeping high-intent buyers on their platform. In this episode, they talk about: Up to 40 to 50% of telehealth patients drop out of the funnel at the ID upload step alone Vouched runs passive identity verification through 3,000 data providers in under 400 milliseconds MyStart Health saw a 20% increase in front-end conversion and a 20% improvement in backend verification after implementing Vouched The total impact was a 40% net swing to the bottom line in the first month Implementation can take as little as a few days for agile teams and no more than two weeks for larger organizations Patients are more comfortable with low-friction passive verification than with uploading sensitive documents to an unknown system Trust is the real product in telehealth, and every touchpoint in the patient journey either builds it or destroys it The future of healthcare is a personalized, data-rich hub connecting blood work, DNA, connected devices, and medications into one patient experience A Little About Matt and Nick: Matthew Stern is the CEO and founder of MyStart Health, a rapidly growing telehealth company focused on improving patient access, engagement, and long-term health outcomes. A seasoned entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience building and scaling businesses across multiple industries, Matthew brings deep expertise in customer acquisition, brand growth, and digital marketing. At MyStart Health, he is pioneering a more personalized, data-driven healthcare experience—leveraging technology, telehealth, and emerging treatments to help patients take greater control of their health and longevity. Nick Mortek is a Strategic Consultant at Vouched, where he helps healthcare and digital health organizations implement secure, low-friction identity verification solutions. With a background rooted in financial services and identity technology, Nick specializes in helping companies streamline patient onboarding, reduce fraud, and improve conversion across digital experiences. At Vouched, he works closely with founders and product teams to build trust-driven, HIPAA-compliant verification systems that enhance both security and user experience in the evolving telehealth landscape.
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From Data Chaos to Data Confidence in Healthcare
Apr 1500:19:18Tap to summarizeHealthcare has more data than any industry in the world—but without trust in that data, it’s almost useless. In this episode, Clay Ritchey, Chief Executive Officer of Verato, breaks down why identity is the missing foundation behind interoperability, AI, and better patient experiences. From fragmented records to failed digital transformation promises, Clay shares how solving “who is who” unlocks everything from improved clinical outcomes to lower costs—and why now is the moment healthcare can finally get it right. In this episode, they talk about: Why healthcare generates massive amounts of data but struggles to use it effectively The core problem: lack of trust in data due to poor identity resolution What it means when one patient exists as 10 different records across systems How fragmented identity impacts patient experience and clinical outcomes The connection between clean data and successful AI adoption Why consumers are driving change with higher expectations for digital experiences The role of identity in enabling true interoperability across organizations How Verato creates a single longitudinal view of patients across thousands of data sources The impact of identity on reducing duplicate tests, costs, and delays in care Why this moment—AI + regulation + consumer demand—is a tipping point for healthcare A Little About Clay: Clay Ritchey is the Chief Executive Officer of Verato. Clay brings more than 20 years of experience driving growth and innovation in market-leading healthcare technology organizations to Verato. As CEO, Clay is passionate about working with healthcare, life science, and government organizations across the care continuum to transform the way that consumers and patients engage with them to build deeper relationships resulting in improved outcomes and sustainable growth for our customers.
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