Podcast
The Pulse by Wharton Digital Health
Hosted by The Pulse by Wharton Digital Health · EN
Capturing the pulse of healthcare innovation spanning leaders across the healthcare ecosystem.
16episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Aidan Dewar, Nourish, on Using AI to Build a Better Healthcare System
2w ago00:48:10Tap to summarizeIn this episode of The Pulse, I sat down with Aidan Dewar, co-founder and CEO of Nourish, to talk about one of the most underleveraged opportunities in healthcare: treating chronic disease through nutrition and lifestyle change. Nourish has built the largest network of registered dietitians in the United States and layered virtual physician care, lab testing, and medication management (including GLP-1s) into a single, insurance-covered platform. In just over four years, the company has gone from a virtual dietitian booking platform to a full-stack virtual metabolic clinic, tripling revenue year over year and recently closing a $100 million Series C.In our conversation, Aidan and I explored:His path from childhood entrepreneurship to co-founding NourishWhy cardiometabolic dysfunction is the most upstream problem in healthcare (and why now is the right time to solve it)How Nourish built the largest registered dietitian network in the U.S. The role of personalization and AI in making behavior change stickHow Nourish thinks about GLP-1s: responsible prescribing, aligned incentives, and why medication alone isn't the answerWhat it took to raise a $100M Series C in a selective funding environmentHope you enjoy the episode! Learn more about Nourish: http://nourish.com/thepulse
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Ellen Rudolph, co-founder and CEO of WellTheory, on rebuilding autoimmune care
2w ago00:41:40Tap to summarizeIn our latest episode of The Pulse, I sat down with Ellen Rudolph, co-founder and CEO of WellTheory, a company rebuilding autoimmune care through a root-cause, longitudinal approach. Ellen shares her personal journey from patient to founder, why traditional healthcare continues to fail millions living with autoimmune conditions, and how WellTheory is creating a more personalized and evidence-based model of care. We also discuss the company’s evolution from direct-to-consumer to enterprise, the intersection of autoimmune disease and women’s health, and her advice for founders navigating uncertainty.
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Lauren Makler, Cofertility, on Making Egg Freezing Accessible through Tech-Enabled Services
4w ago00:45:43Tap to summarizeIn this episode of The Pulse, I sat down with Lauren Makler, co-founder and CEO of Cofertility, to talk about one of the most personal and overlooked challenges in women's health: the cost and complexity of egg freezing and donation. Lauren's career is a study in conviction - from launching Uber Health to channeling a deeply personal health journey into a company reshaping third-party reproduction in the U.S.In our conversation, Lauren and I explored:Her path from Uber to healthcare entrepreneurship and the personal diagnosis that sparked CofertilityWhy existing egg freezing companies were making the problem worse, not betterHow Cofertility's Split model works and what makes it fundamentally different from traditional egg donationBuilding a three-sided marketplace in a high-stakes, highly sensitive industryHow AI is changing the pace of product development at CofertilityWhat Lauren looks for in the people she hires and what it really takes to thrive at an early-stage company
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Priyanka Jain, Evvy, on Using Biomarkers to Unlock Precision Women’s Health
Apr 2300:35:20Tap to summarizeIn this episode, I chatted with Priyanka Jain, Co-Founder and CEO of Evvy. Evvy is tackling that challenge by starting with one of the most overlooked areas in medicine: the vaginal microbiome. While vaginal discomfort is one of the leading reasons women seek healthcare, it remains a space shaped by stigma, poor diagnostics, and treatments that too often miss the mark.In our conversation, we explored Priyanka’s founding journey, why Evvy chose the vaginal microbiome as its starting point, how the company built trust with patients and providers, and what the future of precision women’s health could look like.For more information on topics discussed in the podcast: Evvy: https://www.evvy.com/The Center for Intimacy Justice: https://www.intimacyjustice.org/Priyanka's book recommendation: The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
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Dr. Giovanni Colella, Vanna Health, on Reimagining Community-Based Care for Serious Mental Illness
Feb 1100:52:42Tap to summarizeIn this episode of The Pulse, I had the opportunity to sit down with Giovanni Colella, MD - a psychiatrist and experienced healthcare entrepreneur - to discuss his journey from clinical care to company-building, and what it takes to design care models for healthcare’s most complex populations.Over the past several decades, Giovanni has co-founded several influential healthcare companies, including RelayHealth (acquired by McKesson), Castlight Health, OODA Health (acquired by Cedar), Solara Health, and Brightline, focused on pediatric behavioral health. Today, he’s the co-founder and CEO of Vanna Health, a company delivering community-based care to individuals with serious mental illness (SMI), primarily within Medicaid populations. His perspective is shaped by both deep clinical training and lived experience building and operating companies at the intersection of care delivery, administration, and technology.If you're interested in additional resources for staying up to speed on behavioral health, here is a list of Giovanni's podcast and newsletter recommendations:Hidden Brain (Podcast): The gold standard for understanding the unconscious patterns that drive our behavior.The Happiness Lab (Podcast): Yale professor Dr. Laurie Santos shares the actual science of well-being (and debunks common myths).Huberman Lab (Podcast): Great for deep dives into neuroscience and "tools" for mental and physical health.Wondermind (Newsletter): A fantastic resource for "mental fitness" with expert interviews and practical daily exercises.3-2-1 by James Clear (Newsletter): While focused on habits, it’s rooted in behavioral science and offers great weekly reframes.Psych Central (Newsletter): A perfect weekly pulse-check on the latest evidence-based mental health research.
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Rahul Naidoo, Superscript, on Rewriting the Rules of Healthcare Pricing
Feb 400:49:25Tap to summarizeIn this episode of The Pulse, I sat down with Rahul Naidoo, co-founder and CEO of Superscript, an early-stage health tech company on a mission to redefine the financial experience in healthcare for both patients and providers.Founded in 2021, Superscript spent nearly three years in R&D building what Rahul calls “healthcare’s first pricing protocol” — technology that turns surprise, after-the-fact medical bills into clear, upfront prices. The company now works with nearly 300 providers across New York, New Jersey, and Texas, has empowered close to 50,000 patients with upfront prices, and is backed by investors including Mark Cuban, early backers of Uber and SpaceX, and founders from Dropbox and Everly Health.Rahul and I talked about his unconventional journey from Cape Town to Harvard to health tech founder, why he believes consumer-style pricing is the missing backbone of U.S. healthcare, and how Superscript is betting on a radically different approach to pricing transparency — one that doesn’t just “estimate” costs, but actually takes on financial risk to guarantee them.
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Jake Sussman, Marble Health, on Building a School-Centered Model to Address the Youth Mental Health Crisis
Jan 2000:47:28Tap to summarizeIn this episode, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Jake Sussman, co-founder and CEO of Marble Health, a company building a new model of mental health care for children and teens. Jake shared why the youth mental health crisis demands a fundamentally different approach than adult care - and how Marble is using schools, insurance-aligned incentives, and thoughtfully applied technology to expand access.
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Felicity Yost, Tia, on designing a healthcare system women actually want to use
Jan 800:42:20Tap to summarizeIn this episode, I sat down with Felicity Yost, Co-Founder and CEO of Tia. Tia is a modern women’s health company that combines virtual and in-person clinics to deliver integrated, whole-body care for women, spanning primary care, gynecology, mental health, fertility, perimenopause and menopause, and more. Founded in 2017, Tia has raised roughly $150 million in funding from leading investors, as it scales a “whole-woman, whole-life” care model across markets in New York, California, and Arizona with plans to open more this year.In our conversation, Felicity and I explored:How her personal experiences shaped her passion to co-found TiaHow Tia redesigned women’s care around concerns, not specialtiesWhy the consumerization of care may be doing more harm than goodWhat it really takes to build sustainable healthcare businesses and teamsHer long-term bets on AI and preventive care
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Samir Malik, firsthand, on Building Trust-First Care for Serious Mental Illness
Dec 1600:43:43Tap to summarizeIn our latest episode of The Pulse, I sat down with Samir Malik, founder of firsthand, a company pioneering a trust-first, peer-led model to reach individuals whom the traditional behavioral health system has failed to reach. Samir shared powerful insights on why trust is the missing ingredient in serious mental illness (SMI) care and how firsthand is rebuilding it through lived experience, community-based engagement, and value-based partnerships.
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Emma Silverman, Partner at TMV, on Backing Visionary Healthcare Founders
Dec 300:49:26Tap to summarizeIn this episode, I sat down with Emma Silverman, Partner at TMV, to explore her path into venture and TMV’s purpose-driven origin story. We discuss TMV’s health & bio thesis, notable investments such as Slingshot AI and Elion, and Emma’s recent research on the promise and tension of clinical AI adoption across health systems and payers. She also shares practical advice for early-stage founders navigating uncertainty and offers candid guidance for aspiring investors on finding their own style in venture.
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