The Heart of Healthcare | A Digital Health Podcast

Healthcare AI funding is booming, but the money is flowing to fewer companies than ever before. As investors pour capital into a small group of breakout winners, founders are navigating a fundraising environment where expectations seem to change every quarter. Based on interviews with 24 healthcare founders and a dozen healthcare investors, Halle breaks down what is actually happening in the market today, from pitch meetings and diligence processes to the growing debate over whether AI has fundamentally changed venture capital itself. Why healthcare AI fundraising has become a tale of two marketsThe two questions dominating investor meetings in 2026The metrics VCs are looking for todayThe debate over whether investors should abandon traditional ownership targetsWhy high valuations can be both a gift and a trap for founders —Show notes:Submit questions for our Eric Larsen healthcare AI Q&A here Part I: AI ate digital health (and what that means for fundraising)Part II: Convicted or disciplined: How healthcare VCs are split on investing— 🙏 Do you like this podcast? An easy and free way to help keep the show going is to leave us a review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you're listening.— 📍 Connect with us:Heart of Healthcare websiteLinkedInYouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Chris Klomp, Director of Medicare and Deputy Administrator of CMS, and Senior Advisor to HHS Secretary RFK Jr., has big ambitions to reshape how healthcare works in the United States.This week, ​​Steve sits down with Klomp to discuss how his experience as a digital health entrepreneur is guiding his current role overseeing a roughly $2 trillion department. Klomp shares the government's strategy for restoring trust between providers and payers, driving down costs, and addressing a system where approximately 90% of healthcare dollars are still spent in a fee-for-service arrangement. We cover:Why 90% of US healthcare remains fee-for-service after two decades of reform.The intentional design of the new Access model to be deflationary and fuel entrepreneurship among insurgents.The commitment from the payer industry to make prior authorization invisible to patients and providers by 2027.CMS's aggressive stance on data interoperability and funding enforcement against data blocking.How the Most Favored Nation policy is re-wiring global prescription drug supply to lower prices without compromising innovation.—About our guest: Chris Klomp is the Director of Medicare and Deputy Administrator of CMS, and Senior Advisor to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. With extensive experience in healthcare payment reform and data sharing, he built and led Collective Medical, the largest U.S. real-time care collaboration data network, acquired by PointClickCare in 2020. There, he partnered with health systems, plans, providers, post-acutes, and state governments to advance value-based care through enhanced data access and insights.Chris has driven healthcare reform at state and federal levels, focusing on value-based care and interoperable health technology. Through Endurance Companies, a San Francisco-based multi-family office he co-founded with Stanford classmates, he has co-founded, invested in, advised, and served on the board of many innovative healthcare organizations, including Nomi Health, Maven Clinic, InnovaCare Health, and Health Joy. He also served as a Utah Senate-confirmed commissioner of the Utah Digital Health Services Commission, where he focused on leveraging technology for cost-effective, healthier outcomes. Previously, he was Vice President in Bain Capital’s North American Private Equity group and worked at Bain & Company. Recognized as Utah Business’ CEO of the Year and EY’s Mountain Region Entrepreneur of the Year, Chris holds a B.A. with honors in Economics and English from Brigham Young University and an MBA from Stanford.—🙏 Thank you to our show sponsor, Quickstudy PR, story brokers for leading healthcare executives. Learn more about quickstudypr.com.—📍 Connect with us:Heart of Healthcare websiteLinkedInInstagramYoutube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Breakthrough blood tests that can flag dozens of cancers before symptoms appear are gaining momentum, yet questions remain about accuracy, equity, and how these tools will fit into routine care.In this episode, Steve talks with Helmy Eltoukhy, co-founder and co-CEO of Guardant Health, a $14 billion publicly-traded precision oncology company. The conversation explores the science behind cell-free DNA, the rise of blood-based cancer screening, and the broader shift toward data-driven diagnostics.We cover:How liquid biopsy works and why cell-free DNA became such a powerful toolThe path from late-stage applications to large-scale early detectionWhat Medicare coverage of blood-based colorectal cancer screening signals for adoptionThe operational and regulatory hurdles that shape diagnostics businessesLessons from Helmy’s entrepreneurial path across sequencing, diagnostics, and company-building—About our guest: Helmy Eltoukhy is the chairman and co-CEO of Guardant Health, a leading precision oncology company he co-founded in 2012. He is also an active investor and is involved in over 30 startup companies across the technology and healthcare sectors. In December 2024, Eltoukhy expanded his ventures into sports ownership by co-leading the acquisition of Sheffield United Football Club through COH Sports of which he is currently co-chairman.Last year, he was named by TIME100 Health as one of the most influential people in global health. He was also on Time Magazine’s inaugural list of the 50 Most Influential People in Health Care and has been recognized by Fortune (40 under 40), the World Economic Forum (Technology Pioneer), and on the list of the Top 50 Healthcare CEOs in 2021.Beyond his entrepreneurial endeavors, Eltoukhy is deeply committed to various philanthropic efforts and serves on the boards of the Prostate Cancer Foundation, the SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), and the UCSF Cancer Leadership Council. Prior to founding Guardant Health, Eltoukhy co-founded Avantome in 2007 to commercialize semiconductor sequencing, which was later acquired by Illumina. Eltoukhy is a named inventor on over 100 patents and holds PhD, MS, and BS degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University.—Learn more about the Rock Health CEO Summit at the New York Stock Exchange on March 27th.—📍 Connect with us:Heart of Healthcare websiteLinkedInInstagramYoutube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When Eric Lefkofsky’s wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, it exposed how little technology and data were shaping cancer care, pushing the serial entrepreneur to build a different model.Lefkofsky is the founder and CEO of Tempus, now a $10B publicy traded health tech company, and previously founded Groupon. At Tempus, he’s building a tech-first company applying multimodal data and AI to make diagnostics smarter and treatment decisions more tailored, starting in oncology and expanding across disease areas.We cover:What Tempus does in plain EnglishWhy Tempus built its own lab, and how it became one of the largest sequencers of cancer patients in the U.S.The hard part: extracting usable clinical data from EHRs and scaling to thousands of hospital connections and hundreds of petabytes of dataHow AI changes the patient-physician relationship, and why patients will increasingly arrive highly informedWhat Eric would change at CMS and HHS to responsibly pay for AI—About our guest: Eric Lefkofsky is the founder and CEO at Tempus, a leader in artificial intelligence and precision medicine. He is the co-founder and General Partner of Lightbank, a private venture capital firm specializing in investments in technology companies. He is also the co-founder of Pathos AI, a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on re-engineering drug development; Groupon (NASDAQ: GRPN), a global e-commerce marketplace; Mediaocean, a leading provider of integrated media procurement technology; Echo Global Logistics (NASDAQ: ECHO), a technology-enabled transportation and logistics outsourcing firm; and InnerWorkings (NASDAQ: INWK), a global provider of managed print and promotional solutions.He co-chairs the Lefkofsky Family Foundation with his wife Liz to advance high-impact initiatives that enhance lives in the communities served. Lefkofsky also serves on the board of directors of The Art Institute of Chicago and Northwestern Medicine. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School.—📍 Connect with us:Heart of Healthcare websiteLinkedInInstagramYoutube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Physicians now face a world where search bars, chat apps, and large AI models are becoming many people’s first stop for health questions, long before they enter a clinic.Former Google Chief Health Officer and national health IT leader Dr. Karen DeSalvo joins us to unpack what this shift means for clinicians, regulators, and patients, and why 15% of daily Google searches are questions no one has ever asked before.We cover:• Why consumer health search is becoming a powerful entry point into care• How Google built guardrails for safety, quality, and real-time monitoring of emerging risks• What the rise of GenAI “doctor in your pocket” tools could mean• The regulatory tensions ahead as states experiment with AI-driven medical decision support• How global demand, workforce strain, and new data sources (IoT, at-home diagnostics, wearables) are accelerating AI-supported primary care—About our guest: Dr. Karen DeSalvo is a health leader who has committed her career to improving health for everyone, everywhere.  She was most recently Google’s Chief Health Officer, where spearheaded a global team of health professionals dedicated to harnessing Google's technology and platforms to help everyone, everywhere live a longer, healthier life. Before Google, Dr. DeSalvo held significant roles in the U.S. government, including National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and acting Assistant Secretary for Health. She was also the Health Commissioner in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, where she led public health recovery efforts. Dr. DeSalvo currently sits on the Boards of Directors for Welltower and CityBlock Health and is a member of the Council of the National Academy of Medicine. —Pre-order Halle's new book, Massively Better Healthcare.—📍 Connect with us:Heart of Healthcare websiteLinkedInInstagramYoutube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It has been said that we don’t have “big data” in healthcare, but instead a large amount of “small data.”In this episode, Halle speaks with Kyle Armbrester, CEO of Datavant and former CEO of Signify Health (acquired for $8B), about why healthcare data still moves the way it did decades ago and what it will take to modernize it at scale. Kyle reflects on building and leading large health tech companies and explains how fixing data flow could reduce administrative waste, improve security, and make care easier for patients and providers alike.We cover:Why healthcare billing still happens after the fact and how that fuels administrative wasteHow missing data standards led to fax-based workflows and brittle systemsWhy healthcare data is such an attractive target for cyberattacksHow clinical data can be shared digitally without being owned or resoldLeadership lessons from scaling companies through IPOs and acquisitions—About our guest: Kyle Armbrester is Chief Executive Officer of Datavant, a healthcare data platform company with a mission to make the world’s health data secure, accessible, and actionable. Datavant operates the largest and most diverse health data exchange in the U.S., connecting more than 70 percent of the 100 largest health systems, all U.S. payers, and 300 plus real world data partners.Previously, Kyle served as CEO of Signify Health, where he led more than 200 percent revenue growth, took the company public in 2021, and guided its acquisition by CVS Health in 2023 for approximately $8 billion. He later served on the CVS Health executive management team, overseeing healthcare delivery strategy and interoperability.Earlier in his career, Kyle was Chief Product Officer and Head of Corporate Development at athenahealth, where he helped scale revenue from $320 million to $1.2 billion and launched the company’s partnership marketplace. Kyle has served on multiple healthcare boards and holds an MBA and AB from Harvard University.—Chapters:00:01:20 Introduction to Kyle Armbrester and his journey in healthcare00:03:58 The impact of Athena Health on healthcare innovation00:06:20 Datavant: Revolutionizing health data interoperability00:08:15 The role of Datavant in reducing administrative burden00:12:20 Understanding Datavant's value proposition across stakeholders00:14:00 Consumer products and data accessibility at Datavant00:18:25 The scale and impact of Datavant in healthcare00:19:35 Cybersecurity challenges in healthcare data management00:23:57 Bridging the gap in healthcare regulations00:26:13 Unlocking the value of untapped healthcare data00:29:25 Challenges of value-based care models00:33:23 The reality of being a CEO in healthcare00:37:00 Navigating IPOs vs. Acquisitions00:39:44 Innovating healthcare incentives for better outcomes—Pre-order Halle's new book, Massively Better Healthcare.—📍 Connect with us:Heart of Healthcare websiteLinkedInInstagramYoutube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Is 2026 the year that changes everything in healthcare?Steve and Halle sit down with legendary healthcare VC Annie Lamont for their annual predictions episode to dive into 2026 predictions and trends that founders and operators should pay attention to. We cover:📉 Why 2025 was "the most brutal year ever" for health plans🏥 Why providers outpaced payers in AI adoption and where the next wave of enterprise software will land💸 Where she’s spending her time in 2026 (and what space she’s avoiding)🔮 What she expects for IPOs and M&A in 2026⚖️ How regulation, interoperability, and national AI policy could shape the next decade—About our guest: Annie Lamont co-founded Oak HC/FT in 2014. Prior to founding Oak HC/FT, Annie spent 28 years at Oak Investment Partners, where she served as a Managing Partner and led the healthcare and fintech practices. Over the course of her career, she has invested in category-defining companies across the healthcare and financial services industries, including Aspire Health, athenahealth, CareBridge, Devoted Health, iHealthTechnologies (which became Cotiviti), NetSpend, OneMedical, and VillageMD. —📍 Connect with us:Heart of Healthcare websiteLinkedInInstagramYoutubeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.