Afleveringen
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A patient can order groceries in seconds. Track a package in real time.
Open a bank account from their phone. Then they walk into a doctor's office, and someone hands them a clipboard.
We've all been there.
On this episode of the Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show, host Michael Stamatinos sits down with Jen Hopper, Digital Transformation Leader at Beacon Health System, one of the largest locally owned nonprofit health systems in the Midwest, serving thousands of patients every day across Indiana and Michigan.
Over nearly 200 conversations with healthcare leaders, founders, and operators, Michael has heard a common theme: healthcare doesn't struggle because it lacks innovation. It struggles because turning innovation into meaningful experiences for patients is incredibly hard.
That's exactly where Jen spends her time.
As Beacon has grown through acquisitions and expansion, she's been in the middle of one of healthcare's hardest jobs, standardizing processes, improving digital access, and helping create experiences that feel more intuitive, more personal, and more human.
What makes Jen's perspective so refreshing is that she doesn't think of people as users or encounters.
She thinks of them as stakeholders.
It's a subtle difference. It's also an important one because once that mindset shifts, the conversation changes.
The question stops being "How do we deploy this technology?"
And becomes: How do we make this experience better for the person sitting in the waiting room?
In this conversation, Michael and Jen explore:
⢠Why digital transformation remains so difficult in healthcare.
⢠Why buying technology and being operationally ready for technology are two completely different things.
⢠What healthcare leaders are getting wrong about AI.
⢠Why healthcare keeps building shiny new front doors while the house still needs work.
⢠And why the future of healthcare will belong to organizations that can blend innovation with human connection.
The work Jen and her team are doing may never make headlines.
It may never be the topic of conversation at a dinner party.
But thousands of patients will have a better experience because of it. And that's work worth talking about.
In this episode:
⢠Why digital transformation initiatives often fail
⢠The hidden work required before technology can scale
⢠Why standardization is so difficult in healthcare
⢠The difference between patient acquisition and operational readiness
⢠What healthcare leaders consistently get wrong about AI
⢠Why patient feedback needs to happen in real time
⢠The balance between automation and human connection
⢠Why clean data matters more than most organizations realize
⢠How healthcare can finally start meeting patients where they are
Chapters
03:35 The experience that shaped Jen's career
07:12 Patients now have a choice
10:30 Why standardization is so difficult
14:15 What vendors consistently get wrong
18:15 The AI treadmill
20:30 Lessons from digital registration
23:20 Building the front door before the house is ready
25:35 The healthcare conversation nobody is having
29:35 The patient outcomes that make the work worthwhile
33:10 The biggest AI mistake healthcare may make
41:45 The opportunity healthcare cannot afford to miss
Follow Jen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenhopper
Beacon Health System: https://www.beaconhealthsystem.org/
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If this conversation moved you, challenged your thinking, or sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more episodes with healthcare leaders who are not just thinking differently, theyâre building differently.
About the Show
The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful changeâhighlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.
The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.
đ Michaelâs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstamo
đ§ Subscribe for more episodes that move beyond theory and into the heart of whatâs really possible in healthcare.
Join our group, Advancing Healthcare Innovation Forum on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7056196/
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Most people think the biggest barriers in healthcare are access, staffing, or technology.
Brian Marsella thinks it's something else.
Money.
Millions of Americans delay or avoid care every year because they're worried about what it might cost, what bill might show up later, or whether they can afford to walk through the door in the first place.
In this episode of the Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show, Michael Stamatinos sits down with Brian Marsella, President of PayMedix and Board Chair of Erie Family Health Center, for a candid conversation about one of healthcare's most overlooked barriers to access: the patient financial experience.
With more than 30 years of leadership experience spanning Cigna, Aetna, and now PayMedix, Brian has had a front-row seat to how financial friction shapes patient behavior, health outcomes, and the future of healthcare.
The conversation explores:
⢠Why 67% of Americans earning less than $90,000 delay or avoid care
⢠The unintended consequences of high deductible health plans
⢠Why patients ignore medical bills until the final notice arrives
⢠How financial friction changes health outcomes
⢠What employers, providers, and health plans can do differently
⢠Why fixing the payment experience could unlock better access to care
This isn't really a conversation about healthcare payments.
It's a conversation about trust.
And what happens when people are forced to choose between their health and their finances.
If you've ever wondered why healthcare still feels so hard to navigate, this episode is for you.
âą Chapters
03:58 Brian's unexpected start in healthcare
10:00 The hidden cost of delayed care
15:27 Lessons from Erie Family Health Center
18:59 Did healthcare create this problem itself?
27:11 How PayMedix works
37:37 Why change is so difficult
40:42 What leaders misunderstand about the patient financial experience
43:39 A vision for the future of healthcare
46:11 Final thoughts
Follow Brian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-marsella/
Paymedix: https://paymedix.com/
đŁ LIKE, COMMENT & SUBSCRIBE
If this conversation moved you, challenged your thinking, or sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more episodes with healthcare leaders who are not just thinking differently, theyâre building differently.
About the Show
The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful changeâhighlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.
The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.
đ Michaelâs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstamo
đ§ Subscribe for more episodes that move beyond theory and into the heart of whatâs really possible in healthcare.
Join our group, Advancing Healthcare Innovation Forum on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7056196/
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Healthcare has a workforce crisis, but what if the real problem isn't staffing?
In Episode 192 of the Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show, Michael Stamatinos sits down with Tess Michaels, Founder and CEO of Clasp, to explore a bold new approach to solving one of healthcare's biggest challenges: attracting and retaining clinicians before they ever enter the workforce.
With more than 3 million clinical positions sitting unfilled across the United States and student loan debt surpassing $1.7 trillion, health systems continue to rely on sign-on bonuses and short-term incentives that often fail to improve long-term retention. Tess believes there's a better way.
Drawing inspiration from the ROTC model, Clasp pioneered "Loan Linking Hiring," an innovative approach that connects healthcare employers with future clinicians while they're still in school. Instead of paying large bonuses upfront, employers invest in student loan repayment over time, creating stronger loyalty, improving retention, and helping clinicians begin their careers with greater financial confidence.
Throughout the conversation, Tess shares:
⢠Why the healthcare workforce shortage is really a retention problem
⢠How student loan debt influences where clinicians choose to work and how long they stay
⢠Why traditional sign-on bonuses often create more turnover than loyalty
⢠How Clasp partners with leading health systems including Northwestern Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Novant Health, and OhioHealth
⢠The psychology behind long-term employee retention
⢠Lessons learned from building a venture-backed healthcare company over the past eight years
⢠The hardest moments of entrepreneurship that rarely make the headlines
⢠How immigrant parents, education, and purpose shaped her leadership journey
⢠Why investing in people earlier changes the future of healthcare
This episode is about far more than recruiting. It's a conversation about leadership, innovation, trust, financial wellness, workforce strategy, and designing systems that create better outcomes for both clinicians and patients.
If you're a healthcare executive, hospital leader, HR executive, workforce strategist, investor, entrepreneur, clinician, or simply passionate about the future of healthcare, this is an episode you won't want to miss.
Learn more about Clasp: https://www.clasp.com/
Connect with Tess Michaels: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tessmichaels/
âąď¸ Timestamps
01:15 The healthcare workforce crisis: 3 million open clinical roles
03:05 Meet Tess Michaels and the origin of Clasp
04:25 Growing up in a family of physicians
06:00 Leaving Goldman Sachs and private equity to become a founder
08:00 The insight that led to Clasp
10:40 Why healthcare's staffing problem is really a retention problem
14:25 How Loan Linking Hiring works
15:40 Why sign-on bonuses fail
18:55 Real stories of clinicians whose lives changed
21:10 How health systems justify the investment
24:00 Winning the first healthcare customer
25:30 Building Clasp over eight years
26:15 The hardest part of being a founder
28:50 How Tess's immigrant family shaped her leadership
31:15 A message to the next generation of clinicians
33:30 Where to learn more about Clasp
34:10 Final thoughts
đŁ LIKE, COMMENT & SUBSCRIBE
If this conversation moved you, challenged your thinking, or sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more episodes with healthcare leaders who are not just thinking differently, theyâre building differently.
About the Show
The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful changeâhighlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.
The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.
đ Michaelâs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstamo
đ§ Subscribe for more episodes that move beyond theory and into the heart of whatâs really possible in healthcare.
Join our group, Advancing Healthcare Innovation Forum on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7056196/
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What if the biggest challenge in healthcare isnât creating more innovationâŚbut actually getting it into the hands of the people who need it most?
In this episode of the Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show, Michael Stamatinos sits down with John Fryer, Chief Growth and Corporate Development Officer at Lumeris, to explore one of the most important questions facing healthcare today:
How do we scale access to care without losing the human connection that makes healthcare work?
Primary care is facing a defining moment.
Millions of Americans struggle to access basic preventative care. Physicians are stretched thin. Health systems are under increasing pressure. And AI is entering healthcare faster than ever before.
But technology alone wonât fix the problem. John shares how Lumeris is helping redesign the future of primary care by combining value-based care, artificial intelligence, clinical expertise, and new operating models that allow physicians to spend more time doing what they do best: caring for people.
In this conversation, we discuss:
⢠The conversation with Cerner founder Neal Patterson that changed the trajectory of Johnâs career
⢠Why healthcare attracts people who want to solve incredibly difficult problems
⢠Why trust and relationships still determine whether healthcare transformation succeeds
⢠The difference between healthcare innovation and actually deploying innovation at scale
⢠How AI can make healthcare more personal, not less human
⢠Why rural America represents one of the greatest opportunities for healthcare transformation
⢠How we redesign care around patients instead of around legacy systems
⢠Why the next generation of healthcare leaders needs creativity, courage, and a builder mindset
John also shares powerful stories from the front lines, including how AI helped create a meaningful connection for a 90-year-old patient experiencing isolation and why the future of healthcare depends on pairing technology with empathy.
Healthcare transformation does not happen through technology alone.
It happens when the right people, partnerships, incentives, and trust come together around a problem worth solving.
This is a conversation about the future of primary care, the role of AI, and the leaders building what comes next.
Learn more about Lumeris:
https://www.lumeris.com/
Connect with John Fryer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenni-blendu-gudapati-phd-mba-rn-2049072a/
đŁ LIKE, COMMENT & SUBSCRIBE
If this conversation moved you, challenged your thinking, or sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more episodes with healthcare leaders who are not just thinking differently, theyâre building differently.
About the Show
The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful changeâhighlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.
The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.
đ Michaelâs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstamo
đ§ Subscribe for more episodes that move beyond theory and into the heart of whatâs really possible in healthcare.
Join our group, Advancing Healthcare Innovation Forum on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7056196/
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What happens when the healthcare system has all the dataâŚbut still misses the patient?
Dr. Jenni Gudapati, PhD has spent nearly three decades asking that question.
She started her career as an emergency room and critical care nurse in rural America, where she saw the same patients returning again and again.
At first, they were labeled âfrequent flyers.â
Then one patient changed everything.
The patient wasnât coming to the ER because the system lacked clinical information. She was coming because nobody had stopped long enough to understand her story. That moment reshaped Jenniâs entire view of healthcare.
Since then, she has gone on to:
* Build an award-winning graduate healthcare leadership program at Boise State University
* Help develop national conversations around health equity and quality standards through CMS advisory work
* Lead discussions around value-based care, population health, and healthcare transformation
* Co-found Healthy Insights AI to help healthcare organizations better understand the complete patient story
In this episode of the Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show, Michael Stamatinos sits down with Dr. Jenni Gudapati to discuss why healthcare transformation requires more than data, dashboards, and technology.
They explore:
05:00 What working as an ER nurse taught Jenni about the gaps in healthcare
08:00 The patient story that changed the trajectory of her career
14:00 Losing her father because of a preventable care coordination failure
17:00 Why hospitals and insurance companies arenât the âbad guysâ
21:00 The future of value-based care and Medicare Advantage
23:00 Why healthcare data without context creates problems
25:00 Building Healthy Insights AI
31:00 Why great nurses see things algorithms miss
34:00 Working on national healthcare policy conversations
37:00 Developing the next generation of healthcare leaders
40:00 Building relationships that create healthcare transformation
Healthcare does not have a shortage of information. It has a shortage of understanding.
And sometimes the most important data point is the story nobody thought to ask for.
Learn more about Healthy Insights AI:
https://healthyinsights.ai
Connect with Dr. Jenni Gudapati: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenni-blendu-gudapati-phd-mba-rn-2049072a/
đŁ LIKE, COMMENT & SUBSCRIBE
If this conversation moved you, challenged your thinking, or sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more episodes with healthcare leaders who are not just thinking differently, theyâre building differently.
About the Show
The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful changeâhighlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.
The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.
đ Michaelâs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstamo
đ§ Subscribe for more episodes that move beyond theory and into the heart of whatâs really possible in healthcare.
Join our group, Advancing Healthcare Innovation Forum on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7056196/
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George Hsu, Founder and CEO of Aulea Medical, joins host Michael Stamatinos on the Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show to discuss how a single-use urological device is reshaping OR efficiency, reducing infection risk, and expanding access to care in rural communities across the United States.
He didn't set out to disrupt an industry. He just refused to accept a broken process.
George Hsu spent 15 years deep in medical device R&D, at companies like Thoratec (acquired by Abbott) and Outset Medical (went public). He knew how to build things. He knew how to make the technology work. What he didn't know was that one day he'd walk into an operating room, watch a urological procedure collapse under the weight of outdated equipment, and decide, right there, that enough was enough.
That moment became Aulea Medical. And Aulea Medical became Valoxion.
In this episode, Michael Stamatinos and George Hsu break down what's actually happening before a urology patient even hits the table, why single-use devices could be the smarter economic play for health systems under cost pressure, and how a small team is quietly reaching rural communities that the big players have written off entirely.
BPH affects half of all men by their 50s. Most of them don't know there are real options. George is building the answer, one physician relationship at a time.
IN THIS EPISODE
George Hsu is the Founder and CEO of Aulea Medical, the company behind Valoxion, the first and only all-in-one single-use system for urological procedures. Before founding Aulea, George spent over 15 years in R&D at respected early-stage medtech companies including Thoratec (acquired by Abbott) and Outset Medical (IPO). He built Valoxion to address the inefficiency, infection risk, and access gaps baked into standard urology OR workflows.
Michael Stamatinos and George Hsu cover:
⤠The OR chaos that lit the fuse for Aulea Medical
⤠Why health systems saving money on reusable equipment may be doing the math wrong
⤠How Valoxion reaches rural communities the major device companies won't prioritize
⤠The psychological and operational weight of running a lean startup in medtech
⤠What building a company with purpose actually looks like from the inside
âą TIMESTAMPS
0:00 â Introduction: Who is George Hsu and what is Aulea Medical?
3:32 â From R&D engineer to founder: What triggered the switch
6:49 â How the Bay Area shaped George's risk tolerance
10:31 â How George landed in urology
12:05 â What a urology OR looks like before Valoxion is in the room
17:09 â The question every medtech founder gets: "Isn't everyone's product simpler and safer?"
19:06 â What it feels like watching your device used on a patient for the first time
21:26 â The pressure that never turns off when running a startup
25:23 â Playing David against Olympus, Boston Scientific, and Stryker
28:12 â BPH: where's the real bottleneck, awareness or access?
31:27 â Making the cost case for single-use devices to a stretched CFO
34:41 â Where to follow George and Aulea Medical
36:20 â What George would tell his 32-year-old self
https://www.auleamed.com/
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If this conversation moved you, challenged your thinking, or sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more episodes with healthcare leaders who are not just thinking differently, theyâre building differently.
About the Show
The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful changeâhighlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.
The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.
đ Michaelâs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstamo
đ§ Subscribe for more episodes that move beyond theory and into the heart of whatâs really possible in healthcare.
Join our group, Advancing Healthcare Innovation Forum on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7056196/
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Why does the same prescription cost $15 at one pharmacy and $56 at another? And why does almost nobody standing at that counter know about the savings that could change everything?
In this episode of the Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show, host Michael Stamatinos sits down with Miriam Paramore, founder and CEO of RxUtility, operating advisor at Goldman Sachs, limited partner at 7wire Ventures, and one of the most experienced operators in the history of healthcare technology.
This is one of the most honest and human conversations the show has ever produced.
Miriam has spent 40 years building the infrastructure of American healthcare. She helped write part of the Affordable Care Act. She led enterprise strategy at Emdeon and helped take the company to a $1.2 billion IPO. She served as President of OptimizeRx on the NASDAQ. She has sat in every room that mattered in this industry.
And then she watched her father navigate the system she helped build.
Jack Paramore was a preacher who left the family farm to devote his life to serving others. He gave Miriam a necklace with an ampersand on it for her 50th birthday, along with a handwritten poem that read, "This is an AND moment, not an ending." When Jack got sick with kidney failure, heart failure, and severe melanoma in rural North Carolina, with no transportation coverage and $500 a month too much to qualify for Medicaid, the system failed him at every turn.
In this episode:
â The story of Jack Paramore, the preacher who left the farm, and what his life taught Miriam about what it means to be of genuine service to other people
â How a napkin sketch in a Congressional cafeteria became healthcare law
â Why a drug that costs $600 for a patient in their deductible phase can cost their employer $300 for the exact same bottle, and who is collecting the spread
â Why almost 15% of all prescriptions in the United States are now being paid in cash, and why most consumers have no idea cash is often cheaper than using their insurance
â The six different price points that exist for a single prescription drug and why the system keeps consumers from ever seeing all of them at once
â Mimi, RxUtility's AI companion for prescription pricing, and how it answers the one question every patient deserves a straight answer to: what does this drug actually cost me today?
â What Miriam sees in the first five minutes when a founder walks into a room and does not have what it takes
https://rxutility.com/
Follow Miriam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miriamparamore/
đŁ LIKE, COMMENT & SUBSCRIBE
If this conversation moved you, challenged your thinking, or sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more episodes with healthcare leaders who are not just thinking differently, theyâre building differently.
About the Show
The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful changeâhighlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.
The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.
đ Michaelâs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstamo
đ§ Subscribe for more episodes that move beyond theory and into the heart of whatâs really possible in healthcare.
Join our group, Advancing Healthcare Innovation Forum on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7056196/
Timestamps:
01:18 Introducing Miriam Paramore and RxUtility
04:30 Miriam responds and why she does this work
05:35 Jack Paramore, the preacher who left the farm
10:24 Jack's healthcare journey and how the system failed him
13:17 What fuels Miriam's mission to make medicine affordable
15:55 The Affordable Care Act, the napkin, and how healthcare law actually gets made
23:26 What drew Miriam to the prescription affordability problem specifically
28:57 Explaining RxUtility like you are standing at the pharmacy counter
33:46 Why this information has been hidden for so long and who benefits
37:40 The RxUtility business model and who pays
39:41 Mimi, the AI companion built to surface the best drug price for every patient
41:02 What Miriam looks for in founders as an investor and advisor
43:03 What she would tell her younger self
44:06 How to connect with Miriam and follow RxUtility
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Most health systems write a check and call it innovation.
Steve West built something different.
In this episode of the Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show, host Michael Stamatinos sits down with Steve West, Managing Director of Healthliant Ventures, the innovation arm of Tanner Health, a five hospital system serving western Georgia and east Alabama.
Steve runs a live clinical environment where healthcare startups get a real verdict. Real staff. Real patients. Real results. No press release. No logo deal. Just proof.
Michael and Steve pull back the curtain on what it actually takes to get a startup through a health system. The contracts. The security reviews. The champions who can't actually close. The pilots that fail. And the ones that don't.
Steve also shares something most operators never say out loud. The emotional waves of being a startup CEO. The exhilaration. The despair. The payroll anxiety at 2am. And why that experience makes him a better partner to the founders he works with today.
What Michael and Steve cover:
* How Healthliant Ventures finds and structures startup partnerships without writing a check upfront
* Why most founders identify the wrong champion inside a health system
* The Care Sherpa story: a failed pilot, a pivot, and a 40% reduction in resource utilization
* What culture fit really means when you're a regional community health system
* The wound care technology that started in a clinic and is now headed system wide
* Why once you've seen one health system you've only seen one health system
Timestamps:
03:45 Steve West Background and Early Career
06:54 From Russian Politics to Healthcare
10:19 Product Leadership at Anthem
13:32 Going All In on Fiona Tech
16:47 The Hardest Part of Being a Healthcare Startup CEO
19:51 How Steve Joined Healthliant Ventures
22:17 What Healthliant Ventures Actually Is
27:19 How They Prioritize Problems Inside Tanner Health
30:31 The Kent Imaging Wound Care Story
36:30 When Pilots Fail: Lessons From the Trenches
37:44 The Care Sherpa Pivot Story
40:18 What Founders Get Wrong About Health Systems
43:34 Pitching vs Being Pitched To
45:24 How to Follow Steve West and Healthliant Ventures
đŁ LIKE, COMMENT & SUBSCRIBE
If this conversation moved you, challenged your thinking, or sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more episodes with healthcare leaders who are not just thinking differently, theyâre building differently.
About the Show
The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful changeâhighlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.
The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.
đ Michaelâs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstamo
đ§ Subscribe for more episodes that move beyond theory and into the heart of whatâs really possible in healthcare.
Join our group, Advancing Healthcare Innovation Forum on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7056196/
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What if American healthcare is doing exactly what it was designed to do?
Dr. Scott Neeley, MD, MBA, has spent 40 years in medicine. Harvard. Stanford. University of Chicago residency. He's been in the ICU at 2am fighting to save lives. He became a CEO. He had major surgery and chose to do it at his own hospital.
And he'll tell you straight: we've built a world-class system for treating disease. We're just terrible at keeping people healthy.
In this episode, Dr. Neeley, President and CEO of Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital, joins Michael Stamatinos to talk about health span, why it's shrinking, and what it actually takes to fix it from the inside out. This isn't a theory conversation. This is a doctor-turned-executive who leads a daily patient safety huddle, starts every board meeting with a patient story before he ever opens a spreadsheet, and built a community coalition to attack the upstream causes of chronic illness head-on.
He talks about the ICU moment that changed everything. The railroad worker at the end of his life. The weight of keeping a rural hospital financially alive when more than half your patients are on Medicare. The hardest leadership decisions he's ever made. And why the most powerful predictor of your health at 80 has nothing to do with your cholesterol. This one goes deep. Don't skip it.
In this episode:
* What health span is and why it's shrinking in America
* How Dr. Neeley led his hospital to the top 1% for patient safety
* The culture shift that took years of "time under tension"
* Health Span Nevada County: what a real community health model looks like
* The Harvard Grant Study finding that changes how you think about longevity
* Why the wellness industry often gets it wrong
* The 4x4 breathing exercise they actually do live on air
Timestamps
0:00 Introduction
4:40 Meet Dr. Scott Neeley
7:58 Why he fell in love with the ICU, not prevention
8:58 The railroad worker moment that changed everything
12:27 From frontline physician to healthcare executive
16:40 How you actually build a culture of safety
24:36 Running a hospital that profits from illness while fighting to prevent it
27:44 Health Span Nevada County: the community model in practice
32:52 What each of us can do every day (including a live 4x4 breathing exercise)
39:17 What it felt like to have surgery at his own hospital
40:39 The hardest leadership decisions he's ever made
43:19 Who's at the table: building the coalition
51:30 How to follow Dr. Neeley's work
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If this conversation moved you, challenged your thinking, or sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more episodes with healthcare leaders who are not just thinking differently, theyâre building differently.
About the Show
The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful changeâhighlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.
The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.
đ Michaelâs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstamo
đ§ Subscribe for more episodes that move beyond theory and into the heart of whatâs really possible in healthcare.
Join our group, Advancing Healthcare Innovation Forum on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7056196/
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What does transformation actually look like inside a healthcare organization after the headlines fade away?
In this episode of the Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show, Michael Stamatinos sits down with Angi Jennings for a raw and honest conversation about operational transformation, leadership under pressure, and the messy reality of rebuilding healthcare organizations from the inside out.
After emerging from bankruptcy and rebuilding its leadership structure, Cano Health
has been navigating a massive organizational turnaround focused on simplifying operations, rebuilding culture, and embedding value-based care into the day-to-day reality of frontline teams. Angi has been directly in the middle of that work.
This conversation goes far beyond strategy decks and press releases.
Michael and Angi unpack:
⢠What really happens after healthcare acquisitions and integrations
⢠Why transformation often fails because of a lack of clarity
⢠How to create psychological safety while still maintaining accountability
⢠Why frontline staff are the heartbeat of organizational transformation
⢠How operational excellence ultimately comes down to people
⢠What healthcare leaders can learn from the hospitality industry
⢠The emotional weight of leadership during times of uncertainty and change
âąď¸ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 â Why healthcare transformation is messier than people think
04:02 â Cano Healthâs turnaround and rebuilding culture after bankruptcy
08:35 â Why momentum and small wins matter during transformation
15:00 â Data, accountability, and changing frontline behavior
22:14 â Psychological safety vs accountability in leadership
28:00 â The emotional pressure of leading organizational change
33:41 â Why transformation is ultimately about people
35:44 â âCulture is caught, not taughtâ
38:15 â Angiâs hope for the future of healthcare
39:32 â Final reflections on leadership, culture, and transformation
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If this conversation moved you, challenged your thinking, or sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more episodes with healthcare leaders who are not just thinking differently, theyâre building differently.
About the Show
The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful changeâhighlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.
The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.
đ Michaelâs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstamo
đ§ Subscribe for more episodes that move beyond theory and into the heart of whatâs really possible in healthcare.
Join our group, Advancing Healthcare Innovation Forum on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7056196/
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What does it actually take to drive innovation from inside one of the largest health systems in the country?
Dr. Mohammed Quadri has been at Hackensack Meridian Health for over 20 years, starting as a sleep medicine researcher and growing into VP of Strategy for Academics, Research, and Innovation. He co-founded the HMH Research Institutes. He is the Principal Investigator of the RISE Study, developing breath-based biomarkers that could predict drowsy driving and change how we diagnose sleep disorders for over 100 million Americans.
Dr. Quadri walks us through what it costs to build something inside a complex system. Why 72% of health tech companies fail. Why FDA clearance alone is never enough. Why reimbursement drives behavior whether we like it or not. And why the single most underrated move in healthcare right now is earning trust instead of trying to buy it.
He also shares something most executives never say out loud: you cannot motivate people. You can only inspire engagement. And there is a difference.
This episode is for healthcare leaders, innovators, founders, and anyone trying to build something that matters from the inside out.
What you will learn in this episode:
* Why employee satisfaction and patient satisfaction are the same problem
* The three walls that kill healthcare innovation before it ever scales: clinical workflow, economic alignment, and trust
* Why the graveyard of health tech is full of well-funded companies and how to avoid being one of them
* What breath-based biomarkers have to do with Maggie's Law in New Jersey
* The one thing founders consistently underestimate when entering health systems
* Why Mohammed's father, a physician who never charged more than three rupees, shaped everything he built
Connect with Dr. Mohammed Quadri: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohammed-quadri-md-mba-ssbb-12632952/
Hackensack Meridian Health Research Institute: hmh-cdi.org
TIMESTAMPS
1:45 â Introduction: Who is Dr. Mohammed Quadri?
3:37 â Mohammed opens up: the energy he brings to the work
3:55 â What kept him at one health system for 18+ years
4:46 â Employee satisfaction drives patient satisfaction
5:26 â "You cannot motivate people. You can only inspire engagement."
6:29 â The difference between a job, a profession, and a calling
8:30 â His mother, discipline, and learning what it means to understand a human being
9:36 â "The irony of life is it doesn't teach you life. Experiences do."
13:37 â How to stay agile inside a massive, complex system
14:37 â Why mergers create silos and how to break them
15:45 â We don't have an innovation problem. We have an adoption problem.
16:21 â The actual play: how you get something done inside a health system
17:33 â Why most health tech founders get this wrong from the start
18:48 â The number one reason adoption fails
20:16 â The RISE Study: breath-based biomarkers and drowsy driving prevention
21:04 â Sleep disorders affect 100 million Americans. Most people don't connect the dots.
22:13 â "If we cannot answer where this fits in a patient's journey, the science does not matter."
24:19 â The three walls that kill healthcare adoption
25:59 â "FDA clearance is necessary but not sufficient. You need a physician champion."
26:22 â "You need to earn trust. Not buy it."
27:54 â Mohammed's closing philosophy: "Compete to collaborate."
28:10 â "Give to the world the best you have and the best will come back to you."
28:24 â Michael's final takeaways and the one ask for the community
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If this conversation moved you, challenged your thinking, or sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more episodes with healthcare leaders who are not just thinking differently, theyâre building differently.
About the Show
The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful changeâhighlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.
The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.
đ Michaelâs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstamo
đ§ Subscribe for more episodes that move beyond theory and into the heart of whatâs really possible in healthcare.
Join our group, Advancing Healthcare Innovation Forum on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7056196/
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Every night in the US, a child enters a new home with no medical records, no doctor, and no continuity of care. Michelle Turner decided to fix that.
Michelle Turner is the Founder and CEO of Here Now Health, the first virtual healthcare company built exclusively for children and families impacted by the child welfare system. Before building this company, she fostered more than 40 children, served as a Court Appointed Special Advocate, led a global telehealth nonprofit, and ran a Federally Qualified Health Center. She didn't build Here Now Health because she wanted to be a CEO. She built it because no one else would.
In this episode, Michael Stamatinos sits down with Michelle for one of the most powerful conversations in the history of the AHI Show. They get into what it actually looks like when a child enters foster care on a Friday night, how virtual trauma-informed care can change outcomes for an invisible population, and why 90% of their referrals convert to active care in a Medicaid system where 50% is considered acceptable.
Timestamps
00:00 - What foster care healthcare actually looks like
03:53 - Who is Michelle Turner and what is Here Now Health
04:46 - Fostering 40+ children: what the first placement taught her
07:54 - The gaps in foster care healthcare that made her angry
10:20 - Why she couldn't leave this problem for someone else to solve
11:22 - Six years at Hazel Health and building startup skills
12:48 - How she accidentally raised her first investment check
15:44 - Why Medicaid is hard to build on (and why foster care changes that)
17:50 - Friday night scenario: a child arrives with no records, no doctor
19:51 - How often kids are seen and why caregiver support is everything
22:36 - Crossing state lines: licensed in West Virginia in 24 hours
24:53 - Being a foster mom and a CEO at the same time
28:44 - The teen who had never been asked what she thought about her own case plan
29:27 - Why foster kids are blamed for not engaging in systems that failed them
31:04 - 90% referral-to-care rate: why that number is extraordinary
32:25 - What she would say to a Medicaid executive in 60 seconds
35:35 - How to connect with Here Now Health
36:56 - What success looks like for foster children in 2036
Here Now Health is currently live in Virginia and Missouri, partnered with Anthem Health Keepers and Home State Health. New state launches are planned throughout 2026.
Follow Here Now Health: https://www.herenow.health/
đŁ LIKE, COMMENT & SUBSCRIBE
If this conversation moved you, challenged your thinking, or sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more episodes with healthcare leaders who are not just thinking differently, theyâre building differently.
About the Show
The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful changeâhighlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.
The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.
đ Michaelâs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstamo
đ§ Subscribe for more episodes that move beyond theory and into the heart of whatâs really possible in healthcare.
Join our group, Advancing Healthcare Innovation Forum on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7056196/
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What does it actually take to move independent physicians from fee-for-service to value-based care, and why is it still this hard?
In this episode of the Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show, host Michael Stamatinos sits down with Michael Kopko, CEO of Pearl Health, a company built to help providers succeed in value-based care, particularly in Medicare programs where the operational complexity is very real.
Michael spent years at Oscar Health helping build the company during its early growth stage, leading one of the largest P&Ls in the organization. Before that, he worked at Bridgewater Associates under Ray Dalio, where he developed the mental models and systems thinking that now shape how he leads Pearl. He did not come to healthcare through a traditional path, and that perspective shows up everywhere in this conversation.
This conversation explores what it takes to lead a mission-driven company in one of the slowest-moving, highest-stakes industries in the world, and why Michael is more optimistic about the future of healthcare today than he has ever been.
Michael and Michael dig into:
* Why value-based care sounds easy on paper and why actually living it inside a practice is a completely different story
* How Pearl Health helps independent physicians succeed in MSSP and other Medicare programs
* The role incentives play in changing physician behavior and where the system still gets it wrong
* Why most things in senior care are predictable, and why predictable means preventable
* How Michael thinks about leadership under pressure and why equanimity is a skill, not a personality trait
* What Bridgewater and Oscar Health taught him about building in high-stakes environments
* How Pearl thinks about technology investment and what he would do differently if he started over
If you lead a healthcare organization, work in value-based care, build health tech, or advise the healthcare ecosystem, this conversation is for you.
0:00 Introduction and what Pearl Health does
2:40 What physicians say about value-based care when the cameras are off
4:59 Michael Kopko's origin story and early career curiosity
6:50 Why incentives are the real engine of behavior change in healthcare
9:30 What the transition from fee-for-service actually looks like in practice
11:46 Why this work is personal, not just professional
12:15 The mental model Michael returns to when things get hard
14:33 How Bridgewater and Oscar Health shaped his leadership style
15:07 Why progress is happening even when it does not feel like it
18:23 Does a healthcare innovator have the luxury of thinking long-term
19:33 If Pearl Health were a sports team
21:22 Where Pearl is strongest right now
22:20 How to follow Pearl Health and connect with Michael
23:20 What he would do differently if he started Pearl over today
24:30 Closing reflections on progress, patience, and purpose
https://www.pearlhealth.com/
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If this conversation moved you, challenged your thinking, or sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more episodes with healthcare leaders who are not just thinking differently, theyâre building differently.
About the Show
The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful changeâhighlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.
The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.
đ Michaelâs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstamo
đ§ Subscribe for more episodes that move beyond theory and into the heart of whatâs really possible in healthcare.
Join our group, Advancing Healthcare Innovation Forum on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7056196/
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What does it really look like to lead hospitals for nearly 30 years, starting at 27 years old, and walk away still standing?
In this episode of the Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show, host Michael Stamatinos sits down with Tom McDougall, a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and author of "Karma Doesn't Need My Help: 11 Weekly Leadership Lessons for Success and Peace." Tom became a hospital CEO at 27 and went on to lead hospitals and health systems across for-profit, nonprofit, government, and academic settings for over two decades.
Tom did not study healthcare leadership from a distance. He lived it. He made decisions with incomplete information, led through COVID with no playbook, survived the staffing crisis, and ultimately walked away not because he failed, but because he was honest enough to know when the seat no longer fit.
This conversation goes deep into what it actually takes to lead in one of the most complex industries in the country.
Michael and Tom cover:
* Becoming a hospital CEO at 27 and learning leadership entirely on the job
* Why the least important person to patient care is the hospital CEO
* The GDO framework for decision making: Gut, Data, and Opinions
* How hindsight bias and heuristic bias quietly destroy experienced leaders
* The four leadership evolutions healthcare executives were forced through in six years
* Why relationships must come before transactions in healthcare leadership
* Reading people and rooms as a core executive skill
* Strategic chess: thinking five moves ahead on both sides of a negotiation
* What Tom wishes he had mastered earlier and what he would tell a 30-something operator today
* Why he retired and what finally made him walk away from the seat
Timestamps:
3:47 Becoming a hospital CEO at 27 years old
6:56 First CEO role: county board politics, Sunshine Laws, and the radio station
10:03 What the staff taught him in the first two years
11:09 The first leadership mistakes he made and why
13:18 The danger of pretending you know everything as a leader
16:52 Why people stop telling leaders the truth
24:49 Decisions he still replays and the weight of bounded rationality
26:13 The GDO framework for decision making: Gut, Data, and Opinions
28:06 The numbers that matter and why relationships outlast margin
29:39 AI, emerging patterns, and what current healthcare operators are missing
33:00 Why the hospital CEO is the least important person to patient care
34:19 How decision making sharpens over time in healthcare leadership
35:49 Hindsight bias and heuristic bias: the traps experienced leaders fall into
40:27 Leading through COVID, the staffing crisis, inflation, and accountability mode
44:34 Knowing when it is time to leave the seat
48:04 What to master as a 30-something healthcare operator
51:34 Strategic chess: seeing five moves ahead on both sides
54:36 About the book and where to follow Tom's work
59:52 Closing thoughts
Follow Tom: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommcdougaljr/
https://badlands.pro/
This episode is for healthcare executives, early careerists in healthcare, operators navigating high-stakes decisions, and anyone who leads people in environments where the margin for error is thin.
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If this conversation moved you, challenged your thinking, or sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more episodes with healthcare leaders who are not just thinking differently, theyâre building differently.
About the Show
The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful changeâhighlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.
The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.
đ Michaelâs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstamo
đ§ Subscribe for more episodes that move beyond theory and into the heart of whatâs really possible in healthcare.
Join our group, Advancing Healthcare Innovation Forum on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7056196/
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What actually happens inside health plans?
In this episode of the Advancing Health Innovation Show, host Michael Stamatinos sits down with Mike McCabe, CEO of On Advisors and a seasoned health plan executive who has spent his career inside health plans, not just advising them from the outside.
Mike pulls back the curtain on what actually happens inside health plans when things go sideways...from network breakdowns and outdated claims systems to the administrative avalanche drowning primary care providers. He shares why the payer-provider relationship is, in his own words, "cantankerous," and what it would take to fix it.
The conversation covers the three core systems every health plan must have working in harmony, why population health management means something different to almost everyone in the industry, and how AI is creating both real opportunity and dangerous blind spots for organizations that aren't ready to govern it properly. Mike also challenges some of the most common misconceptions about health plans, including the myth that they're simply printing money.
Drawing on decades of work across 30+ states, thousands of provider meetings, and high-stakes board rooms, Mike brings the kind of grounded, candid perspective that rarely makes it into headlines. Whether you're a healthcare innovator, a health plan operator, or someone trying to break into the space, this conversation is packed with insights that cut straight to what actually matters.
Topics covered in this episode:
* Where health plans actually break and why no one talks about it
* The three systems that must work together for any plan to succeed
* Why primary care scarcity is quietly driving up costs across the system
* Value-based payments: when they work and when they don't
* The real decision-making structure inside a health plan
* How to evaluate and trust technology vendors in a market full of vaporware
* What structural change would have the biggest downstream impact
Timestamps
00:00 Intro and why health plans are misunderstood
03:40 Mikeâs early story, sports, family, and military background
07:40 Where health plans actually break first
12:50 Why payer-provider relationships become cantankerous
20:40 Patterns re-emerging across healthcare
25:35 How decisions really get made inside health plans
28:15 How innovation and AI get adopted
32:50 The one structural issue Mike would fix tomorrow
36:20 Why healthcare is always local
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If this conversation moved you, challenged your thinking, or sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more episodes with healthcare leaders who are not just thinking differently, theyâre building differently.
About the Show
The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful changeâhighlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.
The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.
đ Michaelâs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstamo
đ§ Subscribe for more episodes that move beyond theory and into the heart of whatâs really possible in healthcare.
Join our group, Advancing Healthcare Innovation Forum on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7056196/
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Every parent knows the moment.
It's 2am. Your child has a fever. Something feels off. And you're standing in the dark trying to decide...wait until morning? Urgent care? The ER?
That moment is exactly what today's guest has dedicated her career to solving.
In this episode of the Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show, Michael Stamatinos sits down with Dr. Shannon Henning, Chief Operating Officer at Hello Pediatrics, to explore a reality most parents know all too wellâŚwhen a child gets sick, access to care isnât always clear.
Dr. Henning began her career as a pediatrician, working directly with patients and families. Over time, she started to see a deeper issue. The challenge wasnât just clinical. It was structural. Access to care often breaks down in the moments that matter most. And then she did something most clinicians don't. She stepped into the system itself.
Because she realized something important: even the best doctors in the world can only do so much if the system around them is broken.
In this episode, we get into the realities of pediatric care that often get overlooked, the access gaps, the reimbursement failures, and why solving for kids might be the key to reshaping healthcare for everyone.
We also talk about:
â What it actually feels like to walk into your first day of residency
â Why pediatricians aren't just treating kids, they're treating the whole family
â The transition from clinical practice to operational leadership (and why more physicians need to make it)
â What a telemedicine platform built specifically for pediatrics looks like in practice
â The 7-7-7 rule and what it has to do with better healthcare
â What needs to change in the next 10 years and why reimbursement is at the center of it all
Dr. Shannon Henning isn't waiting for the system to fix itself. She's building the fix.
This one's for every parent, every pediatrician, and every leader who believes that how we care for kids determines what kind of adults and what kind of healthcare system we build next.
Timestamps
00:00 â Intro & who is Shannon Henning
02:48 â The 2am parenting moment that defines the problem
04:25 â First day of residency: imposter syndrome at 100
07:25 â Seeing the cracks in access: ER to Urgent Care to General Pediatrics
08:15 â Did she ever imagine running a healthcare company?
09:33 â What healthcare leaders misunderstand about pediatric care
11:10 â The clinical story she still carries with her
12:22 â Parents, Dr. Google, and why pediatricians actually smile
13:20 â The pivot from clinical to operational
15:28 â Running a company feels like residency rotations
27:42 â The simple rule every parent in America needs to hear
28:44 â The 7-7-7 rule explained
30:28 â What kind of leader she is when things get hard
31:47 â Fast forward to 2036: what does pediatric care look like?
33:27 â How to follow Hello Pediatrics
34:14 â What gives her the most hope right now
đŁ LIKE, COMMENT & SUBSCRIBE
If this conversation moved you, challenged your thinking, or sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more episodes with healthcare leaders who are not just thinking differently, theyâre building differently.
About the Show
The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful changeâhighlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.
The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.
đ Michaelâs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstamo
đ§ Subscribe for more episodes that move beyond theory and into the heart of whatâs really possible in healthcare.
Join our group, Advancing Healthcare Innovation Forum on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7056196/
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What does it really look like when a healthcare system proves innovation is possible, then chooses to go backwards the moment the pressure lifts?
In this episode of the Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show, host Michael Stamatinos sits down with Frank Sawyer, founder of Health Forward and former hospital COO with over 20 years of experience inside some of the most complex health systems in the country.
Frank didn't study healthcare from the outside. He ran it. He lived with the consequences of decisions that had no clean answers, no playbook, and no room for error. When the pandemic ended and the systems he believed in snapped back to the old way of thinking, Frank made a decision. He left. Not to walk away from healthcare, but to push it further from the outside than he ever could from the inside.
This conversation pulls back the curtain on what actually happens inside hospital boardrooms, why great ideas die before they ever reach scale, and what founders and executives need to understand if they want to drive real, measurable change in healthcare.
Michael and Frank dive into the unfiltered realities of healthcare innovation, including:
* What it truly feels like to make high-stakes decisions with incomplete information as a hospital COO
* Why the IT executive is the most underestimated person in any health system boardroom
* The four things every hospital is losing sleep over and how innovators should build around them
* What COVID proved about healthcare's capacity for rapid innovation and why most systems chose to ignore it
* The biggest myth founders believe about hospital finances and margins
* How virtual care and digital assets can unlock the access bottleneck healthcare has never been able to solve
* Why the timeline of health systems and the timeline of innovation companies are dangerously misaligned
* What it takes to build trust inside a health system before a single dollar gets spent
* How Frank evaluates which innovations are worth bringing to hospital leaders and which are just noise
* The real reason healthcare doesn't have an innovation problem, it has a courage problem
This episode offers powerful lessons for health tech founders, hospital executives, digital health investors, and anyone trying to understand why healthcare innovation moves so slowly and what it actually takes to change that.
If you care about the future of healthcare delivery, health system leadership, innovation strategy, and what it takes to bridge the gap between good intentions and real impact, this is a conversation you don't want to miss.
đŁ LIKE, COMMENT & SUBSCRIBE
If this conversation moved you, challenged your thinking, or sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more episodes with healthcare leaders who are not just thinking differently, theyâre building differently.
About the Show
The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful changeâhighlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.
The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.
đ Michaelâs LinkedIn: / michaelstamo
đ§ Subscribe for more episodes that move beyond theory and into the heart of whatâs really possible in healthcare.
Join our group, Advancing Healthcare Innovation Forum on LinkedIn:
/ 7056196
-
What does it really look like to lead a hospital when there is no cushion, limited resources, and every decision affects your neighbors?
In this episode of the Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show, host Michael Stamatinos sits down with Aidan Hettler, the CEO of Sedgwick County Health Center, a county-owned critical access hospital serving rural communities.
Aidan became a hospital CEO at 22 years old, taking on one of the most difficult leadership roles in healthcare. In rural healthcare, thereâs no hiding behind layers of administration. If a nurse calls out, you feel it that shift. If infrastructure fails, the entire community feels the impact.
This conversation explores the real leadership challenges inside rural healthcare â from financial pressure and staffing shortages to building culture, expanding services, and making decisions in public view.
Michael and Aidan dive into the unfiltered realities of running a rural hospital, including:
⢠The unique challenges of leading a county-owned critical access hospital
⢠How rural healthcare leaders make decisions when resources are limited
⢠Turning around financial performance while increasing wages and improving culture
⢠Why people and mission matter more than scale in rural healthcare
⢠Expanding clinical services and opening a new clinic after 26 years without growth
⢠Implementing a new EMR system and transforming workflows across the organization
⢠Recruiting leaders and clinicians to a rural community
⢠The realities of public accountability in small towns
⢠How healthcare leaders navigate pressure, uncertainty, and difficult decisions
This episode offers powerful lessons for healthcare executives, hospital leaders, digital health founders, investors, and policymakers who want to better understand the realities of healthcare leadership beyond large urban systems.
If you care about the future of healthcare delivery, rural health innovation, leadership under pressure, and building resilient healthcare organizations, this is a conversation you donât want to miss.
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If this conversation moved you, challenged your thinking, or sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more episodes with healthcare leaders who are not just thinking differently, theyâre building differently.
About the Show
The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful changeâhighlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.
The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.
đ Michaelâs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstamo
đ§ Subscribe for more episodes that move beyond theory and into the heart of whatâs really possible in healthcare.
Join our group, Advancing Healthcare Innovation Forum on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7056196/
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Most people talk about healthcare innovation.
Very few people have to make it work inside a real health system.
In this episode of the Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show, Michael Stamatinos sits down with Justin Brueck, System Vice President of Innovation and Research at Endeavor Health, to explore what it actually takes to move ideas through a complex healthcare organization.
Justin didnât arrive in healthcare with a master plan. His journey began in rural Iowa, where a chance encounter with a healthcare executive opened a door that would shape the rest of his career.
From starting as an administrative fellow to leading enterprise innovation and research across one of the largest health systems in the Midwest, Justin has spent years learning how healthcare systems actually adopt change.
In this conversation, Michael and Justin discuss:
⢠Why good healthcare innovation ideas often fail inside health systems
⢠The hidden complexity of getting new technology adopted in clinical environments
⢠How frontline clinicians shape whether innovation succeeds or dies
⢠The role genomics and personalized medicine will play in the future of care
⢠What startups and founders often misunderstand about selling to health systems
⢠Why healthcare will always remain a deeply human business despite rapid technological change
Justin also shares the surprising leadership lessons he learned early in his career and the story of how one mentor changed the trajectory of his life.
If you care about healthcare leadership, innovation adoption, digital health, genomics, and the future of health systems, this episode offers a rare inside look at how innovation actually happens behind the scenes.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
03:00 What innovation inside a health system actually looks like
08:00 Justinâs unconventional path into healthcare leadership
16:00 Why good healthcare innovation ideas fail
23:00 The future of genomics and personalized medicine
26:00 Building a business case for innovation in health systems
28:00 Leadership lessons from inside large healthcare organizations
31:40 Quickfire questions with Justin Brueck
33:30 The human side of healthcare and the future of patient care
About Justin Brueck
Justin Brueck is the System Vice President of Innovation and Research at Endeavor Health, where he leads initiatives spanning clinical genomics, enterprise innovation, research operations, and emerging healthcare technologies. His work focuses on translating new ideas into real-world solutions that improve patient care, support clinicians, and strengthen health system performance.
đŁ LIKE, COMMENT & SUBSCRIBE
If this conversation moved you, challenged your thinking, or sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more episodes with healthcare leaders who are not just thinking differently, theyâre building differently.
About the Show
The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful changeâhighlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.
The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.
đ Michaelâs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstamo
đ§ Subscribe for more episodes that move beyond theory and into the heart of whatâs really possible in healthcare.
Join our group, Advancing Healthcare Innovation Forum on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7056196/
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Leadership in healthcare is often framed in headlines. Big strategies. Big bets. Big promises.
But most of it does not look like that.
In Episode 175 of the Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show, Michael Stamatinos sits with Regine Villain, Chief Supply Chain Officer, Oschner Health for a conversation about the part of leadership that rarely gets named.
The pressure.
The energy drain.
The moral weight of knowing that if something breaks, a patient feels it.
Regine grew up in Haiti. She thought she would become a pediatrician. Life moved her toward engineering instead, and eventually into healthcare operations. Early in her career, she walked into a CEOâs office unannounced and asked what it would take to sit in that chair one day. Not out of ego. Out of hunger to understand how systems work.
That instinct still drives her.
This episode is not about supply chain mechanics. It is about healthcare leadership as stewardship.
Regine speaks plainly about:
⢠The difference between title and expertise
⢠The mistake of making decisions without the right voices in the room
⢠Cultural misalignment that quietly erodes trust
⢠Burnout at the executive level
⢠Learning to say no in a field that rewards overextension
One of the most striking moments in the conversation comes from a loading dock.
To most people, it is inventory. Boxes. Movement.
To Regine, it is a pacemaker inside cardboard. A grandmother waiting for surgery. A clinical team depending on reliability.
âItâs not just a box.â
That line is not metaphor. It is operating philosophy.
Healthcare innovation often centers on technology. This conversation centers on responsibility. On the discipline required to stay steady when systems strain. On protecting energy so leadership does not become martyrdom.
Viewers will leave with something more durable than tactics.
* A clearer lens for resilient healthcare leadership.
* A deeper respect for culture as infrastructure.
* And a reminder that access is not a slogan. It is operational.
This episode is for:
* Healthcare executives absorbing pressure that no one sees
* Women stepping into rooms where they are still underestimated
* Health system operators responsible for access and reliability
* Leaders wrestling with culture that does not match the slide deck
* Anyone who has felt the cost of always saying yes
If you are a healthcare executive, clinician, operator, founder, or investor trying to understand what steady leadership actually requires, this episode is worth your time.
Learn more about Regine:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/reginehonorevillain/
đŁ LIKE, COMMENT & SUBSCRIBE
If this conversation moved you, challenged your thinking, or sparked an idea, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more episodes with healthcare leaders who are not just thinking differently, theyâre building differently.
About the Show
The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful changeâhighlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.
The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.
đ Michaelâs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstamo
đ§ Subscribe for more episodes that move beyond theory and into the heart of whatâs really possible in healthcare.
Join our group, Advancing Healthcare Innovation Forum on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7056196/
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