The Heart of Healthcare | A Digital Health Podcast

Hemant Taneja believes you can sneeze and reach a billion dollars in healthcare revenue, but that most of that revenue tells you nothing about whether the system is actually getting better.This week, Halle sits down with the CEO of General Catalyst and author of The Transformation Principles to discuss what happens when you stop treating revenue as the primary KPI and start asking harder questions about impact, incentives, and system change. They get into his “health assurance” thesis, what it means for a VC firm to buy a hospital, why “profit-only” capitalism has run its course, and how AI and new payment models could finally bend the cost curve instead of just inflating it.We cover:🏥 How Hemant began investing in healthcare and his “health assurance” thesis📉 Why profit‑only capitalism has run its course and what should replace it💳 The “work tax” in healthcare payments and how AI could free up resources for prevention🤖 Whether AI in healthcare is a bubble or a durable transformation🏥 Why General Catalyst bought a hospital and how they plan to use it —About our guest: Hemant Taneja is the CEO of General Catalyst, and a founder, investor, and author of four books, including The Transformation Principles. His worldview centers on strengthening global resilience through applied AI and partnerships that modernize critical systems. Hemant is an early investor in the leading technology companies of our time including Anduril, Anthropic, Applied Intuition, GitLab (NASDAQ: GTLB), Grammarly, Gusto, Ro, Samsara (NYSE: IOT), Snap (NYSE: SNAP), and Stripe. He is also deeply involved in transforming the US healthcare system, having founded companies like Commure, Hippocratic, Transcarent, Livongo (Sold to Teladoc for $18.5B) and General Catalyst's Health Assurance Transformation Company (HATCo) which helps health systems transform themselves with AI. A global expert on industry transformation, he has led General Catalyst's foray into transforming healthcare, energy, and workforce systems globally. He holds five degrees from MIT.—🙏Thank you to our show sponsor, LookDeep. LookDeep pioneers AI that can see, hear, and respond with care to help hospitals be Ever Present for Every Patient. Learn more at lookdeep.ai/aimee. —📍 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.

The Haves & Have-Nots Of 2025 | Threshold Ventures Co-founder Emily MeltonThis week for our 2025 recap, we’re joined by VC Emily Melton, co-founder of Threshold Ventures. Melton highlights her reflection of 2025, which splits the market into "haves and have-nots" with nothing in between, noting the concentration of venture dollars on "high flyers" and the indifference shown to established companies with respectable revenue.We cover: 💸 The widening gap between the “haves” and “have-nots” in health tech 📉 The rise of recaps, down rounds, and investor “bargain-basement shopping” 🏥 Why healthcare’s 5.6-trillion-dollar cost structure can’t be fixed without technology 🧾 How policy incentives and private equity are reshaping M&A activity 💬 What founders need to prove to raise capital in today’s market —About our guest: Emily is a co-founder of Threshold. She is looking for entrepreneurs who are genuinely excited about being agents of change and have an almost irrational drive to make things better. Her portfolio includes BetterUp, Brightline, Daero, Elation Health, Imagen, Livongo (NASDAQ: LVGO), Mendaera, ODAIA, Redfin (NASDAQ: RDFN), Tia, Transcarent, Verge Genomics, Videa, Vital, Viz, and Wellframe (acquired by HealthEdge). Emily served as the chair of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) board of directors for the 2022-23 term. She is also an active founding member of All Raise, a non-profit dedicated to improving access for women and others to start and invest in companies. A Stanford grad with a BA in political philosophy with honors and an MBA, Emily is drawn to disruptive ideas and technologies that have the potential to radically change consumer, enterprise, and healthcare markets.—📍 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.

The first trillion-dollar healthcare company, a $298M longevity round, and a telehealth CEO headed for federal sentencing. Last month had range.Today on the show, Halle and Michael sort through the biggest December stories shaping the year ahead, from runaway longevity funding to a telehealth scandal headed for federal sentencing.We cover:🧬 Two hot funding rounds in longevity, including Function Health’s $298M B-round and Blueprint’s all-angel, no-VC $60M raise💊 How Eli Lilly became the first trillion-dollar healthcare company🏥 CVS’s $5.7B Oak Street Health write-down (and why most acquisitions fail)🎓 Nursing, OT, PT, and PA being removed from the list of “professional” degrees by the Department of Education🤖 OpenAI’s growing interest in consumer health tools⚖️ The telehealth company whose founders were just convicted in one of the largest stimulant-fraud cases to date—Show notes:Eli Lilly becomes first trillion-dollar healthcare company (Reuters)CVS takes $5.7B goodwill impairment on Oak Street Health (Forbes)Department of Education’s revised “professional degree” list (Newsweek)NYT: Patients turning to AI for support (Dagens.com)DOJ conviction of Done Global executives (DOJ)—📍 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.

As millions of Americans hit the road to visit family for Thanksgiving, many will pass through, or return to, rural communities. Nearly 60 million Americans live in these areas, yet many struggle to access even basic healthcare as rural hospitals close at record rates.Dr. Jennifer Schneider, co-founder and CEO of Homeward Health, is tackling this crisis head-on by reimagining how care is delivered to Medicare Advantage members in rural America. Drawing on her experiences as a physician, a patient with Type 1 diabetes, and the former president of Livongo, Jenny shares why rural healthcare is both a massive challenge and an untapped opportunity.We cover:🏥 Why rural Americans face dramatically higher mortality rates💡 How Homeward is combining technology and on-the-ground care to serve overlooked communities📉 What value-based care looks like outside major metro areas🤝 Lessons from Castlight, Livongo, and building bilingual (tech + healthcare) teams🔥 How Jenny’s personal experience with chronic illness shapes her leadership and vision—About our guest: Dr. Jennifer Schneider is the co-founder and CEO of Homeward, where she is leading the transformation of rural healthcare through AI-enabled, value-based care delivery. A physician and technologist, Jennifer’s work is shaped by her experience growing up in a small town with type 1 diabetes—fueling her belief that geography should never determine access to care.Previously, Jennifer was President and Chief Medical Officer at Livongo, where she helped scale the company through its IPO and led its $18.5B merger with Teladoc Health—the largest digital health transaction to date. She has also held executive roles at Castlight Health and began her career as a practicing internal medicine physician and health services researcher.Jennifer serves on the boards of Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Maven Clinic, and has been named one of Modern Healthcare’s “100 Most Influential People in Healthcare.” She holds degrees from Johns Hopkins, Stanford, and the College of the Holy Cross.—📍 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.

On the heels of raising $210 million at a $6 billion valuation, OpenEvidence is the fastest-growing physician app in history, now reaching over 40% of U.S. physicians and powering 17 million monthly clinical queries.In this conversation, co-founder and CTO Zack Ziegler shares how his background in early large language models led him to build an AI that helps clinicians make better decisions at the point of care, without replacing their judgment.We cover:🧠 The strategies Open Evidence used to reach 40% of U.S. clinicians in a short time💡 The unexpected reason they chose to go direct to doctors instead of via their employers💰 How they make money⚙️ What “Deep Consult” means for the future of clinical decision-making🏥 Whether tools like this could ever—or should ever—be available to patientsAbout our guest: Zachary Ziegler is the cofounder and CTO of OpenEvidence, the leading medical information platform. Designed from the ground up for medical professionals, OpenEvidence organizes and expands the world's medical knowledge to make it more useful, open, accessible, and understandable. Launched out of the Mayo Clinic Platform Accelerate, OpenEvidence has become the most rapidly adopted tool by physicians in history, now used by over 40% of US physicians in over 15,000 care centers across the United States. Before founding OpenEvidence, Ziegler was a PhD student at Harvard University, where he worked with Professor Sasha Rush and was awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. He completed his undergraduate studies at Cornell University, where he received the Barry Goldwater Scholarship.—🙏Thank you to our show sponsor, LookDeep. LookDeep pioneers AI that can see, hear, and respond with care to help hospitals be Ever Present for Every Patient. Learn more at lookdeep.ai/aimee.—📍 Connect with us:Heart of Healthcare websiteLinkedInYouTubeInstagramSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.