Rubi Sanchez

If you’re building a health tech startup, here’s a useful perspective from the accelerator side. At ViVE, I spoke with Keith Camhi, Managing Director of the Techstars Healthcare Accelerator powered by Permanente Medicine Mid-Atlantic States. The program invests in early-stage startups and helps founders run pilots with physicians in the Kaiser Permanente ecosystem. Some interesting takeaways: • Techstars still prioritizes “Team, team, team” above everything else; • Founders in the program are interviewed by physicians before acceptance; • The goal isn’t just mentorship — it’s getting real pilots with providers; • AI startups dominate applications, but the focus remains on real clinical problems. Applications for the next cohort open soon, so founders may want to keep an eye on it. Short interview from #ViVE 👇 🎥 Watch here: https://lnkd.in/gNN_5628 #Vive2026 #digitalhealthinsideout #health2tech #digitalhealth

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Three incredible days at #JPM2026. Same conversation with 10+ health system execs: "We're building our AI strategy. Evaluating vendors. Need to pick the right partners." This sounds familiar. 2009-2012: The EHR decision. After the HITECH Act, health systems spent 18-24 months evaluating Epic vs. Cerner. Consultants. Committees. RFPs. Multi-year implementations. The logic made sense: EHRs were monolithic platforms with huge switching costs. You had to get it right. 2025: The AI decision. I'm watching health systems do the same thing. "AI steering committees." "Strategic AI partner" RFPs. Trying to pick winners. But there's a critical difference: EHRs were a single, massive platform decision. AI in healthcare is dozens of different problems that need dozens of different solutions. Here's what health systems are missing: They're looking for "the AI vendor" when they should be building "an AI portfolio." There's no single AI platform that solves:   → Documentation burden (ambient notes) → Radiology throughput (workflow optimization) → Clinical trials matching → Revenue cycle optimization (across specialties) → Clinical decision support These are different problems. Different technologies. Different vendors. Different timelines. Some need FDA clearance and 24-month validations. Some can pilot in 90 days. Some integrate with Epic. Some replace parts of Epic. You can't solve all of these with one "strategic AI partnership”....no matter that Anthropic is saying right now. <ducks> The AI landscape is evolving too fast for monogamous vendor relationships. 6 months ago: GPT-4 for clinical documentation. Today: Ambient listening, agentic workflows, multimodal imaging analysis. 6 months from now: Something else entirely. That's why you need exposure across the whole landscape—not a bet on one vendor. The mistake I see health systems making: Approach 1: "Strategic Partner" Strategy Pick one AI vendor → Enterprise deal → 3-year commitment → Hope they solve everything Result: You're locked in. Technology moves on. You're stuck in vendor negotiations while competitors move faster. Approach 2: "Portfolio Strategy" Deploy capital across multiple companies → Take equity → Co-develop solutions → Maintain optionality Result: You capture upside. You shape products. You're first to new capabilities. You have relationships across the ecosystem. After 20 years building innovation platforms at JPMorgan, Mousse Partners, Blueprint Health, Junto Health, Atlantic Health: In fast-moving markets, portfolio strategies beat single-vendor bets. Healthcare AI is moving fast. The question isn't "Which AI vendor should we pick?" The question is: "How do we build an AI portfolio that gives us the most optionality" If you're thinking about this, let's talk. 📩 douglas.m.hayes@gmail.com ☎️ 215-620-2032 #healthcareAI #digitalhealth #venturecapital #innovation

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Welcome Jazmine Coleman, Co-Founder & Chief of Staff at Quilt Health on this episode of 🔥The Lantern 🔥 Quilt Health is building a software solution that bridges the gap between research & care for patients, providers, and manufacturers trying to make a difference for complex conditions (starting with Sickle Cell). 🔍 What’s going on inside Quilt Health in 2025? 🔎 Their team is really excited about working with their first users & customers, continuing to build relationships with hospitals, health systems, and providers through the National Alliance of Sickle Cell Centers. Their team is continuing to grow across functions, thoughtfully bringing new hires on *slightly* ahead of where they’re needed in a smart way. 🤔 What is Jazmine’s role as Chief of Staff and what has she learned from her startup career? 🤔 The role of Chief of Staff changes hour to hour, day to day. From tag teaming across functions when they got started, to now becoming more focused and spending time thinking about how to dedicate startup resources in the most effective way so they can grow. What has she learned? Plan for a future that’s further out while holding really tight to the moment. Even thinking in 3-6 month increments helps prevent you from being too shortsighted but also helps you focus on what’s right in front of you. 🤝 How can we help? 🤝 If you’re in the healthtech industry in Boston, reach out! Relationships are so important from patients to healthcare providers to manufacturers, Quilt Health is to listening as they grow! Any companies in a complementary space too, they’d love to collaborate to make a difference in healthcare that goes beyond lip service! The Lantern is brought to you by MGMT Boston, Rho, Suno & Invest Northern Ireland – Americas this month

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Alex, a colleague of mine from fiveonefour just wrote a super interesting blog post about designing user interfaces with agents first. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gba3WEHT On abstracting for cyborgs (users who use agents): > Agentic UX (AX), or designing for AI agents that act on behalf of users, isn’t really new anymore — it’s quickly becoming a standard. > This doesn’t mean humans are out of the picture — it means they’re operating at a new level of abstraction. On Agentic design: > Things are more conversational and automated than before. And that means evolving principles, tools, and intuition. > Agentic Design isn’t just a trend. It’s the beginning of a new practice. One where UX doesn’t just serve the user — it provides agents with what they need to serve well. It’s a leap, sure, but it’s one we’re excited to take — and we’re building the foundation now, so probably best to grab yourself a shovel. #agents #ai #design

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One of the most impactful shifts in how I guide product strategy at Aidin has been rethinking how early ideas take shape. Instead of waiting for perfect specs or high-fidelity mockups, I’ve leaned into a faster, more collaborative approach: vibe prototyping. This isn’t about polished design. It’s about testing whether an idea is truly valuable and feasible - before investing in development. Building custom GPTs for ideation and using Figma Make to spin up lightweight, interactive prototypes, we’ve been able to: ✅ Validate complex workflows early ✅ Gather feedback across Ops, BD, and Engineering ✅ Align executives and decision-makers around what “good” could look like ✅ Test ideas directly with customers in discovery sessions These prototypes turn abstract ideas into something real. They make stakeholder conversations more focused, and they make customer interviews more interactive, insightful, and collaborative. In a space as nuanced as healthcare, this clarity is a competitive advantage. It helps us move faster, reduce risk, and stay grounded in the value we’re delivering. Vibe prototyping is becoming a core capability for modern product teams and one I believe every PM should have in their toolkit. I believe this kind of early collaboration will become a core skill for product teams working in high-stakes, high-complexity environments. Not just in healthcare, but across industries. What’s your go-to method for testing product ideas before they hit the roadmap? #vibeprototyping #designthinking #productdiscovery #vibecoding #productmanagement #prototyping

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Fantastic insights from Amy Gleason Now is the time to modernize care. The tools have been developed and technology has evolved to such a degree that impactful, lasting innovation is feasible. Couple this with the cresting of the age wave and the significant shortage in clinical and non-clinical providers, and there is an imperative to act now. Let's work together to leave a legacy. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Los Angeles Times a2 Collective | a2PilotAwards.ai The National Institutes of Health National Institute on Aging (NIA) Electronic Caregiver MassAITC

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Product leaders like Ari Hoffman have a saying at work when things happen or are done that make absolutely no sense to anyone on the team: "Because healthcare." Tune in to the latest episode of the Lifers podcast to hear from a physician-turned-product leader on the frontlines, as we discuss everything from why it took so long for hospitals to ditch faxes to the future of employer-sponsored healthcare. Links to the full episode are in the comments. 👇

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Thanks Aaron Ferber! Just finished up a talk at HLTH on "Human Centered Design Principles in the Age of AI". Well attended, and well received. Couldn't have picked a better partner in Aaron Ferber @ Ascension, who has a background spanning startups and design consulting (IDEO) to mission driven health. We covered: 1. Funnels vs. Anti-funnels. Aka don't make patients download an app or you'll lose 70% of them. 2. Give value to get value. Make sure you have a "guest" experience - airlines & ecommerce figured this out long ago. 3. The power of "defaults". Aka when to use opt-in vs. opt-out and how radical a difference it made in say organ donation rates. 4. Test everything. You're wrong. You just don't know specifically how you're wrong until you test. Send your engineers into hospital/health facilities and have the sit in the waiting room for a couple of hours. 5. Using AI for a human touch. I.e. how to personalize at scale, what you know about education or reading level to alter the way you talk to patients. Full video in the next week or two. For now, here's what I said above in video format for those who didn't open this message :-) #HLTH25 and #HLTHUSA

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🏥 Kaiser’s $1B AI Investment: The Rise of CareOps and What It Means for Product Roadmaps Last week, Kaiser Permanente announced a $1 billion investment in AI infrastructure, aimed at transforming care delivery across its massive network. It’s not just an IT upgrade. This signals a foundational shift toward CareOps, where AI-enhanced workflows become central to patient care and operational decisions. For product leaders in health-tech, this isn’t just another headline. It’s a new way of thinking. 💡 What is CareOps? Think of it as the fusion of clinical operations, data science, and product design, where AI doesn’t just support care - it shapes it. Examples include: - Predicting high-risk patients before an ER visit - Automating care navigation and triage - Streamlining prior auth, discharge planning, and resource utilization With players like Kaiser making long-term AI bets, health-tech product teams should take note: 🔁 Your product roadmap may need an upgrade. Here are 3 questions you should ask yourselves: 1. Are we treating AI as a feature, or as an operating principle? 2. Can our architecture actually support real-time care decisions? 3. Are we building trust into our AI stack: transparency, fairness, audit-ability? And perhaps most importantly: 👉 Are we aligning our AI efforts with the “boring” operational bottleneck tasks that frontline clinicians actually face daily? There’s a narrow window here. Companies that embed AI into the day-to-day care infrastructure will build real moats, and not just hype. 🚨 Health-tech teams: The shift to CareOps is underway. Are you building for it? 🔗 I'd love to hear what others are seeing. Are your provider or payer partners planning around CareOps yet? Drop your thoughts below 👇 #AI #DigitalHealth #CareOps #HealthTech #ProductManagement #Kaiser #HealthInnovation #HealthcareTransformation

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Most companies optimize for profit. Devoted Health was built to serve people. In this episode of The Eric Ries Show, I sit down with Todd Park, co-founder of Devoted Health and former U.S. Chief Technology Officer, to explore what it looks like to design a company for human flourishing at scale. Todd shares how Devoted earned one of the highest trust scores in the industry and how he and his brother, Ed, built a business that treats every member like family. We talk about what it takes to operationalize love inside a system as complex as healthcare and how Devoted never saw any problem as outside its mission. In our conversation today, we talk about: • What it means to have love as an operational framework  • How Devoted’s unambiguous mission became a superpower for alignment and trust • The formula Todd uses to define what world-class healthcare really means • Why Todd believes hard problems belong inside the company’s mission, not outside it • The role of trust as both Devoted’s core metric and its greatest moat •  Lessons from Howard Schultz on scaling culture  • What it takes to design an ecosystem where business, technology, and community all serve the same goal • And more You can listen to or watch the episode here: 🎥 YouTube: https://lnkd.in/g-S-Mj2a 🎙️ Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gMPxgUUD 🎙️ Apple: https://lnkd.in/ggCFzrTK

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Solace Health, a company built around patient advocacy, founded by Jeremy Gurewitz & Sara Sargent just raised $130M in Series C funding, led by IVP, pushing its valuation past $1 billion. Solace is building infrastructure around something far more human; guidance. In the United States, a new diagnosis can trigger a cascade of referrals, insurance battles, specialist searches, prior authorizations, and paperwork that most families are unprepared to manage. Solace’s model is simple: connect patients with expert advocates who help coordinate care, secure approvals, interpret options, and move through the system with clarity instead of chaos. Their services are covered by Medicare and many Medicare Advantage plans. This signals that navigation is no longer a luxury layer reserved for concierge medicine, but rather it’s becoming embedded in reimbursed care. The funding will expand Solace’s 2,000+ advocate network, enhance its proprietary platform, and deepen clinical research. We’ve spent decades innovating at the edge of medicine; better biologics, smarter devices, AI diagnostics. But the middle layer, the space between diagnosis and outcome, has remained chaotic. Navigation, coordination, and advocacy have historically been invisible labor carried by patients and their families. Solace is betting that this “invisible layer” is actually core infrastructure, and empowering the system ground up- exciting times to be building for sure.

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