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Healthcare Innovation Speed Round from HLTH 2025: 6 HIT Leaders on AI, Prevention & Patient Care

• Nathan C Bowser

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Live from HLTH 2025, Nathan C sits down with six healthcare innovation leaders to discuss the technologies reshaping patient care, clinical operations, and prevention. This rapid-fire speed round captures emerging themes across the industry—from AI-driven diagnostics to workforce transformation and patient-centered design.

The Guests:

  •  00:26 Dave Wessinger | PointClickCare – Care coordination
  • 06:50 Dr. Patricia Hayes | Imagine Pediatrics – Pediatric primary care innovation
  • 13:46 Dr. John Showalter | Linus Health – Early detection and cognitive health AI
  • 20:30 Kent Dicks | Life365 – Social determinants of health & elderly care
  • 27:40 Dr. Lior Rauschberger | Gene by Gene – Genomic sequencing & precision medicine
  • 34:24 Dr. Colin Banas | DrFirst – Medication data & clinical decision support

Key Insights:

AI & Prevention Over Reaction
The collective view is clear: healthcare is shifting from treating disease to predicting it. Early detection tools, cognitive health AI, and genomic analysis are moving the needle on prevention—but only if clinicians actually use them. The challenge isn't the technology; it's adoption and trust.

Workforce Is the Bottleneck
Every leader pointed to the same problem—clinician burnout, staffing shortages, and fragmented workflows. Technology that reduces documentation burden and improves efficiency at the point of care wins. Technology that adds steps loses.

Data Silos Block Better Outcomes
Medication data, genomic data, social determinants—it all lives in different systems. The winners are those connecting these dots, giving clinicians a 360-degree view of the patient. Fragmented data = fragmented care.

Long-Term Care & Seniors Are Underserved
Senior living, pediatrics, and geriatric care all face unique challenges. The organizations innovating here are building for the realities of these populations—not applying one-size-fits-all solutions from acute care.

Patient Activation Is the Missing Ingredient
Data and tools mean nothing if patients don't engage. The leaders bridging clinical innovation with patient behavior change are seeing real outcomes—and real revenue growth.

Why This Moment Matters:

HLTH 2025 revealed a field at an inflection point. The leaders doing well aren't chasing hype. They're solving real problems—clinician time, patient outcomes, data access—with pragmatic solutions. 

They're also candid about what AI can and can't do, and how organizational adoption (not just technology) drives impact.


A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.

At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.

In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.

If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

Nathan C (2):

Hey, it's Nathan and welcome to this very special episode kicking off our reporting from HLTH 2025. This is the HLTH Tech Glow Up.

Nathan C:

In this episode, I talk with six different leaders from healthcare technologies live from the floor at Health 2025. Join me each Monday and Thursday for the next several weeks as we launch the 20 or so episodes that we recorded live at HLTH Let's jump in. Today I'm talking with Dave Wessinger of PointClickCare. Here with Dr. Trish from Imagine Pediatrics. talking again with Dr. John Showalter of Linus Health. Talking with Kent Dicks, the CEO of Life365. I am talking with Dr. Lior Rauschberger of Gene by Gene. I'm Nathan C and today I am talking with. Dr. Colin Banas of DrFirst. Hello and welcome to the HLTH Tech Glow Up. I'm Nathan C and today I'm talking with Dave Wessinger of PointClickCare. Dave, thank you so much for joining me today.

Dave Wessinger:

Happy to be here. Thanks for having.

Nathan C:

How's your HLTH been?

Dave Wessinger:

HLTH has been very good. Not sure exactly why that is. Maybe I'm doing a lot less than I should be.

Nathan C:

As a CEO, that's often the way to unlock a whole new era. So let's hope it is. Awesome. So introductions first. can you share a little bit, about what you do at PointClickCare?

Dave Wessinger:

I sure do. It's very easy because I am the CEO, which most people would wonder what a CEO actually does. but I lead our organization and we are focused on having a meaningful impact on healthcare. And our mission is to help every provider deliver exceptional care. And that's what we wake up and think about and drive the team towards every day.

Nathan C:

can you dive in a little bit more specifically about the way that you help enable that kind of care?

Dave Wessinger:

Sure. So we're across healthcare in a variety of ways. I think if you think about long-term and post-acute care as an area of healthcare, we, are the technology that runs their business so clinically, financially, connectedness, working into the acute care, and we have the largest care collaboration network in the country that pulls information together to largely help clinicians get better information about the people they're caring for and deliver that in a way that can be used effectively.

Nathan C:

A platform not just for tracking, the care side of a healthcare business, but also tracking the business and making sure that, whether you're on the care side or the business side, that you have the information and data you need to make good choices.

Dave Wessinger:

I think what we do is we bring the whole ecosystem together.'cause it's not one segment of the market that all of us need to come together to deliver really good quality care for the patients that deserve it the most, and largely ours aren't there to advocate for themselves. So the more information we have. Connecting payers, providers, health systems, all of the above families to make sure that we provide dignified care.

Nathan C:

how does a tech platform enable centering the consumer and the patient, in a way that you described like.

Dave Wessinger:

I think what you really, there are traditional EHRs that are, and we think about that as just data. What we do is we bring it to life and we pull information that allows them to understand that patient in real time and know what should be done next, where the opportunities, where the challenges, even predictive risk indicators. So we really give them information to understand. They're moving very quickly. They have a limited amount of time, and the more we can put in front of them to know what to do and when to do it, really act versus, spend time in the chart, we give them more time back at the bedside. And so that's really how it comes to life.

Nathan C:

do you have a metric for the value of doctor time saved or doctor time in the room saved?

Dave Wessinger:

Interesting. The most of those that use our system are clinicians, RNs. RPNs CNAs, and as a result, the physician is at the top of the pyramid, probably the least amount of time. And so they're the ones that drive a lot of the care and a lot of the activity. And so the time is really saved with the RNs, RNAs and the CNAs in terms of less time documenting, more time doing.

Nathan C:

So the people that need to explain to the doctors what's up, we're saving all of their time.

Dave Wessinger:

yeah. So in the end, you could take something like an admission and say, we can take that process from two hours down to 10 minutes. Meaningful difference for all of those involved with really good med reconciliation that otherwise wasn't something we could do without the connectivity we have today.

Nathan C:

if you can take any step of my healthcare journey and make it into a 10 minute task, I am there. back to some, we gotta get to some of the questions, for the show. The show is called The HTLH Tech Glow Up. A Glow Up is a dramatic transformation or re-imagining. What's the glow up that you wanna see happen in the health industry?

Dave Wessinger:

Great question. I think the thing I think about the most is the crisis working towards us, which is a limited number of staff available to do the jobs we need them to do, which, what's probably gotta be caring for us at some point, if we're lucky. and so I think about how do we affect that? How do we make this a great place for people to work? And my glow up is get to a point where we deliver technology in the form of ambient tech, less time, doing more time information You the touchless CMR, EHR where largely as you do and communicate information goes. It's structured well enough to understand what to go do. It is a place that people want to work and want to stay in their job, reduce the clinical administrative burden, and make this a place people go to school for. Because it's AI proof, you'll always have a job in healthcare. Oh my gosh. We're gonna glow up the healthcare industry. So people actually wanna use the tools. They won't even know they're using the tool.

Nathan C:

Alright, and four PointClickCare. What's a similar glow up that you're looking to make in the next six months?

Dave Wessinger:

I think it's in fact, as we all look at ai, what I think the biggest difference is not just looking at ai, but where AI can actually have a meaningful impact in terms of value. And we look at, in terms of how we put clinician in the loop. Not human in the loop, clinician in the loop to help them make really good decisions about the person they're caring for in the moment. And that is going to literally the value we're all gonna bring. PointClickCare specifically in the next two years will be 10 times what we've delivered in the last 25.

Nathan C:

I don't wanna drop the mic, but I feel like we need to. That's amazing. one more question. The theme is Heroes and Legends. I know that every entrepreneur has had at least one hero or legend. Who said, I believe you. I think you can do this. Keep going. I'm curious, is there a hero or a legend who has helped you get to where you are today in your career?

Dave Wessinger:

There are, I'll speak to two of them. One, I look at heroes in. the reason we get up every day is that people we get to support in the workforce, the healthcare heroes that show up and do really difficult, challenging jobs every day, and they're absolutely 100% my hero or whole team's hero. And that's why we do what we do. The second one though, and I hate to call her a legend, she's still with us, but I started this business with my brother and my mother, and she's the hardest working person to know. She's phenomenal, wonderful woman, and I gotta call her out as a legend in my own time.

Nathan C:

Amazing. I have to say, not the first mother or mother-in-law given a shout out for the health deck blowup this week, so I love that. Amazing. This one's for you, mom. Dave Wessinger, PointClickCare, CEO. bringing the kinds of data both to practitioners and to, to patients, that helps them get excited about their touch points in care.

Dave Wessinger:

Great I love it.

Nathan C:

Dave Weinger, MAHA and all the rest. Dave Wessinger, PointClickCare. Thank you so much for joining me on the glow up on the HLTH Tech Glow Up.

Dave Wessinger:

My pleasure. Thank you very much for having me.

Nathan C:

Awesome. We got one more thing to do. One, two, thank you. So 1, 2, 3. Hello and welcome to the HLTH Tech Glow Up live from HLTh 2025. Today I am here with Dr. Trish from Imagine Pediatrics. Dr. Trish, thank you so much for joining me today.

Dr. Trish:

Thank you for having me on your show.

Nathan C:

Amazing. So first off, can you, briefly explain, what you do at Imagine Pediatrics and your work there?

Dr. Trish:

Absolutely. So at Imagine Pediatrics, I serve as the Chief Medical Officer and I oversee a team of clinicians, social workers, behavioral health specialists, you name it. A takes a village to care for the kids that we care for, but oversee a team that cares for children with, special healthcare needs. And we do that through our virtual first and in-home care model, we are tech enabled, so we like to, really use technology to support our clinicians and support the families and the kids that we take care of.

Nathan C:

super quickly, can you dive in just a little bit about how you're using technology to help, kids with these complicated diagnoses?

Dr. Trish:

Yes. in so many different ways. First and foremost, we have a digital platform that our patients can engage with us over. it's a proprietary app that they download. They can, do surveys, chat with us. Complete, a various array of testing that they can send in results through, or they can do videos, you name it. So it's a really, I think in this caregiver generation, parent generation. They really like the tech enablement, which gives them that sort of immediate access. And so through our platform, it's just a really easy way for them to get a hold of a physician, get a hold of a nurse, get a hold of somebody who can manage whatever issue they're having right at the point of care. not having to wait. medicine is so reactive. I'm sick, I'm calling. I'm waiting for somebody to call me back. I'm waiting for an appointment. Really giving people this real time access. And then we also empower through the data that we're utilizing to understand who our patients are. Be proactive. Again, a lot of it's reactive. People don't have information about that, patient they're seeing in front of them. They don't know what their needs are. We're collecting a ton of data to make sure we understand their needs and where we have to lean in, where we need to support from our, different care team members.

Nathan C:

So the show is called The HLTH Tech Glow Up, and a Glow up is like a reimagination or a transformation. I'm curious for the health tech industry, what's a glow up that you're looking to see this year? What's a glow up that you're looking to achieve in the next six months for your work specifically?

Dr. Trish:

Really just getting better about being that point of access for patients when they need it. we are scaling quite a bit over the next year and Imagine pediatrics. So we've started out in one state. We've got two states, three states, and, moving to up to three or four more just in the next six months. And so really getting to that scalability, both through technology and then also through, Building a really amazing workforce. So clinicians and team members who want to care for these kids.

Nathan C:

And I'm sure learning, through each new state and system, and they're complication all different. The theme this year at Health is Heroes and Legends, and I'm curious, is there a healthcare hero or mentor that has influenced your work, and helped you get, to where you are today?

Dr. Trish:

so I was a big fan of Sanjay Gupta growing up. my parents used to joke that when you grow up you could be the Sanjay Gupta of healthcare I think it's getting in front of people and. talking about medicine there's a lot of disbelief and bad information out there, in general. And I think being able to be in front of people and talking about medicine and talking about the truth and giving them real data to reflect on is just really important.

Nathan C:

Oh my goodness.

Dr. Trish:

I expected, this is the

Nathan C:

first time I've ever heard anybody endeavoring to be the Sanjay Gupta of anything, but I love it. So Dr. Trish, I've always loved to make sure that people, know how to follow up with the amazing organizations. How can people learn more about what you're doing?

Dr. Trish:

you can find a ton of information about Imagine Pediatrics on our website, and that's Imagine pediatrics.org. or please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, Patricia Hayes, or any of our care team members, We love to talk about what we do and, really work to spread the information about the importance of doing pediatric healthcare and doing it well and. Getting to as many kids as we can, so reach out.

Nathan C:

Amazing. Thank you so much for the work that you do and that wonderful mission. and thank you for joining me on the HLTH Tech Glow.

Dr. Trish:

Thank you for having me.

Nathan C:

All right, we're gonna clap it out. You ready? 1, 2, 3.

Dr. Trish:

Perfect.

Dr. John Showalter:

Since our last visit, I fixed my mom, so that was good.

Nathan C:

Hello and welcome to the HLTH Tech Glow Up from HLTH 2025. Today I have the extreme pleasure of talking again with Dr. John Showalter of Linus Health. Dr. John, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me again, Nathan. Excited to be back. Dr. John, for those who haven't had the pleasure to chat with you in the past, can you give us a little bit of an a quick introduction about who you are and what you do at Linus Health?

Dr. John Showalter:

Absolutely. I'm the Chief Operating Officer at Linus Health. I have responsibility for most of the internal work as the company, but I'm also an internal medicine physician, and I focus on dementia care, dementia prevention, and helping people and families of people that have cognitive impairment.

Nathan C:

Amazing. I remember last year, when I talked with you on The Glow Up, you shared some advancements in dementia care and Alzheimer's that were really starting to get exciting. one of the things that everybody on the audience in the glow up says is they always want to hear about, the follow up. So I'm curious, in the last year, do you have any, news to report on your glow up from last year's HLTH episode?

Dr. John Showalter:

I had just started using the Linus technology in my own clinical practice. Amazing. I hadn't really seen that many patients, using the technology. And so now I have a year under my belt of seeing patients doing the cognitive testing, finding things super early and helping people, and I am totally shocked. By how many people we've been able to actually make better, and then support their families. So if you identify cognitive impairment early enough, and here's the shout out, check your brain know whether or not your brain's working the way it's supposed to. because we have all kinds of mounting evidence that if, just like cancer, if we find cognitive impairment early, there's more we can do and we can actually add years to people's independence if we find it early. So like I have a, I had a patient who had to retire because they couldn't think well enough and we fixed their sleep and they went and did a two week overseas mission doing the job. They had to quit and so just let that one sink in. So this whole thing where like dementia is. Inevitable. We can't do anything about it. Like I have a whole string of patients where really that's not true. And then a whole number of families where it, we caught it too late. There wasn't a lot that we could do, but the understanding from the technology of what's going on in that person's brain and giving that to the family so they actually know how to interact and how to increase the quality of life for the time they have is huge.

Nathan C:

I can only imagine, right? As a practitioner and as a Chief Operating officer for a technology company to have that year's worth of data in your brain and like inspiring, educating the work that you do how much more that could both inspire and push you to do more.

Dr. John Showalter:

Yeah. yeah, so that, that part's crazy. To have a technology that I use and I see the benefits of and then go out to try to sell in the scale and have no reservations whatsoever about should you do this? My first patient was my mom And she was one of the people that like, is doing so much better. So I have permission to talk about her. she was just supposed to be the first patient through to make sure I could bill, like the clinic worked. unfortunately she didn't pass the test. And I had no idea. She had no idea. Apparently my dad had some ideas, but she's now treating her diabetes. She's lost over 50 pounds. She took up piano and started playing piano. we got her in bed so she's sleeping better. And all of her tests are normal. So like I prevented dementia in my mother, so I a hundred percent want everyone to do this.

Nathan C:

if you track your brain health, there are things you can do, today to reverse, some of the things that can happen when your body gets out of whack. That's amazing.

Dr. John Showalter:

Yeah. As far as Since our last visit, I fixed my mom, so that was good.

Nathan C:

So John, let's look at some other glow ups. what else can we fix? And let's start with the industry. is there a dramatic transformation that you'd like to see in health tech and healthcare? The

Dr. John Showalter:

ability to skill up the workforce, right? So we're not going to be able to meet the overall demands for. Physicians. If we can get nurses to be able to do more medical assistants, to do more social workers to be able to do more, it's gonna make a huge difference in the workforce. And I think AI is absolutely set to skill those people up.

Nathan C:

I appreciate an AI efficiency for value and impact, not just for dollars and like more care, more time for the workforce. More, more is just fantastic. What about For Linus Health? What's a glow up? You've already had a pretty good year. how you gonna top this next year?

Dr. John Showalter:

so Linus on the commercial side has a whole bunch of Glow Ups happening. We are, currently at 17 health systems when we were at zero two years ago. So That's awesome.

Nathan C:

that's huge.

Dr. John Showalter:

Yeah. The product, the technology, the infrastructure that we're providing is definitely getting recognized. but I think what"really exciting is we just launched our anywhere product, which means that it's platform independent, it's able to be done in the home and it's completely accessible. Primary care doc could make neurocognitive assessment available to all of his patients. And the current wait time is about nine months for that today. So going from nine months, I sent you an email. Huge. so that's a huge

Nathan C:

glow up for what we're doing. Gonna take a nine month te nine month process and turn it into an email. so good. The theme for the show this year is Heroes and Legend. And I know that every entrepreneur and every doctor has had some legend or hero or mentor who's pushed them, who's believed in them, who's seen the spark and got them helped to get them to where they are today. is there a mentor or a hero that drives the work that you do?

Dr. John Showalter:

I do the work that I do today'cause of Dr. Abendroth who is the, CIO at the University, Medical Center at Penn State. So the Penn State Medical Center, he was a pathologist and I was a kind of lost kid that wasn't even sure what I wanted to do. I actually hadn't even applied for residency'cause I was completely floating. He is I think this informatics thing is for you. When I set up a fellowship and spent a year designing an entire training program around just what I wanted to do, and I got a Master's in Information Systems and because of him I got this amazing opportunity to be on this. Total EHR AI ride that without him, I am still not sure

Nathan C:

what I was gonna do. Amazing, giving both encouragement and direction and now, such a great, target for decades of innovation. so good. Dr. John, one last question. Do you have a healthcare hot take?

Dr. John Showalter:

so I think my biggest healthcare hot take, right now is lifestyle, which is not really a novel hot take. but importantly the US Pointer study came out, which validated the European finger study that showed lifestyle. Prevents not only cardiovascular risk, but dementia risk, and it doesn't involve any pills, and it's all stuff that you can take charge of and do today. So lifestyle medicine is my hot take. Not novel, but super important.

Nathan C:

All right. You heard it here first. HLTH 2025 with Dr. John Showalter of Linus Health. Thank you so much again, John. Congrats. what a fantastic year of glowing up. Okay. Thank you so much. hopefully there'll be more to report next year. Can't wait. And you're booked. Awesome. Thank you. Hello and welcome to the HLTH Tech Glow Up. I'm Nathan C and Today I am talking with Kent Dicks, the CEO of Life365. Kent, thank you for joining me today.

Kent Dicks:

Thanks Nathan. I appreciate you having me on.

Nathan C:

Amazing. So this is our first time meeting. can you introduce yourself and the work that you do at Life365?

Kent Dicks:

Absolutely. Like you said, I'm Kent Dicks, CEO of Life365, and our mission is actually connecting people at home to their doctors remotely. it's especially getting incredibly important with ai, and also the fact that we're getting older at a rapid pace and we're losing physicians and care providers, so technology's gonna play an. Important role in all this.

Nathan C:

Can you talk a little bit more deeply about how the technology connects patients with their care team? Sure.

Kent Dicks:

We tend to interface to over a thousand different devices, which you don't need a thousand different devices, but it's important when you're going around the world and you have devices throughout the countries that are out there, because different brands, different manufacturers, but scales, blood pressure, pulse, oximeters, glucometer. a lot of things you'd find in a patient's home you can go to Walgreens or Walmart and you can get devices that have, cellular or wireless technology on'em. They connect to your phone or they connect directly to the cloud, be able to take the data that's on there, whether it's weight or blood pressure, and send it back into the cloud for your doctor to see it.

Nathan C:

Amazing. And, how do patients learn about Life365 on their own? Or is that something that doctors, use as a platform and share with them?

Kent Dicks:

So we sell, directly to enterprises. Okay. from that, so large healthcare enterprises, so health systems, health plans. system integrators that are out there. We're an active partner with Microsoft out there on their fabric side of it. and starting to work with some major consulting firms to help their clients get connected as well. The large enterprise players are now under becoming under value-based care. they're also under, population health as well. So they're either trying to reduce cost increase revenue, or. be able to fill care gaps that are out there and also, increase their Star HEDIS rating. So they're gonna use AI in this going forward. it's no longer a buzzword. It's no longer a hype. It's here to stay. from that it's causing trillion dollar industries to come about with it. And AI is very much needing to have the observational data coming from the patient's home. We have electronic health records that are out there. Yeah. Right.

Nathan C:

But those are just like when you go to the doctor,

Kent Dicks:

They are. So they have electronic health records and a lot of times, people will go, oh, doctors don't need any more data. They don't need any more data. But AI is very thirsty for it, right? It needs it, it can consume it within milliseconds. The data that's in the EMR, EHR is learning data. So I give, I always give an example. You can use the EMR data or the genomics data or the claims data, but let's just say Ken Dix has congestive heart failure. God forbid, from that, my records would tell me anytime that Kent, his SP O2 or his oxygen gets below 85, his weight goes up by 4% overnight, or his blood pressure gets above 180. He's gonna head to the emergency room in the next seven to 10 days. They don't have, that's the learning data, right? They learned that, but they don't have the observational data coming from home. Like, where's Kent today? So it's a, it's missing a big data

Nathan C:

So you can like triage maybe why it happened, but you can't actually get in front of it or actually be engaging with care before there is that event.

Kent Dicks:

Absolutely. We work with ambulance companies and ambulance companies right now get probably reimbursed 40% of their rides because 60% of'em are not reimbursed because it was either social determinative of health or it was an unnecessary transport to the emergency room. From that, these ambulance companies now need to move to be fast response teams so they know seven in 10 days in advance of what's going to occur and they intervene before it happens.

Nathan C:

whoa.

Kent Dicks:

Novel concept, right?

Nathan C:

I'm, there feels like it could be a little bit of a security and monitoring ick of, do I actually want the ambulance company coming to me before I feel bad? do you have thoughts on how to balance like the benefits of predictive versus some of the ick factor?

Kent Dicks:

So you and I are. From the same cloth. We're not gonna, we're not gonna put up with that. We're not gonna have big brother overlooking us. Yeah. And trying to like, just in time care and pick up the phone and call us and say, I know something about you that you don't know. Yeah. We're not gonna put up with that. From that. But there are, it really depends. This is where the social responsibility comes in. The ethics comes in. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should do it right from that. And so when you get the data in. Responsibly, it should be able to give you, when you're overlooking a patient population anyway. Did you be able to go through and say, I have 10,000 patients. I'm looking at, maybe Kent needs to be at the top of this list that I make a phone call to. Not in a creepy way. But just say, we saw something that we would like to discuss with you, and maybe it's the fact that they didn't renew their meds and take their meds right from that standpoint, and they can head off that emergency room. Or that transportation to the emergency room.

Nathan C:

there's so many parts of this that I'm excited to dive into. Because there are these moments where we do need help with adoption, with reminders, with patterns, and there are these moments where we want privacy and no, that medicine didn't feel good. I'm not taking it again. And I like how the Life365 approach is like starting to paint in what are those things that are happening in the patient's life that actually would. Drive them to do one of these things, rather than just like they didn't do the thing. Because that's a lot of, there's a lot of punitive, like you didn't do the thing. Yeah. So The show is called The Health Tech Glow Up. And a glow up is a rebirth or a transformation. For the health tech industry, what's the glow up that you wanna see happen in the next six months?

Kent Dicks:

I wanna see the point of care change, right? That's out there. Now, the administration has done a couple things that are positive over the last couple months. One of the thing is that, they said they would really like to see more people wearing wearables. Data coming out, right? The other thing is they'd really like to see more in the rural areas because health, providers are leaving the rural areas from that standpoint, and with the big beautiful bill, they put in$50 billion to be able to help with that, right? The White House has already signed initiatives on getting, AI more prevalent in our agencies that are out there as well. the things that I discussed we want to do Is very much needed to be able to get that to change. We are working in systems in the government right now, especially around our veterans. Where they are, they are limited in what they can offer our veterans, from that they have to send out a scale or a blood pressure. And a lot of times, because it's so constrictive, they put it in the last six months of a veteran's life, And if you knew it was your last six months of your life, would you want to be taking your blood pressure or would you want cigars and bourbon than ice cream? So we need to get to somebody much sooner. And so that's why I started calling about, instead of reactive care, it's proactive, preventive, preemptive, prioritized, and personalized care has to be personalized. To an individual to get them to engage and to adopt it. So me personally, I gave them up my primary care physician probably six, seven years ago because they'd make me come in for an exam, come back for the test, come back for the results. And that's because they were paid more every time that I would come in, each visit, major pain for me to do that. It's very clear that consumers and payers are making the decision in this industry and not the providers. From that standpoint, consumers will vote with their dollars And go where it's best for them to go. So we have to make solutions. I wanna be able to see, I've got three large screens on my desk at home. That's where I wanna see my doctor.

Nathan C:

What's your six month goal and glow up there?

Kent Dicks:

So we really want to help, our veterans, right? the agencies are changing, The government's changing. I think we're in a mode where, agencies are being broken so they can be fixed. Just like NASA was broken to bring in SpaceX and stuff. I think it's a real big time for us to be able to go through and bring in the right technology to get the right. Outcome to the right patient at the right cost. And this new technology is gonna be mandatory for us to be able to get to our veterans and extend care. So my next six months is about the veterans.

Nathan C:

Yo. Thank you. the last question I have for you, the show this year is themed around Heroes and Legends. I know that every entrepreneur has heroes and mentors who helped encourage them, inspire them along their way. How have mentors and coaches and your heroes helped your health IT entrepreneurial journey?

Kent Dicks:

Absolutely. Because when you see one patient, you've seen one patient. The biggest thing that was taught to me early on was field of dreams. Just because you build it, they may not come. So you've gotta have a reason why you're building a healthcare solution in the first place. I think the other thing that mentors have shown me and the reason why we came up with our platform to connect into the home. there's a lot of disparate solutions that are out there. and it's really hard for the health systems to try to implement'em. I've had great mentors like Dr. Jay Saunders, who is the father of telemedicine. Jay started this 40 years ago. by using a TV and a camera.

Nathan C:

expensive camera.

Kent Dicks:

Absolutely. But it was. Had somebody at home connected, I think it was in John Hopkins they were connected to. I also had Dr. John Long who was the. Physician on the Western White House for Reagan And he basically laid it out straight about how we engage with people out there as well. Just because you've got a degree doesn't mean you're absolutely right.

Nathan C:

Every patient knows that.

Kent Dicks:

The people that created the problem can't fix it. it takes a lot of new entrepreneurs to bring in new ways of thinking, to make the changes that we're looking for.

Nathan C:

Oh, that is amazing. Kent Dix of Life365. What a fantastic place, to leave it there. Thank you so much for, all of these fantastic insights. I love that we're putting the patient in the center and changing the paradigm, all at the same time. thank you for everything you're doing for more personal care and I can't wait to hear more about this glow up for veterans, that you're working on in the next six months.

Kent Dicks:

Thanks for helping me and thanks for supporting the initiative as well. Amazing. Thank you

Nathan C:

so much. And we're gonna clap one more time. 1, 2, 3. Love it. Thank you. Okay. Um. Okay. Um. Hello and welcome to the HLTH Tech Glow Up. I'm Nathan C and today I am talking with Dr. Lior Rauschberger of Gene by Gene. Dr. Lior, thank you for joining me.

Lior Raushberger:

Thanks for having me.

Nathan C:

Can you get us started by introducing, the work that you do at Gene By Gene and what you do there as CEO?

Lior Raushberger:

Gene by Gene is a precision health medicine company. We are super passionate about providing genetic data to humans around the world. we are a large accredited cap and clear laboratory, and we do human DNA testing of all formats for lots of companies around the world.

Nathan C:

how does that translate into a person like me making decisions about my healthcare?

Lior Raushberger:

Yeah. In a once upon a time, I was a practicing doctor and. When I practiced medicine, it was all about a one size fits all. So I'd prescribe someone the certain medication on the same dose and come back and see me in a month and see how you're feeling. And some people had side effects and some people were getting better. And also for diagnosing conditions. So genomics, which has really exploded in the last 10 years in such an exciting way it is helping doctors or helping humans. For, and give information to their, give the consent to have a DA test so that their healthcare providers and clinicians can use that data to help diagnose conditions better prognosis, medication management, compliance prevention. Think about that prevention, right? We want to empower people to say, I have a higher risk of getting this particular condition or coronary artery disease so I can do things proactively before I have my heart attack on my stroke, rather than it's always a bit later, a bit late when you've already got it.

Nathan C:

Yeah, it's

Lior Raushberger:

harder.

Nathan C:

Damage repair always takes more than prevention. Amazing. So the show is called The HLTH Tech Glow Up. A Glow Up is a transformation or a re-imagination. Let's look at the industry first. what glow ups do you wanna see happen in the health tech, industry?

Lior Raushberger:

At the moment when you have a DNA test. Because it's been quite expensive historically, which has just changed. Your clinician or your doctor might order just that little test. And we all inherited 3 billion letters from our parents. Yeah. And that$3 billion test used to cost when I started doing this 15 years ago, that test was literally$10 million. now it's a hundred dollars. So what I would like to see in terms of really transforming the industry, I would love to see every single newborn child the day they're born, have their entire genome sequenced and then they carry that information for the rest of their lives in their own wallet or passport. It's their data, it's their genome, and they make that available to whoever they want to help make better decisions about their health and wellness. That's my vision.

Nathan C:

I love this and apologies for having, a potentially critical follow up. Some of my friends, yes, I don't even trust with their own Gmail passwords. Talk about the safety and security side of a world where everybody has access to their genome.

Lior Raushberger:

Yeah. It's a really important point because I think many companies have been cowboys in this space and they shouldn't be trusted. Yeah, and they feel like they take the data from the individual, and I think that data is your data. You own that data. You should have control of that data in a very secure format, which we'll talk about, and no one else has that data. If you go and see a doctor in two years time or five years time, or you see your pharmacist, or you see your personal trainer or dietician, you can share which parts of your data you want only with you unlock. You give them the keys and you take the keys back, and that should be done in your own, or it could be on your mobile device in a secure wallet. it could be even in the, on the blockchain with your own key. And no one else has it. A private blockchain. Yeah. And then all those worries about, I don't want anyone to have my data. I don't know what they're gonna do with it. I don't wanna be discriminated against. I've had some people say, I'm worried if I give my DNA somewhere, it's gonna be stolen from the freezer and planted at a murder scene.

Nathan C:

That's a very important person.

Lior Raushberger:

Very important person. But that's my vision is that you should own that data and you should control it at all times. Amazing. I love it. But that's, we're not there

Nathan C:

yet.

Lior Raushberger:

We're not there yet.

Nathan C:

Yeah. For Gene By Gene What's a Glow up that you're looking to make in the next six months for your organization?

Lior Raushberger:

I'm, we are working on, there's really three things that are making testing more accessible, price turnaround time and service levels. And so I'm really focusing on the price and turnaround time.'cause I know that if I can transform the medicine. We're investing in lots of new platforms that we can continue to drop the price, which will allow more generic research to happen, which will unlock more secrets, and that'll just explode the industry further. So that's what I'm focusing on in my company.

Nathan C:

Yeah. Amazing. Barriers to adoption and reducing the cost of healthcare, like who doesn't want both of those? Exactly. Amazing. So the theme of the show this year is Heroes and Legends. I'm using that as a way to ask people about the heroes and mentors that have impacted their journey as an entrepreneur. I'm curious, how has a mentor or a coach, or even just, a friend, encouraged you on your journey?

Lior Raushberger:

The chairman of my business. Whose name's actually Dennis Basti. He's a very successful Australian entrepreneur. he's been a bit of a mentor of mine. What have I learned from him? I'll tell you what I've learned in my entrepreneurial journey, which Dennis taught me, like unwavering grit. Grit, like perseverance. Yeah, like we have changed our business model. We pivoted, just to find, the perfect product, market fit. A lot of nos. Until we found a great spot and we're in a wonderful spot. Grit, perseverance, or persistence. that's big for me. Really big.

Nathan C:

Amazing. Dr. Lior one last question. do you have a health? Take hot. Take a hot take. Yeah.

Lior Raushberger:

Well,

Nathan C:

a spicy opinion.

Lior Raushberger:

Oh A spicy opinion.

Nathan C:

no pressure.

Lior Raushberger:

No.

Nathan C:

had some good.

Lior Raushberger:

I have a spicy opinion on ai. Do it. I think AI's a bit overrated at the moment. Now, I know you walk around this conference and 70% of every stand has those two letters in them. in genomics, AI will make a big difference. But I do think it's not gonna be everything to everyone, right? And I think there's a lot of noise in the industry. There's still plenty of hallucinations going on. And I still use it every day. But I think you still, you can't just rely on it. I think people are just relying on it to do everything. And I think you still need to read everything. It gives you be a bit distrustful about what it is and just validate everything. And particularly in my world in genomics, where we are helping people around things like cancer and heart disease and whatnot.

Nathan C:

Dr. Leo Rauschenberger, CEO of Gene by Gene. Thank you so much for joining me on the HLTH Tech Glow Up.

Lior Raushberger:

Thank you very much. Thank you all. Amazing. We got one more thing to do on three. 1,

Nathan C:

2, 3. Yes, we did it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Hello and welcome to the HTLH Tech Glow Up I'm Nathan C and today I am talking with. Dr. Colin Banas of DrFirst. Dr. Colin, thanks for joining me again. Yes, thanks for having me as always. How was your HLTH this year?

Dr. Colin Banas:

It's good, one day has flown by already and, it's a lot of excitement out here as usual, and, looking forward to the rest of it.

Nathan C:

amazing. We had the opportunity to talk on The Tech Glow Up last year. I'm curious, do you remember the glow up that you shared and, do you have anything to report on your progress against it? If I

Dr. Colin Banas:

had to guess the glow up last year was probably around ai, but, am I close? yeah. We've made progress as a company. DrFirst is actually adopted an AI first culture. So not only are we empowering our patients and providers with AI and automation for all of those things that are driving us crazy. But we also adopted as a company, so we are actively, educating and promoting AI from within the company for pretty much all things, whether it's in documentation, presentations and coding. Believe it or not, the engineers have flocked to this like candy. It's been an exciting 12 months.

Nathan C:

when you say coding, are you're specifically talking about computer code and not medical coding?

Dr. Colin Banas:

Correct. Like fingers on keyboards, let's code some solutions. not DRGs and ICD tens.

Nathan C:

For those who haven't already met you, can you briefly give us the intro to your work and what you do at DrFirst?

Dr. Colin Banas:

Yeah. I am the Chief Medical Officer for DrFirst. I am an internal medicine physician by training and have been in informatics for close to 25 years now. the intersection of technology at the point of patient care, making it better for everybody involved. I've been through a lot over the course of two plus decades, as you can imagine, paper to digitize to electronic records, to now the era of decision support and ai. my role at DrFirst really is to help push the envelope as it relates to medication management. Medication safety, reconciliation and, adherence and engagement. So how can we get activated patients to get them on and keep them on appropriate therapy? And so that's the mantra for DrFirst. And then my, I always add on. And let's make experience as joyful as possible for anyone involved. So that's providers, that's patients, that's pharmacies, all of it. It's exciting. The six years at DrFirst have really flown by.

Nathan C:

So the show is called The HLTH Tech Glow Up. I'm curious, what's a major transformation that you're looking, to see in the health industry?

Dr. Colin Banas:

So I think that this is the year. Of patient empowerment, Glow Up, and what I mean by that. is whether it's through frustration, increased awareness, expectations that patients have around other industries that they interact with, patients are now more savvy than ever and are pushing the right levers and applying the right pressure to all of the parties involved to say enough, like the experience deserves to be better. Why can't it be like ordering my coffee, like changing my plane ticket, like shopping, on our favorite marketplace. and you're seeing this pressure, which ultimately I think is coming from the patient. It's being distributed to all of the parties. The vendors are feeling it, the payers are feeling it. Even the legislation is feeling it. So look at some of the things that have happened in the last 12 months. CMS is trying to kill the clipboard, or at least applying the pressure to the vendors, CMS enabled ecosystem. So taking that interoperability that we are working on with Teka and saying let's put this on steroids. So the good news is empowered patients, activated patients leads to better outcomes. And in this case, I actually think it's also going to lead to transformational change in health.

Nathan C:

Oh my goodness. putting patients at the middle is going to drive transformational change in health. I'm gonna make that a poll quote for sure. Dr. Collin, you mentioned you've got a glow up, that you're looking forward to make this year. tell us about, your goals for DrFirst.

Dr. Colin Banas:

So it's patient activation and engagement, right? that's the glow up that I want to drive. And, you're gonna see some pretty exciting things from DrFirst within the next three to six to 12 months. and believe me, it's gonna be exactly around what I just, gave a rant on, which is patient activation and patient empowerment. And it's gonna be fun. It's time to Ooh, I'm looking to flip a paradigm in the next six months.

Nathan C:

I love it. Dr. Collin, I've seen that every entrepreneur is typically influenced by a mentor, a coach, a leader. Somebody who has said, I believe in you. I think you should keep going. Is there a hero or a mentor who has helped you, on your health innovation journey?

Dr. Colin Banas:

Yeah, that's a good question. you don't get two plus decades in informatics without having, a variety of mentors. But I will go back to the beginning and, your audience probably will know this name, but my first, informatics mentor and still my dear friend is actually, Dr. Alistair Erskine, who, was the CMIO, prior to me at the academic institution where we both practiced. And he's gone on to do amazing things at Geisinger Mass General and even Emery. And now he's in. Hi, mark, which in Pennsylvania, he'll kill me for saying this, but he'll love it. Anyway, he's the most, charismatic and influential, leader that I've met. And I used to tell him that he could sell ketchup, popsicles to a lady in white gloves in the summertime, and I mean it. So he's a great influence. he is a true visionary in the field, and hopefully he is listening because this is my shout out to my mentor.

Nathan C:

Oh my gosh, I love it. thank you so much for that. one last quick question do you have a healthcare hot take?

Dr. Colin Banas:

Hot take. No pressure. I'll tell you what, what was it? I'm not sure it's a hot take or if it fits, but my goodness was Mark Cuban on a tear last night. he gave an impassion, portion of the keynote, strictly around. Frustration in the prescription space. And you know what? That's my sweet spot. That's my company's sweet spot in terms of medication management and removing friction and barriers. And the hot take is he came in hot and, it's worth, paying attention because it really is time to flip the paradigm. So it's gonna be an exciting 12 months for, DrFirst and for health. It.

Nathan C:

Oh my goodness. Dr. Colin Benni, DrFirst, I can't think of a better place, to leave it there for this HLTH 2025 Health Tech Glow of Conversation. Thank you again. And I can't wait to see all the work that you're gonna be doing on these multiple paradigm shifts. In the next year.

Dr. Colin Banas:

I can't wait to do this again in 12 months, We'll talk soon. Okay. We got one more thing.

Nathan C:

Okay. 1, 2, 3. okay.

Dr. Colin Banas:

Thank you.