Making Healthcare Work for Everyone: Insights from Innovators and Experts

#007 In this episode, we explore how collaboration between clinicians and healthcare innovators is transforming the tools we use every day. Our guests, Shelli Pavone, co-founder and president of Inlightened, and Dr. Andrew Cunningham, a family physician and healthcare consultant, share their insights on bridging expertise and innovation to create safer, more effective healthcare solutions.

We dive into the unseen work behind wearables, telemedicine platforms, and other tools, discussing how expert input ensures these technologies meet the needs of patients. Shelli and Dr. Cunningham also highlight the critical importance of price transparency and equitable access in making healthcare innovations truly impactful.

Join us for a powerful conversation about how partnerships and collaboration are driving the future of healthcare—and how we can all play a role in creating more accessible and cost-effective care.

Read more about this episode on the Grassroots Labs Blog.

About Inlightened
Inlightened was founded in 2019 to bridge the knowledge gap between healthcare's brightest minds and boldest innovators. The startup's tech-enabled platform connects client companies of all stages and sizes to a vetted network of healthcare professionals domestically and abroad.

Learn more at www.getinlightened.com.

Contact the Healthcare Wayfinders Podcast

• Email us at podcast@grassrootslabs.com

Special Thanks to:

• Seth Aten who produces the podcast.
• Grassroots Labs for sponsoring the show.

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Transcript

Zach Aten: [00:00:00] Hey friends, and welcome back to the Healthcare Wayfinders podcast, where we are routing you to more accessible and cost effective healthcare. In this episode, we're joined by Shelli Pavone, co founder and president of Inlightened, and Dr. Andy Cunningham, a family physician and healthcare consultant. Together, they share how clinicians and innovators are teaming up to transform the healthcare tools that we rely on every day, like wearable devices and telemedicine platforms and more. 

We'll be discussing the critical role expert insights play in making these innovations safe and effective, along with the importance of price transparency and equitable access. Thanks Let's jump into today's episode. 

All right, everybody, thank you so much for coming on the Healthcare Wayfinders Shelli Pavone and Dr. Andrew Cunningham, you guys are friends of ours at Grassroots Labs, and you're both doing some amazing work in innovating in healthcare and we're going to be talking about that in this episode and kind of peeling back the curtain a [00:01:00] little bit for our audience to learn about how healthcare is, innovating to help provide better access and cost effective options for folks. 

And so before we do that, I'd love to just hear a little bit from the both of you about who you are and what you do, and then we'll jump right into the topic of innovation. So Shelli, why don't you go first? 

Shelli Pavone: My name is Shelli Pavone and I'm the president and co founder of a company called Inlightened. Inlightened's mission is to connect healthcare providers and professionals with innovative healthcare companies so that The companies that are working on new products and innovations can get expert insights to move along the development cycle in a productive and also a responsible way so that patients can get therapies and products that help to make them more healthy and improve their lives every day. 

Zach Aten: It's great. 

Andrew Cunningham, MD: I'm Andrew Cunningham and I'm a family doc by training practiced in a more [00:02:00] traditional venue initially in brick and mortar. And then during a relocation ended up getting licensed in a lot of different states, I found myself with a lot of opportunities to help, both providing, telemedicine provider companies and other innovative companies reach a broader audience. 

Zach Aten: Yeah, you've helped companies like mine. so we'll talk about that a little bit more in a little bit later. But thanks again for both of you for being on the show. I think we're going to start off with Shelli. We're going to talk a little bit about innovation and how connecting Providers like Dr. Cunningham to health care companies like ours is helping to innovate in health care and provide better services to health care consumers. So, Shelli, why don't we start with you? 

Shelli Pavone: Yeah, absolutely. So when we think about healthcare tools that a lot of us use today, right, like health apps. wearable devices, telemedicine platforms. It's really easy to see the finished product, but what we don't always recognize is the collaborative effort that goes into [00:03:00] making these tools effective and safe. 

I'll give an example here with something like wearable devices, right? Products like a fitness tracker or a smart watch, even, they look simple, but their development requires a really deep integration of expertise across various fields. And so if we dig a little bit deeper on that example, let's just say a smartwatch and that smartwatch might track heart rate variability. 

Um, it might monitor stress or detect potential cardiac issues and the development process, um, typically, or of course should typically right, involve healthcare experts at multiple stages to ensure that device is effective and safe. And I think this is really interesting because, There's a lot of times I think that we don't really pull back the curtain on this type of thing and how involved it is I mean, even I use these types of devices every day and I don't necessarily think of what goes into creating them but you know before any Single line of code is written or even a [00:04:00] prototype is built for the most part health care experts like cardiologists primary care physicians and even behavioral health specialists are consulted And they're working to identify key problems that the device should solve. 

For example, cardiologists might say we need a tool that helps to identify irregular heart rhythms so that patients can see timely intervention or the behavioral health side of it is let's include stress monitoring to address the connection between the health and the mental health as well. And I think that. going from there, right? And then determining, okay, what metrics are we going to track and how are we going to interpret those? The cardiologist is going to think about the clinical significance of the heart rate variability, resting heart rate, or maybe ECG data. And then there's a period of testing. 

So taking those prototypes participating in the testing. for maybe a heart monitoring wearable. Physicians might [00:05:00] wear the device themselves. Sometimes they're involving patients and more controlled studies. And then ultimately they're giving more feedback on the accuracy of those readings, the usability of the interface, the readability of the alerts. 

And then, there's an entire regulatory side, of course, I won't get in too much, but The healthcare experts are playing a role in that, making sure that the device meets regulatory standards. And then even once these devices are launched, there is expert engagement that's ongoing because many wearable companies have Advisory boards, or, you know, they have health care professionals that they work with through companies like Inlightened who continuously provide feedback on how the device performs in real world settings. 

And I think that, there that is when more information comes into play about different populations, right? They might realize a trend where a device isn't as accurate. And maybe populations with darker skin tones or those with certain medical conditions. And so I [00:06:00] think that in point input is really critical to go back and refine the device after it's been launched. 

And then, of course, there is an entire focus on educating users as well. And I think that the experts really need to help contribute to educating the consumers and then other health care providers about how to use the device effectively. Experts are involved oftentimes in creating guidelines for other doctors and other experts on how to integrate these devices into the patient care. 

And so I think, I find it really interesting to say that while we might just see a nice watch on someone's wrist, there's an enormous amount of expertise behind it and collaborating to make sure that it's more than like just a gadget. But ultimately they're looking to make sure that it's a trusted tool for improving health. 

And so I think this is a really interesting topic and I think that. Patients or just general consumers who are using these tools would be interested to know how much work really goes into it. 

Zach Aten: Yeah, you know, it [00:07:00] gets abstracted away when your Apple Watch or whatever brand you use counts all your steps for your run and automatically syncs that up to your app that you can then post and have your friends like and all that jazz. But there was a lot of work that went into that by a lot of different people. 

And It is pretty amazing the technology that we're now able to use and that's making our lives better, but it has to be, somebody has to dream about it and then a team has to be formed who can help build it. And it's, it is it's a really cool process that goes on. 

Shelli Pavone: Yeah. And I think, you know, it's a common thread of collaboration, right? Expert collaboration, bringing the right people and you ensure that innovation is not just cutting edge, but it's also really impactful on improving lives. And What drew me to this field in particular. 

Zach Aten: Yeah. So, you know, there's a lot of startups in the healthcare innovation space. They're made up of small teams and they don't always have, you know, like a founding. member [00:08:00] who has a medical background. and it can be hard sometimes to find, those trusted voices who can help speak into those projects and help them form. 

you know, that's something that, we at grassroots labs ran into. We just saw a problem in health care and, none of us had gone to medical school, but we still wanted to do something about it. And so we needed to find people who had that expertise, had that medical knowledge. 

how is, how is your company Shelli helping, helping companies innovating in the healthcare space, get access to somebody like a Dr. Cunningham? 

Shelli Pavone: So in mine, really the role that we play is we're a bridge, right? We are the bridge between healthcare experts and the organizations that are driving change. And I think, you know, it's interesting what you say, Zach, about the fact that not all of these companies might have somebody as a part of the team who has a medical background, but even the ones that do, it's really important to get that [00:09:00] varied, insight and expertise. You know, when even when we were building Inlightened because we knew we were going to be engaging providers. We spoke to so many health care professionals to get their take on, you know, this type of engagement, how they'd like it to work. And, you know, I think when things are patient facing, it's even more important to speak to a broader and diverse audience. 

But the simple way that, Inlightened works is just, we'll go back to the wearables piece of it. and just say that, companies developing a wearable, they have the technology, but they lack the clinical insights. And that's where we come in. We connect them with the right experts and Inlightened is a network of amazing experts like Dr. Cunningham here. 

Dr. Cunningham is one of our experts. He's been with us for some time and we really focus on Understanding the backgrounds of our experts their passions, their areas of expertise, their interest. And then we create a bio for them on the Inlightened [00:10:00] platform. And then that is how companies are able to search and engage with the relevant expertise. 

And of course we vet the experts that we have on our site to make sure they are who they say they are. We really want to make it easy for these companies that are innovating in healthcare to access the right expertise, because certainly. The expertise can help you move more quickly. It can help you to be more successful. 

But I think the most critical piece is what happens when the expertise is lacking. And sometimes we can get really irresponsible innovations to market when people haven't gone back and engage the right individuals and really You know, had that kind of broad collaboration with experts in the healthcare field. 

And for us, we just want to make sure that the companies that are innovating have easy access to experts so that they can help to make a bigger impact. And of course you have your own example there with grassroots labs and the way that you've collaborated with Dr. Cunningham.  

Zach Aten: Dr. [00:11:00] Cunningham, what's been your experience? Not just working with us, but, working through a platform like Inlightened and working with some of these other companies and providing your expertise I know it's, you've got a different perspective about the same project, right? 

So I'd love to hear about your experience. 

Andrew Cunningham, MD: Yeah, I think in medicine, there's this and probably a lot of other industries too. There's a, there's this thing that happens where information gets siloed. So if you're a doc, you might, if you don't work in a university setting, for example, and you're not dedicated to research with some of your time, you might find yourself just Kind of seeing patients one after another and throughout your day, you're like, Oh, I sure would love to be able to, promote this particular idea, or I think that this would be if only if this thing could be different in some way, but you don't usually have an opportunity to really Impact workflows that much. 

It potentially, if you're in some sort of leadership role and you have the opportunity to say, Hey, why don't we pilot this change? You can do [00:12:00] that. But for me at the time when I learned about Inlightened and I was working for a primary care virtual company and I was writing a lot of articles dedicated to, patient education stuff like somebody has a cold or pink eye or a lot of other common conditions. 

We were writing people, you know, these kind of long explanatory, paragraphs about this is what you have. This is what you should do, et cetera. And I started writing a lot of articles so that I could just link those articles to people that I was sending chat responses to on a virtual care platform. 

That was a really easy way to point people in a direction of finding good, concise information that hopefully answered a lot of their questions. And you guys were looking for something similar, in the grassroots website, people are ordering labs and I felt really connected to that purpose because I feel like anything that empowers patients or consumers to have more of a role. 

And their [00:13:00] healthcare is really a win all around. In the remote past, I think medicine moved in a more unidirectional manner. Somebody just shows up and they just trust the information they're given or they don't trust it. And they. 

 So I was able to help, provide some guidance around common health conditions that might help people on your website, determine if this is a good lab for them to order. I've also had opportunities to consult with, you folks who are designing supplements, you know, and if you're not a clinician, but you're like, I see that there's a real need for a good sleep supplement. 

natural products. Maybe I could talk to somebody who has a lot of experience seeing people with sleep problems and you know has a good idea about what works. So, lot of times the innovators on the product and industry side, they want to be able to just get quick access to somebody [00:14:00] who sort of lives, works, and, breeds that work all the time, instead of coming through a bunch of research data online. 

So I think that opportunity to connect people who are providing care and the people who have the really good ideas is unique and that's what Enlighten I see as, where they really have stood out and provided connections for me to help other folks innovate. 

Zach Aten: Yeah. And I'll just say it just for the audience. What Dr. Cunningham has been doing for us has been going through and helping us redo all of our lab test education, which helps users, learn and understand about the lab tests that they're ordering as well as points them to even more in depth research resources, excuse me, that's out there so that people can be educated and, empowered. 

In their own health care, because, folks are coming to us to get labs to, work with their local provider like Dr. Cunningham when he works [00:15:00] in a inpatient setting. It really helped us again as a team that doesn't have anybody that is specifically medically trained on our staff to then pull on Dr. Cunningham's expertise to provide our users with the best experience that we can. And that's. a case, a use case of how experts in healthcare are being connected to the technology innovators. Shelli, do you have any other case studies or examples that you want to go over of how you guys are resourcing expertise to innovators? 

Shelli Pavone: I think, we are working across really every piece of the healthcare innovation life cycle in the system. Right? So, I mean, we work with digital health companies. We work with pharma companies, right? And so we're very much agnostic to the type of product delivered. But what we hope is happening in every type of engagement that we do is that. 

Something is being bettered for the end user or the patient, we've worked a lot [00:16:00] with diagnostic testing, which is, of course, the grassroots lab model. And I think that's something to consider with. something like diagnostic testing. And obviously you guys are not a diagnostic testing company, you're providing access, but we've worked with companies that provide the testing. 

And, a tool could work perfectly in a controlled setting, but if it's not designed with the realities of clinical practice and patient needs in mind, then it's not going to succeed. And what I love is having the opportunity to work with the early stage companies, the smaller companies, the ones who have come from a different industry that's maybe not healthcare facing, they, the founders have done something in the tech field and they want to bring their skillset into healthcare, but they don't have the resources to do so. or, They may have some individuals in their network, but they don't have the volume or the, narrowed [00:17:00] expertise that they actually need. And so I think that when you engage an expert in that early stage, right? And you have a practitioner who's deeply involved in patient care coming to, to talk to the people who are developing any type of technology or innovations, it's. 

It's honestly, I think it's revolutionary what ends up being for the patients, right? What comes out of that for the patient, I think it's very different. Many of the things that we engage in, they can be an hour long, right? An hour long phone call, but an hour long phone call with someone like Dr. Cunningham can completely shift the direction of a product. And hopefully they're having hour long phone calls with a couple of other individuals, at least as well. But having that insight and knowing what the provider or the healthcare professional perspective is, I think can really [00:18:00] change the direction of product. 

It can save months of time. and much You know, time on trial and error, and hopefully it's ensuring that the end result makes a difference. And I think that, once we get beyond the initial development stage, we have a lot of companies that work with us to help simplify the instructions for something right? 

Once you have a product that you know is going to work, you need insight from individuals to determine what it's how it makes sense to explain this, right? Make sure that the results are delivered and clearly. and then, you know, we want to make sure that the tools integrate into clinician workflows and that as well. 

I think that I've really loved the work that we've done across the entire spectrum, but the most, Gratifying to me are usually the startups that are solving problems that maybe no one else is tackling and they are getting access to expertise through Inlightened that they wouldn't otherwise have access to. 

Zach Aten: [00:19:00] Yeah. What's and I'm just going off the cup here. Talk to me about the two of you. Where do you want to see more of this innovation happening or where would you guys like to be involved or what are you involved in that you can talk about that you'd want to highlight? 

Shelli Pavone: for me, the area where I'd like to see more innovation and we're starting to is women's health care for sure. And that's been really one of the great parts of this journey with Inlightened is to we've had a number of women's health care companies and founders that are innovating women's health care use Inlightened and they've connected with professionals that have dedicated their careers to women's health. 

And I yeah. You know, I think it would be quite difficult to find those individuals had they not engaged with Inlightened. And so I feel really positive about our ability to impact those organizations. And I hope that we see more of that continue to be invested in and continue to be developed. 

Andrew Cunningham, MD: Yeah, I would agree. I'm glad you highlighted that [00:20:00] actually there. It's amazing. The I think the evolution that we're seeing right now and in women's health and, access through telemedicine and, just a lot more awareness about things that are a little bit more unique to women's health care that have yeah. 

Kind of been sitting stale too long, honestly. And, it's amazing to see how much is developing on that front right now. I'm pretty involved in that. I do a lot of women's health work through a company that I work for where I see people with hypothyroidism, which just there's just a much stronger genetic preponderance of hypothyroidism in women because it's an autoimmune condition. 

Zach Aten: Shelli, is your service, is it available outside the U. S.? Can folks work with you guys who aren't based here? 

Shelli Pavone: Yeah, that's a lot of our users are outside the U. S. The U. S. Health care landscape is significantly different than mostly anywhere in the U. S. Or anywhere in the world. And so we have a lot of companies that are doing innovative [00:21:00] things outside of the U. S. That come to us to Um, so we're excited to be able to engage our experts to understand the market a little bit better, understand the patient populations in the U. 

S. And, you know, that's really exciting as well. We've worked with companies all over the world. 

Zach Aten: That's great. That's a, that's an amazing resource. 

Andrew Cunningham, MD: I'll say also, Zach, that like I wasn't aware of the solution that you guys provide before I was connected to you through Inlightened, and at this point now, I I'm able to share that resource with a lot more people, not only patients that I see. I personally, it's what I use to order labs for myself because I have high deductible plan, but I tell other clinician friends of mine as well, who, who do care and. 

They really, there's a, really a lack of transparency in healthcare pricing, obviously. And so through this relationship, I've been able to, highlight what grassroots does to a lot [00:22:00] of my peers who are thankful for that. 

Zach Aten: Well, I appreciate that. And, you know, to answer my own question, price transparency and cost effectiveness is like where I want to see innovation happen in healthcare. You have so many reasons why people are charged the highest amount possible, and then you have to try to fight your way to, bring that cost down, whether that's through negotiating with your insurance company or the provider or whoever. 

And what we see a lot of times and how we even started was people avoid care when it's difficult to access or it's expensive or, my wife's a nurse practitioner at endocrinology practice and, she's got tons of patients who they don't have a ride to the doctor's office or they're dealing with some type of other issues that prevent them from coming. 

And so when you can't afford it, when you can't get there It's hard to [00:23:00] actually implement the plan that the provider is trying to help you with, especially when they're stuck on the hamster wheel of just seeing as many patients as they can. So, I'm sorry, I'm stepping off of my, I'm stepping off of my soapbox. 

But, you know, that's, we talk to people every day and these are the problems that they're dealing with. But we couldn't be doing what we were doing without people like you, Dr. Cunningham, like you guys provide, Shelli that connects us to people like that. So that's why, you know, for me, I wanted to highlight y'all and what you're doing because you're empowering the work that we do, that we're passionate about, and, you know, it's helping, it's helping a lot of people. 

A lot of health care consumers get access to the care that they need so they can live healthier lives. It's important to pull back the curtain and show who's doing some of the good work, I feel  

Shelli Pavone: yeah, absolutely. And I'm glad that you brought that up. , the price transparency and the ability to get people access to care because we can [00:24:00] innovate all day long, and it's not going to matter if patients aren't going to get access to any of these things. Absolutely. And so, you know, at price transparency and just in general providing ways for patients to access equitable care at a reasonable price is incredibly important. 

Zach Aten: Yeah. 

Andrew Cunningham, MD: Yeah, the connections are critical. 

Zach Aten: Yeah. 

Andrew Cunningham, MD: Not everybody has access to, you know, the same quality of care in this country, obviously. It depends a lot on if you live in a metropolitan center or, you know, if you have transportation or there's just so many so many barriers to getting good quality care. So it's, we all depend on each other really to help. 

Kind of foster these connections and think outside of the box because healthcare is at a, at an, a crux right now, healthcare delivery, and there's a lot of great ways that could catapult us forward. And we can only do it by [00:25:00] connecting with each other and think outside of our own usual domain. 

Sometimes. 

Zach Aten: Yeah. Well, I can't believe it. We're already getting close to time. Is there anything else? that you guys want to talk about before we end for today. 

Shelli Pavone: I think again, bringing it back to the patients is a great way to close this up, right? It's just about making sure that we're innovating, equitably, that we're disrupting responsibly, and that we are providing ways for patients to access the care that they need. And that to me is probably why we're all doing what we are doing, which I think is a great kind of theme for this. 

Andrew Cunningham, MD: said Shelli. Thanks. 

Zach Aten: Y'all, thank you so much, Shelli Pavone and Dr. Cunningham. I really appreciate you guys coming on the Healthcare Wayfinders podcast and talking with us today and really appreciate all that you're doing both for Grassroots Labs and in the wider world. Thank you so much. 

Shelli Pavone: Thank  

Andrew Cunningham, MD: Thank you. 

too.