The Heart of Healthcare | A Digital Health Podcast

Autonomous vehicles may be the closest real-world example of AI operating in life-and-death situations at scale. Justin Norden believes healthcare has a lot to learn from how that industry approached safety, testing, adoption, and trust.
This week, Michael and Halle sit down with the founder and CEO of Qualified Health, fresh off the company’s $125 million Series B, to discuss why healthcare organizations need to think differently about deploying AI. Justin shares how his experience at Stanford, Apple, Waymo, and in healthcare investing shaped his view that health systems need AI infrastructure, governance, and workforce buy-in, not just another point solution.
We cover:
What healthcare can learn from Waymo’s approach to safe AI deployment
What founders need to understand about building around Epic
Why health systems need to treat AI as a CEO-level priority, not an innovation project
How Qualified Health is helping systems deploy, monitor, and measure AI workflows
Why governance, safety, and ROI matter as much as model performance
Why clinicians are right to be skeptical about AI liability

About our guest:
Justin Norden, MD is Co-Founder and CEO of Qualified Health building the trusted platform for health system AI. Additionally, he has been an Adjunct Professor at Stanford Medicine in the Department of Biomedical Informatics Research where his research and teaching focused on AI in medicine and digital health where he founded and still teaches courses on digital health and generative AI in medicine.
Previously, Dr. Norden was Co-Founder and CEO of Trustworthy AI, a company focused on algorithm safety and trust, which was acquired by Waymo (Google Self-Driving). He was a Partner at GSR Ventures leading investments in healthcare and AI, worked on the healthcare team at Apple, and helped start the Stanford Center for Digital Health.
Dr. Justin Norden received an MD and MBA from Stanford University, an MPhil in Computational Biology from the University of Cambridge, and a BA in Computer Science from Carleton College.
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Show notes:
The Data on Self-Driving Cars Is Clear. We Have to Change Course. Dr. Jonathan Slotkin op-ed in the NYT
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Healthcare is simultaneously propping up the US economy and facing one of its most uncertain moments in years.
This month, Halle and Steve unpack the growing contradictions shaping digital health right now: healthcare jobs are driving nearly half of US job growth while provider bankruptcies surge, AI is flooding into healthcare faster than regulators can keep up, and Washington continues to send mixed signals on the future of healthcare policy and innovation.
We cover:
Why healthcare jobs are now carrying the US labor market and what Medicaid cuts could mean for the economy
The surprising comeback of wearables and how companies like Whoop, Oura, and Google are building massive subscription businesses
CMS’s new ACCESS model and the debate over whether AI-driven care can actually lower costs without sacrificing quality
The lawsuit against Character.AI and what it reveals about the growing demand for AI mental health tools
Why investors are pouring billions into AI drug discovery despite huge unanswered questions about clinical development
Marty Makary’s resignation from the FDA and what ongoing instability means for biotech, pharma, and healthcare innovation
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Show notes:
Forget Tech and Hollywood. California Is Powered by Healthcare Jobs. (WSJ)
Oura Debuts Ring 5, Ahead of Potential IPO (WWD)
Whoop Raises $575 Million at $10.1 Billion Valuation (Whoop)
Fitbit Ditches the Screen With Its New $99 Whoop Rival (PC Mag)
Why big digital health players are missing from Medicare’s chronic care experiment (STAT)
Character.AI Lawsuit (PA.gov)
Marty Makary out as FDA chief (Axios)
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Heart of Healthcare website
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Most careers don’t follow a straight line. But few require starting over in full view of the public.
This week, Halle sits down with Lance Armstrong to discuss how he rebuilt his life and career after multiple turning points, including surviving advanced cancer, and how those experiences shaped his perspective on health, performance, and reinvention. Now, through his venture firm Next Ventures, he backs companies focused on what they call “whole person health” — spanning prevention, wellness, diagnostics, longevity, and healthcare outside the traditional system.
We cover:
Why he chose to become a VC, and what he likes (and dislikes) about the job
How his experience as a patient shapes how he evaluates companies
Why preventive care is growing outside the traditional healthcare system
What he looks for in founders building across the care continuum
What it takes to rebuild trust and start over

About our guest:
Lance Armstrong is a former professional cyclist, entrepreneur, and investor. After surviving advanced testicular cancer, he founded Livestrong, helping raise more than $500 million to support cancer patients and survivors worldwide. In 2019, he co-founded Next Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on health, wellness, and consumer brands, with investments including Oura, Cofertility, Pair Team, and SteadyMD. Prior to Next Ventures, he was an active angel investor in companies such as Uber, DocuSign, and Athletic Brewing.
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🙏 Do you like this podcast? An easy and free way to help keep the show going is to leave us a review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you're listening.
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Heart of Healthcare website
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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

AI in healthcare may be entering a new chapter, one where the biggest question is no longer whether the technology works, but who is willing to deploy it, measure it, and take responsibility for the risk.
This week, Steve sits down again with Eric Larsen to revisit his predictions from last year’s Webby-winning episode on generative AI in healthcare. Eric argues that the first wave of AI has been inflationary, reinforcing the old payer-provider payment model, but that the next wave could be deflationary as automation moves into revenue cycle, administrative work, clinical reasoning, and drug development. They discuss why incumbents still have a narrow window to co-develop the future, why clinical AI may move faster outside the US, and why liability may become the deciding factor in who wins.
We cover:
Why healthcare is still the sector most exposed to AI-driven change
How AI has reinforced fee-for-service dynamics so far, and why that may soon reverse
What makes some healthcare work more automatable than others
Why liability may determine how fast clinical AI gets adopted
Which health systems, payers, and life sciences companies are moving fastest
What will change across providers, payers, and pharma over the next year
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👉Submit your questions!
We’re doing a followup episode with Eric. Submit your listener questions here: https://forms.gle/Bu335DkpHAUvygiBA
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About our guest:
Eric Jon Larsen is President of TowerBrook Advisors and a member of the healthcare leadership team at TowerBrook Capital Partners, a $30 billion AUM investment firm based in New York and London. TowerBrook invests across private equity, structured minority, and growth opportunities, with a strong focus on healthcare, partnering with health systems, payers, and other strategics. Notably, TowerBrook is the first mainstream private equity firm to achieve B Corp certification, reflecting its commitment to responsible business practices.
Eric is a nationally recognized healthcare strategist with a global advisory portfolio spanning CEOs and boards of leading healthcare organizations. He spent 25 years at The Advisory Board Company—five of those as President—advancing best practices in healthcare delivery worldwide. Following the firm's 2017 acquisition by Optum (UnitedHealth Group), Eric co-led strategic partnerships and market development efforts at UnitedHealth. He is also a Venture Partner at Thrive Capital and SignalFire, and serves on several digital health boards, including Somatus and Contessa Health.
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🙏 Do you like this podcast? An easy and free way to help keep the show going is to leave us a review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you're listening.
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Heart of Healthcare website
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Medicaid reimbursements are shrinking, providers are pulling back, and vulnerable populations are losing access to care. Akido Labs is betting that AI can expand care capacity fast enough to reverse that trend.
This week, Halle sits down with Prashant Samant, co-founder and CEO of Akido Labs, to discuss what it actually takes to scale care with AI. They explore why Akido built a full-stack healthcare company, how its AI operates inside real clinical workflows, and why the hardest patients are the best place to test whether this model works.
We cover:
Why he chose to build a full-stack care model
How AI changes who can deliver care, and where
Why most healthcare AI tools fail once they hit real clinical workflows
Why the doctor shortage cannot be solved by training more doctors
How the bottleneck in healthcare AI is absorption, not innovation

About our guest:
Prashant S. Samant is CEO and co-founder of Akido, a healthcare technology company that builds clinical AI and operates a multi-state medical network serving hundreds of thousands of patients. He co-founded Akido in 2015 through USC’s Digital Health Lab. In 2023, he and his co-founders received the EY Entrepreneur of the Year–Greater Los Angeles Award. Samant is also a co-founder and board member of Grid110, a nonprofit accelerator supporting early-stage entrepreneurs. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis.
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Show Notes:
Akido’s recently-published white paper on street medicine
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🙏 Do you like this podcast? An easy and free way to help keep the show going is to leave us a review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you're listening.
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📍 Connect with us:
Heart of Healthcare website
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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.