The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare

In honor of Rare Disease Day, Meg Escobosa is joined by Kinnari Patel, President, Head of Research & Development, and Chief Operating Officer of Rocket Pharmaceuticals.

Meg and Kinnari discuss the significant impact of genetic testing and drivers for finding cures for rare diseases, the demands and rewards that come with spearheading Rocket Pharmaceuticals, and how true passion has solidified her unwavering commitment to creating a positive impact for rare disease patients.

Kinnari Patel, PharmD is President, Head of Research & Development and Chief Operating Officer of Rocket Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage...

Meg welcomes Dr. Kelly LeBlanc, Chief of Anesthesia and President of the Medical Staff at Houston Methodist Baytown Hospital. Dr. LeBlanc is also a physician partner with U.S. Anesthesia Partners (USAP), a physician-owned, clinician-led organization providing anesthesia services in more than 700 inpatient and outpatient facilities across the country, serving more than 2 million patients annually.

At USAP, Dr. LeBlanc is part of the Clinical Operations Committee, focusing on enabling great patient outcomes, developing exceptional clinical leaders, and creating a positive clinical culture, which includes a healthy work-life balance. 

Meg and Dr. LeBlanc d...

Meg welcomes Dr. Amy Hauck Newman, the Scientific Director and the Chief of Molecular Targets and Medications Discovery Branch and Medicinal Chemistry Section of the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s Intramural Research Program also known as “NIDA” IRP. It is one of the 27 institutes and centers of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and it is dedicated to understanding the causes, consequences and treatment of substance use disorders. 

On today’s show, Dr. Amy Hauck Newman discusses her work in developing novel medications to treat substance use disorders. She explains the lengthy process of drug d...

Meg welcomes Kathryn Bowsher, managing director of ActOne Healthcare, a consulting firm focused on commercializing healthcare innovations. Kathryn developed this expertise by launching more than 40 products and initiatives across a wide range of therapeutic areas, sites of care, and business models over the course of 25 years.

Kathryn is the co-founder, advisor to, and previous Chair of the Board of Pocket Naloxone, an over-the-counter opioid overdose treatment. 

In this episode, Meg and Kathryn discuss the challenges of getting Pocket Naloxone to market and the innovative delivery mechanism they developed. Kathryn emphasizes the importance of improving access, l...

Meg welcomes Liz Kwo, MD, MBA, and Masters in Public Health (all from Harvard). Dr. Kwo is the Chief Commercial Officer at Everly Health, a personalized diagnostic-driven care-at-home solution. She is an experienced healthcare executive specializing in P&L management, B2B/B2C marketing and sales, strategic partnerships, and post-merger integration. Dr. Kwo is an expert at building and scaling digital health products, leveraging predictive and prescriptive analytics to improve outcomes.

In this episode, Liz shares her experience as a healthcare executive, investor, physician, and company builder, and how those can tie the...

Meg is joined by Shruti Kothari, Director of Industry Initiatives at Blue Shield California, an independent member of the Blue Shield Association with 4.7 million members, 7,800 employees, and $22.9 billion in annual revenue that provides health care service plans to residents of California. Shruti is also the founder of Women of Community, an organization focused on increasing representation of women of color in healthcare leadership, as well as the co-founder of the start-up Crown Society. She serves as a Board Member/Advisor for several organizations, including the Family Caregiver Alliance, Reverence, and Asian Pacific Fund. 

In t...

Meg is joined by Caitlin Donovan, Global Head of Uber Health, which focuses on delivering a “better patient experience with transportation, same-day prescription, and home delivery for groceries and over-the-counter items, enhancing benefit coordination.”

Caitlin explains Uber Health’s services: transportation, prescription delivery, and grocery and over-the-counter benefits. Meg and Caitlin dive into the challenges of executing Uber Health’s vision, the importance of aligning incentives, and the critical task of understanding the healthcare ecosystem at large. Caitlin shares insights on engaging health plans and providers, as well as the future plans and innovations of Uber Health. Lastly...

Meg welcomes Natalie Douglas, an award-winning healthcare specialist, an experienced entrepreneur, CEO, board director, and investor. She is the founder of Lucidity LLC and RealiTi Health, as well as chairman of the board for Entia Ltd and TidalSense. She is also an investor and advisor for many portfolio companies, such as Ceek Women’s Health, RwHealth, Vitaccess. 

In this episode, Natalie shares her experience in various leadership roles in life sciences, pharma services, medical devices, digital, SAS, and data analytics. She discusses various challenges and some of the innovative solutions she’s led as a private equity-backed CEO...

Meg welcomes Nancy G. Brinker, the founder of Susan G. Komen for the Cure and The Promise Fund of Florida. Nancy was also United States Ambassador to Hungary from 2001 to 2003 and Chief of Protocol of the United States from 2007 to the end of the George W. Bush administration. 

Nancy walks us through her personal experience with her sister Suzy's battle with breast cancer and how that great loss inspired her to dedicate her life to fighting the disease, creating Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Meg and Nancy discuss Nancy’s current work with the...

"If you live in a county that's designated as 'rural,' your healthcare outcomes are far worse, to the tune of 23% higher mortality. In these rural markets, hospital closures...rural health clinic closures are increasing at an exceeding rate. There's half the number of primary care doctors and about an eighth or a tenth the number of specialty care doctors. And 10% of all rural counties have zero healthcare services whatsoever." -Dr. Jennifer Schneider

Meg welcomes Dr. Jennifer Schneider, Co-Founder and CEO of Homeward Health, a technology-enabled, community-based healthcare provider delivering high-quality care to those who lack access, specifically...

Meg welcomes Liz Beatty, Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer at Inato, a marketplace that enables clinical researchers and sponsors to make clinical research more inclusive and accessible for patients no matter who they are or where they live. Inato also increases clinical trial efficiency by enabling all community sites to offer the right trials to their patients. 

Meg and Liz discuss the problems with the traditional clinical trial landscape, the role of the doctor and care team in the process, the difficulties for patients in accessing the right clinical trials, and how Inato is bridging t...

Meg welcomes Anna Lindow, CEO + Co-Founder at Brave Health, a virtual mental health provider dedicated to helping people thrive by engaging them in high-quality, affordable, and easily accessible mental health care.

Meg and Anna discuss the supply and demand imbalance for mental health services, especially for Medicaid recipients and other underserved populations. Anna also reflects on her experience building Brave Health, the support they’ve received, and how technology has helped them scale and evolve according to patient density and need. She also shares the importance of cultivating teams and lessons from past work ex...

Meg welcomes Miruna Sasu, President and CEO of COTA, an RWE service founded by doctors, engineers, and data scientists to create clarity from fragmented and often inaccessible real-world data to provide a comprehensive picture of cancer that can be used to advance carepaths and research.

Meg and Miruna discuss utilizing patient-generated data, difficulties with EMR, the drug development and clinical trial processes, as well as ethical considerations and patient burden. Miruna reflects on her own personal experience with cancer diagnoses for both of her primary caregivers: her grandparents. She also shares her mentorship experience...

Meg welcomes Lori Daugherty, CEO of Ascellus, a physical and behavioral health provider for injured workers that provides customized treatment options through CBT practices, as well as medical care for injured workers. With a network of over 1,500 licensed clinicians nationwide, Ascellus works to improve resilience, health outcomes, and reduce costs for workers’ compensation claims and minimize time spent away from work.

Meg and Lori discuss the barriers to mental health care access, the needs of employees, how Ascellus bridges this gap, and how the healthcare ecosystem can follow. Lori reflects on her 30 years of ex...

Meg welcomes Inna Plumb, Co-Founder and COO of MedArrive. 

MedArrive enables healthcare providers to seamlessly extend care services into the home, unlocking access to high-quality healthcare for more people at a fraction of the cost. MedArrive’s fully integrated care management platform allows providers and payors to bridge the virtual care gap by marrying physician-led telemedicine with hands-on care from EMS professionals.

MedArrive has more than 20k highly-skilled EMS providers in its national network, and services span dozens of clinical use cases, including chronic condition management, transitional care, readmission pre...

Meg welcomes, Vivian DeWoskin, VP of Strategy and Head of Life Sciences at Komodo Health.

Meg and Vivian discuss Komodo Health, which brings together large amounts of anonymized, linked patient-level data used to understand how patients navigate their care journey in the real world; Komodo Health’s “Healthcare Map;” data and rare diseases; access to clinical research; Komodo’s ability to reduce the time to diagnosis for challenging conditions; increasing diversity in clinical research patient populations; Vivian’s background in and love of Neuroscience; her mentors and mentees; and much more. 

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Meg welcomes Stephanie Trunzo, SVP and GM of Oracle Health.

Oracle Health provides cloud solution systems for health insurance, healthcare providers, virtual care, electronic health record systems, and public health.

Stephanie leads the P&L across strategy, product, services, sales, support, and operations. Oracle Health connects clinical, operational and financial data to improve care and advanced decision-making around health and wellbeing. In one of the largest mergers this year, Oracle acquired Cerner, an electronic health record company. 

Meg and Stephanie discuss the unique benefits of the Oracle Health/Cerner merger; t...

Meg welcomes Shahrzad Yavari, COVAX Cold & Supply Chain Consultant at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Gavi is an organization working to improve vaccination efforts globally.

Shahrzad is a public health strategist and avid women’s rights advocate who has dedicated much of her efforts to creating opportunities for women globally. Her background in psychology helped to shape her interest in community-driven solutions for various challenges in the healthcare and education sectors, among others.

Her most recent achievements include her work with Gavi, where COVAX has been a lifeline in vaccination ef...

Meg welcomes Eliza Sternlicht, Co-Founder and COO of MediCircle, a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical redistribution startup. 

Eliza Sternlicht is not only a startup co-founder with a rich history of working to solve medical issues and disparities, she’s a senior in college at Brown University. At such a young age, Eliza already has an enviable resume full of noble causes tackled.

Her most recent project is MediCircle, a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical redistributor. They connect unused, unexpired oral cancer medications with charitable clinics where patients can receive them, free of charge.

Meg speaks with Jayme Ambrose, CEO of Adobe Care & Wellness, an innovative healthcare solution company that focuses on customizing programs for insurance groups, providers, hospitals, and families.

Meg and Jayme discuss Jayme’s background as a psychiatric nurse and workers compensation case manager; Adobe’s focus on social determinants and proactive care; the inverse relationship between quality of life and health costs; health access for the rural community; Adobe’s “human touch” mission; their app, Maslow; the “Nurse Mindset;” and much more. 

About Jayme Ambrose:

Jayme Ambrose...

On the first episode of Season 2 of The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare, Meg Escobosa is joined by Eileen Maus, CEO of Renovia Inc.

Meg and Eileen discuss the inspiration for Eileen’s passion for women’s health, starting a career in healthcare in the 80’s and 90’s, and the truth about urinary incontinence and its stigmatization. They also talk about the unique benefits of digital therapeutics compared to traditional therapies, how Covid drove a major innovation in Renovia’s approach to clinical trials, the unique benefits of a women-led organization, and optimism’s role in entrepren...

On Episode 10, the final episode of Season 1 of The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare, Meg is joined by Deborah DiSanzo, President of Best Buy Health. 

Meg and Deborah discuss the untold origins of the podcast. Deborah speaks of her early days with Apollo Computer and the surprising turn her career path took leading her to Hewlett Packard, Philips Healthcare, and IBM Watson Health. Deborah explains the strategic variables and decisions they faced in entering the automated external defibrillator market and what she values most about her teaching appointment at Harvard's TH Chan School of Public H...

On Episode 9 of The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare, Meg is joined by Dr. Sabine Linn, professor of translational oncology focusing on breast cancer at Utrecht University and a practicing medical oncologist at the Netherlands Cancer Institute.

The two discuss Dr. Linn's work in biomarker research, the immunological aspects of breast cancer, advancements in cancer diagnostics and how they can help personalize cancer treatment, the patience and perseverance necessary to complete cancer research studies, Dr. Linn's love of sports as meditation, her vision for achieving equality in her field and beyond, and much more. 

On Episode 8 of The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare, Meg is joined by Elena Sini, Group CIO of GVM Care & Research in Milan, Italy. 

The two discuss Elena’s background as CIO in both the public and private sectors, her role in founding the HIMSS Italian Community, the security and privacy of health data, the power of building a personal and professional network, teaching healthcare IT in an ever-changing world, and more. 

About Elena Sini:

Elena Sini holds 20 years of experience acquired from top-tiered Italian publ...

In this week’s episode of The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare, Meg Escobosa is joined by Lisa Emery, CIO at The Royal Marsden National Health Service Foundation Trust.

Meg and Lisa discuss the surprising similarities between biomedical science and healthcare IT, the power of leading by letting go, the skills needed to successfully deliver on a digital transformation programme, her advice for effective communication with clinical leaders and what Lisa’s learned from past mistakes.

About Lisa Emery

Lisa Emery is Chief Information Officer at The Royal Mars...

Meg speaks with Dr. Luna Gargani, Cardiologist and Researcher at the University of Pisa in Pisa, Italy.

As an advocate and pioneer of point-of-care lung ultrasound, Luna has played a key role in bringing this technology full-circle. Meg and Luna talk about the dramatic impact one key mentor made in her career, why, despite much resistance, Luna was confident a novel technology she was researching would one day become widely accepted, and the value of carefully choosing what to focus one’s research on especially if, like Luna, you are naturally curious and passionate about making an im...

The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare

Episode 5 - Dr. Shikha Anand: Upscaling Health in Context

Today, on Episode 5 of the podcast, Meg speaks with Dr. Shikha Anand, Chief Medical Officer, Withings.

Meg and Shikha discuss Shikha’s enduring drive to build a better healthcare system that fits patients’ lives; how she surprised herself after a fruitful and fulfilling career in non-profit health; what she learned about making an impact; the opportunities for healthcare in the home; the importance of peer mentorship; and her framework for what...

The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare

Today, on Episode 4 of the podcast, Meg speaks with Lisa Rometty, President at CVS Kidney Care. 

Meg and Lisa discuss Lisa’s realization of her deep ambition to make a positive difference in people’s lives based on a significant loss early in her life; her shift in perspective when she became a parent; the need for greater awareness of the real lives of all patients in order to enable widespread access to care; the enormous amount of innovation unfolding in healthcare thanks to AI and virtual care; the criti...

The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare

Episode 3 - Tina Moen  “Humans Helping Humans”

Today, on our third episode, host Meg Escobosa welcomes Tina Moen, GM IBM Micromedex & Chief Pharmacy Officer, IBM Watson Health.

Meg and Tina discuss Tina’s overnight decision to become a pharmacist, her inspiration and evolution as a leader, her view of the value of the interplay between technology, AI and humans in healthcare - above all to serve patients. She shares the biggest challenges we face and how to keep teams motivat...

The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare 

Episode 2 - Sue Schade:  “Own your Own Career”

Today, on our second episode, host Meg Escobosa welcomes Sue Schade, a Principal at Starbridge Advisors and interim CIO at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Meg and Sue discuss Sue’s early days in paper-based health data as a chart secretary and programmer; The evolution of health IT over 35+ years; The essential role of IT teams in making a difference in healthcare; Sue’s legacy as a role model developing the next generation o...

The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare

Episode 1 - Tracy Byers: Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

Today, on our very first episode, host Meg Escobosa welcomes Tracy Byers, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Enterprise Imaging at Change Healthcare.

Meg and Tracy talk about what got Tracy hooked in healthcare, some of her early category-creating successes, and the invaluable mentorship and coaching she received that informed her own leadership style. They also discuss the keys to driving successful innovation on teams and the promise of...

Coming soon, from The Krinsky Company: The Game-Changing Women of Healthcare, a podcast celebrating courage, perseverance, creativity, and vision in the pursuit of healthcare innovation. Join host Meg Escobosa in conversation with some of the most inspiring and forward-thinking women working in healthcare today. Meg goes behind the scenes to uncover previously untold stories of struggle and success in a notoriously complex and highly regulated industry. As the worlds of healthcare and technology continue to converge, and as women take on increasingly more important roles in both, these are timely tales that deserve to be told.

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