In this episode of The Healthcare Theory, we sit down with Nish, co-founder and CEO of Bunker Hill Health, a Seqouia-backed startup working to solve one of the biggest bottlenecks in healthcare innovation: translating AI research into real-world clinical tools.

Before founding Bunker Hill Health, Nish was an AI researcher at Stanford, where he helped develop algorithms designed to identify cardiovascular risk from existing medical scans. While the model worked technically, it exposed a deeper issue - deploying AI in hospitals is often far harder than building the algorithm itself. We explore why healthcare systems struggle to adopt new technologies, the hidden operational and organizational barriers that prevent AI from being implemented, and why many venture-backed healthcare AI startups underestimate the difficulty of integration. Nish also explains Bunker Hill Health’s approach: building a platform and consortium of leading academic medical centers to help validate, regulate, and commercialize medical AI models so they can actually reach clinical practice.

AI's Biggest Bottleneck Isn't The Model | Bunkerhill Health CEO Nishith Khandwala

In this episode, Dr. Francesca Beaudoin - emergency physician, clinical epidemiologist, and Dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University - joins us to examine the next phase of the American opioid crisis. 

We begin with her firsthand experience on the frontlines of emergency medicine, where she witnessed the shift from prescription opioids to a fentanyl-dominated drug supply, and how that transformation reshaped overdose care in real time. From there, Dr. Beaudoin shares why emergency departments represent a critical intervention window, and how mobile opioid treatment programs are expanding access to life-saving medications like methadone. We also explore the deeper structural drivers of addiction and why lasting recovery requires more than acute stabilization. Ultimately, this conversation reframes the opioid crisis not just as a public health emergency, but as a systems-level challenge that demands coordinated policy, clinical, and community solutions.

The Next Phase of the Opioid Crisis | Brown Dean of Public Health Dr. Francesca Beaudoin

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Amit Etkin, founder and CEO of Alto Neuroscience ($450m, NYSE: ANRO) and former tenured professor at Stanford, to explore the emerging field of precision psychiatry. 

Instead of treating diagnoses as single diseases, Alto is using brain-based biomarkers, including EEG, cognitive testing, and machine learning, to identify which patients are most likely to respond to specific treatments. We discuss why psychiatry has historically lagged behind fields like oncology, how the DSM was never designed to reflect biology, and what it will take to move beyond trial-and-error drug development. We also dive into Alto’s clinical pipeline, including programs in treatment-resistant depression and cognitive impairment in schizophrenia — one of the most overlooked unmet needs in medicine.



A New Blueprint for Precision Psychiatry | Alto Neuroscience CEO Dr. Amit Etkin

Today's guest is the CEO of Vida Health, Joe Murad, who's raised over $200 million to build an integrated model for chronic care. A serial healthcare entrepreneur, he's served as CEO of PokitDok and WithMe Health, giving him a rare systems-level view of how healthcare actually works.

In this episode, we unpack why healthcare doesn’t simply suffer from a lack of technology, but from fragmented incentives and broken accountability. Joe explains how most innovation today stacks point solutions rather than fixing the underlying structure of care. We discuss why no one truly owns the full patient journey — and why that failure is especially costly in chronic disease and mental health. Finally, we explore how integrated, value-based models may offer a path toward real longitudinal accountability and better outcomes.

Why Healthcare Breaks at the Handoffs | Vida Health CEO Joe Murad

In this episode, we're speaking with Dr. Bapu Jena — a Harvard physician-economist and former host of Freakonomics, MD — to explore the hidden forces that shape how medicine actually works. Drawing from his research and his book Random Acts of Medicine, Dr. Jena explains how healthcare's interactions with chance and incentives aren't always intuitive.

The conversation spans natural experiments in healthcare, why more care isn’t always better care, how physician training and demographics can affect outcomes, and what we often misunderstand when we read medical studies or headlines. Along the way, Dr. Jena shares how curiosity (not policy agendas) has driven his work, and why asking the right questions matters more than having easy answers. This episode is a deep dive into the “Freakonomics of Medicine," and a reminder that understanding healthcare requires looking beyond intuition, averages, and assumptions.

The "Freakonomics" of Medicine | Harvard Physician-Economist and Freakonomics Host Dr. Bapu Jena

Today's guest is Jennifer Byrne, a veteran clinical research leader and CEO of Javara, an integrated research organization that has raised over $100 million to modernize how clinical trials are run inside health systems. 

Drawing on nearly three decades of experience, Jennifer explains why clinical trials remain largely invisible to patients and clinicians, despite being central to drug and device development. The conversation unpacks how changes in healthcare delivery, increasing trial complexity, and physician burnout have made access to research harder rather than easier. We also explore why patient recruitment isn’t just a technology problem, but a question of trust, infrastructure, and incentives. Ultimately, this episode reframes clinical trials not as a niche research activity, but as a core part of public health, and a test of whether innovation in medicine is truly accessible.

Embedding Clinical Research In Healthcare | Javara CEO Jennifer Byrne

We're speaking with Dr. Benjamin Sommers, a primary care physician, Harvard health economist, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Policy at HHS, about Medicaid’s role as America’s health care safety net. 

Drawing on more than a decade of research and firsthand experience inside government, Dr. Sommers explains what the evidence actually shows about Medicaid expansion, access to care, and lives saved. The conversation unpacks why Medicaid doesn’t reduce spending, but remains one of the most cost-effective ways to improve population health. They also explore the unintended consequences of work requirements and resulting administrative barriers. Ultimately, this episode reframes Medicaid not as a political talking point, but as a foundational pillar of the U.S. social safety net, and a test of how we decide who deserves care.

Medicaid as America's Social Safety Net | Harvard Researcher and Former HHS Deputy Benjamin Sommers

In this episode, we’re joined by Erez Druk, founder and CEO of Freed, to explore what happens when healthcare technology is built for clinicians: not hospitals, payers, or administrators.

Erez shares the lessons from his first startup, why “who you build for” is the most important decision a founder can make, and how watching physician burnout up close through his wife and close friends in medicine led to the creation of Freed. We dive into why clinician burnout is a structural problem, how misaligned incentives and system complexity drive doctors out of medicine, and why AI may be one of the few tools capable of absorbing the complexity humans shouldn’t have to carry. The conversation also covers product-led growth in healthcare, building technology clinicians actually love, and what a truly clinician-first healthcare system could look like over the next decade.

The Case for Clinician-First Healthcare | Freed CEO Erez Druk

In this episode, we sit down with Iman Abuzeid, physician turned founder and CEO of Incredible Health, the $1.7B AI-powered platform transforming how nurses get hired in the U.S. We explore how a broken hiring system—and not a lack of workers—sits at the center of healthcare’s staffing crisis.

We discuss why healthcare faces one of the most severe labor shortages in the country, despite being its largest employer. Iman shares how a failed first startup helped her find a clearer North Star and led to building a two-sided marketplace where employers apply to nurses. We also break down how Incredible Health is embedding AI into hiring—from AI career agents that help nurses prepare for interviews to AI interviewers that dramatically speed up hospital hiring timelines. Finally, we examine why AI in healthcare works best when it changes job descriptions rather than replacing people—and what that means for the future of healthcare work.

The Unicorn Making Employers Apply to Nurses I Incredible Health CEO Dr. Iman Abuzeid

In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Ami Bhatt, a cardiologist who practiced for years at MGH and now serves as the Chair of the FDA's Digital Health Advisory Committee and CIO of the ACC Dr. Bhatt brings a rare perspective of how digital health can navigate clinical care, AI, and regulation.

We explore why modern healthcare feels increasingly strained despite unprecedented advances in data and technology, and how the explosion of information has pushed medicine beyond what any human can reasonably process alone. Dr. Bhatt explains where AI is already creating real value, particularly in administrative workflows and diagnostics, and why its most important role is augmenting clinicians rather than replacing them. Finally, we look ahead to what the future could hold: from AI-enabled clinicians and personalized health baselines to digital twins and a more patient-centered, preventive healthcare system.

An Iron Man Suit for Healthcare | Cardiologist & FDA Digital Health Chair Dr. Ami Bhatt

Discover where healthcare is headed with The Healthcare Theory. Through recurring mini-series, we unpack everything from health policy to life sciences and digital health. Tune in every week for insightful conversations with founders, researchers, and industry experts that are shaping the future of healthcare.

Nikhil Reddy

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