The Pulse by Wharton Digital Health

In this episode of The Pulse, I had the opportunity to sit down with Giovanni Colella, MD - a psychiatrist and experienced healthcare entrepreneur - to discuss his journey from clinical care to company-building, and what it takes to design care models for healthcare’s most complex populations.Over the past several decades, Giovanni has co-founded several influential healthcare companies, including RelayHealth (acquired by McKesson), Castlight Health, OODA Health (acquired by Cedar), Solara Health, and Brightline, focused on pediatric behavioral health. Today, he’s the co-founder and CEO of Vanna Health, a company delivering community-based care to individuals with serious mental illness (SMI), primarily within Medicaid populations. His perspective is shaped by both deep clinical training and lived experience building and operating companies at the intersection of care delivery, administration, and technology.If you're interested in additional resources for staying up to speed on behavioral health, here is a list of Giovanni's podcast and newsletter recommendations:Hidden Brain (Podcast): The gold standard for understanding the unconscious patterns that drive our behavior.The Happiness Lab (Podcast): Yale professor Dr. Laurie Santos shares the actual science of well-being (and debunks common myths).Huberman Lab (Podcast): Great for deep dives into neuroscience and "tools" for mental and physical health.Wondermind (Newsletter): A fantastic resource for "mental fitness" with expert interviews and practical daily exercises.3-2-1 by James Clear (Newsletter): While focused on habits, it’s rooted in behavioral science and offers great weekly reframes.Psych Central (Newsletter): A perfect weekly pulse-check on the latest evidence-based mental health research.

In this episode of The Pulse, I sat down with Rahul Naidoo, co-founder and CEO of Superscript, an early-stage health tech company on a mission to redefine the financial experience in healthcare for both patients and providers.Founded in 2021, Superscript spent nearly three years in R&D building what Rahul calls “healthcare’s first pricing protocol” — technology that turns surprise, after-the-fact medical bills into clear, upfront prices. The company now works with nearly 300 providers across New York, New Jersey, and Texas, has empowered close to 50,000 patients with upfront prices, and is backed by investors including Mark Cuban, early backers of Uber and SpaceX, and founders from Dropbox and Everly Health.Rahul and I talked about his unconventional journey from Cape Town to Harvard to health tech founder, why he believes consumer-style pricing is the missing backbone of U.S. healthcare, and how Superscript is betting on a radically different approach to pricing transparency — one that doesn’t just “estimate” costs, but actually takes on financial risk to guarantee them.

In this episode, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Jake Sussman, co-founder and CEO of Marble Health, a company building a new model of mental health care for children and teens. Jake shared why the youth mental health crisis demands a fundamentally different approach than adult care - and how Marble is using schools, insurance-aligned incentives, and thoughtfully applied technology to expand access.

In this episode, I sat down with Felicity Yost, Co-Founder and CEO of Tia. Tia is a modern women’s health company that combines virtual and in-person clinics to deliver integrated, whole-body care for women, spanning primary care, gynecology, mental health, fertility, perimenopause and menopause, and more. Founded in 2017, Tia has raised roughly $150 million in funding from leading investors, as it scales a “whole-woman, whole-life” care model across markets in New York, California, and Arizona with plans to open more this year.In our conversation, Felicity and I explored:How her personal experiences shaped her passion to co-found TiaHow Tia redesigned women’s care around concerns, not specialtiesWhy the consumerization of care may be doing more harm than goodWhat it really takes to build sustainable healthcare businesses and teamsHer long-term bets on AI and preventive care

In our latest episode of The Pulse, I sat down with Samir Malik, founder of firsthand, a company pioneering a trust-first, peer-led model to reach individuals whom the traditional behavioral health system has failed to reach. Samir shared powerful insights on why trust is the missing ingredient in serious mental illness (SMI) care and how firsthand is rebuilding it through lived experience, community-based engagement, and value-based partnerships.

In this episode, I sat down with Emma Silverman, Partner at TMV, to explore her path into venture and TMV’s purpose-driven origin story. We discuss TMV’s health & bio thesis, notable investments such as Slingshot AI and Elion, and Emma’s recent research on the promise and tension of clinical AI adoption across health systems and payers. She also shares practical advice for early-stage founders navigating uncertainty and offers candid guidance for aspiring investors on finding their own style in venture.

In this episode of the podcast, I sat down with Marta Bralic Kerns, founder and CEO of Pomelo Care, a virtual-first maternity care company delivering high-quality, personalized care to pregnant people and newborns across the United States. Pomelo’s mission is to improve outcomes in maternal and infant health through proactive, data-informed, and accessible care. Marta and I spoke about her path from consulting to founding Pomelo, how she’s scaling care for the most underserved populations, and why she believes we’re only at the beginning of a new era for women’s and children’s health.

Mike Roaldi, President of Cityblock Health, joins us on the Pulse for our latest episode. Cityblock Health is a valued-based primary care company on a mission to radically improve health outcomes for Medicaid and dually eligible populations across the U.S. Cityblock Health is one of the most ambitious care delivery companies today, serving its eligible populations with a tech-enabled, community-rooted approach to care. Prior to Cityblock, Mike built his deep healthcare expertise at UnitedHealth Group, where he spent nearly a decade in executive roles across both UnitedHealthcare and Optum Behavioral Health. In this episode, Mike will share what he believes it takes to serve the most complex, high-need patients in America  —  and how Cityblock is rethinking trust, tech, and care delivery from the ground up.

Obesity and weight loss are among the most significant and complex challenges facing healthcare today. In our latest episode of The Pulse, we sat down with Evan Richardson, CEO and founder of Form Health, a pioneering virtual obesity medicine clinic. Richardson shared compelling insights about how Form Health is revolutionizing the obesity treatment landscape by delivering personalized, quality care through a robust virtual platform.

In this episode, I sat down with Dr. Rekha Kumar, Chief Medical Officer of Found. Found is one of the first telehealth startups focused on comprehensive obesity care. Since its founding, it has raised over $130 million and was valued at $600 million as of 2022. At the heart of their mission is combining medical treatment — including access to weight-loss medications like GLP-1s — with behavior change support to help people achieve lasting health outcomes.Dr. Kumar is a leading voice in the field of Obesity Medicine. She’s a board-certified endocrinologist, who served as the first Medical Director of the American Board of Obesity Medicine, and is currently a practicing clinician who serves as an associate professor at Weill Cornell.In this episode, we’ll dive into Rekha’s journey from clinical medicine to startup executive, what makes Found’s approach different, and her perspective on access, equity, and the future of GLP-1 therapies.