7 of 11
of the largest hospital systems are based in Nashville
Over 500
healthcare companies call Nashville home
81 Founders
have graduated from the Project Healthcare
Nashville Healthcare Partners with Project Healthcare
Our program partners are committed to your success.
Meet the Project Healthcare Chair + Mentors
Our mentors are experts in the business of healthcare.
Eric Thrailkill Project Healthcare Chair
“Without a doubt, entrepreneurs will help shape the future of healthcare and we are fortunate to have the sharpest minds in healthcare here in Nashville. It is paramount we embrace new thinking and innovative ideas to continue to move the industry forward.”
With decades of experience in healthcare and native to Nashville since 1983, Eric Thrailkill leads Nashville Entrepreneur Center’s healthcare accelerator with our mission to make Nashville the best place to start and grow a business – especially in healthcare.
Contact Eric About Project Healthcare
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Listen to Friends of Project Healthcare
Get the inside scoop on what’s going on in Nashville healthcare.
Episode 1
Jonathan Bush
Founder and CEO of Zus Health, Jonathan Bush, shares his insights on the necessary tech layer, consisting of “Data as a Service” to accelerate the growth in digital and virtual first care solutions, and also speaks about the significance of the Nashville healthcare ecosystem helping to lead the way to better health for all by leveraging industry knowledge in new health ventures.
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Episode 2
Chris Poole
Head of Studio at 25m Health, Chris Poole, shares how venture studio models are positively impacting the healthcare industry, and highlights the significance of rapid ideation and validation for early stage entrepreneurs. Chris explains how Studio Venture’s strategic partnerships have created the infrastructure, process and alignment to drive speed to market.
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Episode 3
John Bass
At the intersection of healthcare and blockchain you’ll find John Bass, founder and CEO of Hashed Health, a Nashville-based venture studio driving innovation and collaboration. John shares how he launched successful startups and explains his plans to unlock significant future value within the industry by leveraging distributed ledger, blockchain, and web3 technologies.
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Episode 4
Chase Spurlock
Chase Spurlock is co-founder and CEO of Decode Health, a startup focused on the use of machine learning to predict and better understand disease outcomes. In this episode, Chase provides background on his company, including a recent announcement involving Quest Diagnostics to improve the speed and accuracy of healthcare determinations.
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Episode 5
Amy Bucher
As Chief Behavioral Officer at Lirio, Amy Bucher leads a team of behavioral scientists and health experts focused on designing AI-powered behavior change journeys to drive better personal and population health. Amy shares how Lirio’s focus on personalized care and AI helps patients and consumers make the best health decisions for themselves.
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Episode 6
Lisa Esch
Lisa Esch, Senior Vice President and Chief of Strategy, Innovation, and Industry Solutions at NTT Data Services, provides insight on the disruptions and digital transformations happening in the healthcare industry, such as tackling the short-term challenges around workforce, staff burnout, and retaining and hiring employees.
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Episode 7
Steve Cagle
Steve Cagle, CEO of Clearwater Compliance, shares the importance of security, privacy, and compliance for early stage healthcare companies as they embark on building and implementing solutions. Steve is responsible for leading the company’s strategic growth, helping organizations identify and reduce risks associated with data and technology transformation.
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Episode 8
Pitch Series: Pt 1
Introducing Project Healthcare cohort companies that are working to improve both the patient and provider experience. This episode includes pitches by the founders at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center cohort First Look event in January. Join us as we support these founders and discuss behavioral health, patient engagement, and AI.
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Episode 9
Pitch Series: Pt 2
Friends of Project Healthcare, Lauren (MBA/MD Student at Vanderbilt University) and Haley (Program Manager) discuss the Project Healthcare companies that are focused on new care models, and in particular, home health. As at-home care continues to be adobpted, these companies are focused on improving remote patient monitoring technologies.
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Episode 10
Pitch Series: Pt 3
U.S. healthcare expenditures have drastically increased with specialty care accounting for approximately 18% of the increase in spending. Haley and Lauren finish this three-part series of introducing entrepreneurs focused on specialty solutions to slow the increasing costs and improve outcomes in the field of genetics, women’s health, allergies, chronic autoimmune disease, and diabetes.
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Episode 11
Kenya Fong
Kyna Fong, CEO and Co-Founder of Elation Health, joins Eric and Lauren to discuss her unique journey behind the founding of the innovative clinical-first platform, as well as how electronic health records can be used to improve, rather than strain, the physician patient relationship. This conversation was captured at the recent ViVE 2023 Conference in Nashville, TN.
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Episode 12
Blake Madden
Blake Madden, the founder and creator of Hospitalogy – a leading healthcare platform media company of 25,000 subscribers, growing at a rapid rate. From consolidation to declining physician reimbursement to the growth of ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), Blake provides valuable industry insights on a weekly basis, including his opinion on these trends you won’t want to miss.
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Episode 13
Liz Ashall-Payne
Liz Ashall-Payne, co-founder and CEO of ORCHA discusses the assessment and distribution of safe digital health technology. In this episode, Liz shares her entrepreneurial journey solving challenges with digital health technology, more specifically how providers, patients, and the economy benefits when digital health technologies are regulated appropriately.
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Episode 14
Micky Tripathi
Micky Tripathi, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, shares why electronic health records (EHRs) have been widely adopted, how they are regulated, and why new policy changes are working to improve interoperability. Micky is finding innovative ways to improve the flow of health data.
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Episode 15
Brenda Schmidt
Brenda Schmidt, Head of Enterprise Growth at Redesign Health, discusses how her company’s mission-driven innovation platform is building transformative healthcare companies from the ground up. Redesign Health’s approach sets it apart from traditional accelerators and incubators and allows them to accelerate startup growth and innovation throughout the healthcare industry.
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Episode 16
Chris McGhee
Chris McGhee, CEO & Co-Founder of Current Health, a Best Buy Health company, helps health systems provide healthcare at home, including hospital-at-home programs, through innovative technology. Current Health’s goal is to partner with health systems and other provider organizations to shift safe, efficient, and patient-preferred care models to a lower cost site of service.
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Episode 17
Taylor McPartland
Founder and CEO of ScaleHealth, Taylor McPartland, shares his early passion project which has since grown into a global health innovation ecosystem, ensuring access to advanced healthcare solutions. McPartland, a self-confessed “serial founder” developed ScaleHealth, leveraging innovation to address systemic challenges to healthcare access.
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Episode 18
Seth Joseph
Seth Joseph, Founder and Managing Director of Summit Health Advisors, joins host Eric Thrailkill at ViVE Nashville to discuss how his background as a strategy officer and involvement in building a two-sided marketplace in healthcare has enabled him to continue to provide support services in a boutique category of platform business models.
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