The Heart of Healthcare | A Digital Health Podcast

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🏆 2026 Webby Award-winning podcast

Join us every Monday for conversations with the biggest names in healthcare. Hosted by health tech veterans Halle Tecco, Michael Esquivel, and Steve Kraus.

Learn more and submit your ideas for the show at the Heart of Healthcare website.

Credits

Halle Tecco
Kyle Moore
Steve Kraus
Michael Esquivel

Surrounded by Sewage

In this episode, Catherine Coleman Flowers (the “Erin Brockovich of Sewage”) explains how crumbling infrastructure causes toxic sewage spills in the backyards of poor, rural communities. Flowers also talks about how she discovered an outbreak of an intestinal, blood-feeding parasite we thought had been eradicated in the United States. Catherine Coleman Flowers is a MacArthur 'Genius' grant winner, the founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, and the author of Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret.

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Turning Data Into Healthcare

In this episode, Dr. John Brownstein explains his work as a Digital Epidemiologist (not a finger doctor!) Dr. Brownstein has led projects like HealthMap.org, which offers real-time intelligence on emerging infectious diseases; Street Rx, which crowdsources the black market for prices of prescription drugs; and most recently VaccineFinder.org. Dr. John Brownstein is the Chief Innovation Officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and a Professor at Harvard Medical School.

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This Is Her Lane

In this episode, emergency room physician Dr. Megan Ranney explains how gun violence is a public health crisis, and what she's doing to help end it. Dr. Ranney is a respected researcher, emergency physician, and advocate in the injury prevention and digital health field. She is a Professor at Brown University, and the co-founder of AFFIRM, the American Foundation for Firearm Injury Reduction in Medicine.

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Housing Is Healthcare

In this episode, Dr. Margot Kushel explains the country’s rise in homelessness and the critical impact of housing on the health needs of vulnerable populations. Dr. Margot Kushel is the director of the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations. Her research focuses on reducing the burden of homelessness on health through examining efforts to prevent and end homelessness and mitigating the effects of housing instability on health care outcomes.

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Predicting COVID-19 and Future Pandemics

In this episode, Dr. Charity Dean walks us through the early days of COVID-19. She was told not to use the word "pandemic" because it could scare people, but sounded alarms anyway. Dr. Dean served as the Assistant Director for the California Department of Public Health. She was a key member of the executive team directing the COVID-19 outbreak response from the high-level overview, to tactical operations, to co-founding and leading the Testing Task Force. She is currently the Founder & CEO of The Public Health Company. Dr. Dean is also the protagonist in Michael Lewis's new book 'The Premonition.'

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Healthcare: The Price Is Not Right

In this episode, Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal shares a treatment plan for our healthcare system. Elisabeth is an ER doctor turned reporter. She's the author of the New York Times bestselling book, An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take it Back. Her book reveals the dangerous, expensive, and dysfunctional American healthcare system, and tells us exactly what we can do to fix it. Dr. Rosenthal spent 22 years as a correspondent at the New York Times before joining Kaiser Health News as Editor-in-Chief in 2016.

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The Sexual Abuse to Prison Pipeline

In this episode, HaeSung Han, founder of POETIC, explains how vulnerable youth are at risk of exploitation like sexual abuse and sex trafficking. POETIC builds a pipeline out of the juvenile justice system and into intensive aftercare for girls who have been exploited and trafficked.

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Hungry for Justice

In this episode, LaShyra "Lash" Nolen talks about the future of medical education and care. Lash is a medical student, Fulbright scholar, science communicator, and the Founder of the non-profit We Got Us. She currently serves as the first Black woman to become class president of the Harvard Medical School.

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Why Sex Ed Gets An "F"

In this episode, youth sex educator Nora Gelperin dives into the good and bad of sex education today. Nora is the director of Sexuality Education and Training at Advocates for Youth. She is also a proponent of evidence-based sex education, supported by leading professional organizations including the AMA, ACOG, APHA, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

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Special Episode: Domestic Violence and Its Rise During the Pandemic

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and in this episode, we’ll dissect how a pandemic, economic shock, and civil unrest compounded domestic violence risk factors and reduced access to resources.

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