The Coyote Ventures Health Equity fall gathering convened leaders from health systems, payers, startups, and policy to wrestle with a fundamental challenge: how do we design innovation that is scalable, financially viable, and above all, equitable?

Our one-day summit was held at Belos Cavalos, a nonprofit equine therapy center in Sonoma. We started the day with a sound bath with the horses and a wellness session with Allison Tibbs. As healthcare professionals, we recognize the importance of taking care of ourselves in order to take care of others.

Explore the full agenda, speaker lineup, and highlight video on the Health Equity Innovators website. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Coyote Ventures newsletter to stay updated on announcements for our next summit!

Sara Stratton, Kali Arduini Ihde, Jennie Kung, and Milan Chavarkar

Health Systems Perspectives

Our health system panel included Kali Arduini Ihde (Northwestern Medicine), Sara Stratton (Sutter Health), and Jennie Kung (Mayo Clinic). Their perspectives highlighted how major health organizations are approaching innovation in ways that balance internal creativity, external partnerships, and systemic challenges like payer relationships and health equity.

One theme across all the panelists was the importance of creating internal innovation programs such as Northwestern’s “Health Catalyst” competition, Sutter’s innovation challenges, or Mayo’s accelerator programs. These programs empower staff to contribute ideas and provide pathways for those ideas to turn into real-world solutions. Leaders emphasized that much of their role is not only scanning the market for transformative technologies but also preparing their organizations to adopt solutions they might not yet realize they need, moving beyond “faster horses” to genuine breakthroughs. This refers to the well-known story about Henry Ford’s remark that people at the time asked for faster horses—unable to imagine that something entirely new, like the automobile, was possible.

Partnerships with startups are proving just as crucial. Northwestern has partnered with a startup that leverages AI to cut down the pain of prior authorizations, speeding up care delivery and reducing administrative burnout. Sutter highlighted how a collaboration with Concert Health dramatically improved access to mental health care, reducing wait times from months to weeks. Mayo’s approach is even more proactive, working with startups before their products are fully formed so its clinicians can shape them into something truly valuable. Success stories aren’t about flashy pilots; they’re about proving clinical impact, showing scalability, and in many cases, meeting overwhelming physician demand.

One of the more complex threads was the role of insurers. Historically, payer-provider collaboration has been tough terrain. But necessity is forcing innovation and collaboration.

More systems are piloting models that weave reimbursement logic into clinical workflows or that prove measurable cost savings upfront. These experiments are resource-heavy, but they’re increasingly viewed as the only way to align incentives across providers, payers, and patients.

And then there’s the human layer. AI is moving fast in healthcare, from ambient documentation to automation at scale, but panelists urged caution. If equity isn’t baked into design, we risk encoding bias into the very systems meant to deliver better care. Sutter and Mayo shared how they’ve embedded patient perspectives, cultural insights, and equity reviews into their innovation processes.

The takeaway: building trust and designing with empathy isn’t optional; it’s the foundation for ensuring patients and clinicians will actually adopt these tools.

Sean McCluskey, Alana Troutt, and Mika Eddy

Navigating Roadblocks in a Challenging Changing Policy Landscape

Our health policy session featuring Alana Troutt (San Francisco Health Plan), Sean McCluskey (former HHS), and Mika Eddy (Malama Health) dove into how policy changes are affecting non-dilutive funding, digital health, and Medicaid.

A major theme was the recognition that maternal health crises are no longer isolated issues; they’re systemic. As Mika described, high-risk pregnancies have become “almost the norm” in the US, with gestational diabetes alone now affecting one in five pregnancies. Her story underscored both the urgency and the opportunity: pregnancy is a “golden window” for improving long-term health outcomes.

On the payer side, Alana highlighted a different but equally pressing challenge: translating innovation into the realities of Medicaid. For example, when California began covering doula services, the doulas themselves often had little experience working within health plan systems. Innovation succeeds when it is designed to integrate into the messy infrastructure of payers, providers, and codes, not just when it offers a new clinical idea.

The policy backdrop, as explained by Sean, is what makes this moment especially precarious. After years of expansion, the US is now facing the first contraction in health coverage in decades. The Medicaid population is being squeezed through new administrative barriers and looming cuts, which could push millions off insurance coverage. States, unlike the federal government, can’t deficit spend, forcing tradeoffs that often hit the most politically vulnerable populations, such as immigrants. At the same time, hospitals and providers face declining reimbursement and a surge of uncompensated care. The ripple effect? Innovators and payers alike are being forced to rethink sustainability, business models, and messaging in an environment where even once-core concepts like ‘social determinants of health’ are deemed political.

However, there are lots of new opportunities. This includes non-dilutive funding opportunities tied to chronic disease prevention and nutrition, the chance to reframe solutions to fit political realities, and the resilience of community-based care models like Head Start and Planned Parenthood that persist despite repeated funding shocks.

The through-line across perspectives was clear: innovators must stay nimble, adjusting language, forging partnerships with payers, and proving value in both outcomes and cost savings while never losing sight of the underlying needs.

Pooja Mittal, Stella Tran, Anuradhika, and Priyanka Vaidya

AI & Medicaid

Our last collaborative panel included Pooja Mittal (HealthNet), Stella Tran (CHCF), and Anuradhika (CommonSpirit Health). They spoke to the opportunities and challenges of bringing AI into Medicaid and safety-net systems, where the stakes are especially high.

Panelists stressed that trust is both a barrier and an opportunity for AI adoption. Without trust, patients and providers are unlikely to share data or embrace new tools. With it, AI could empower healthcare systems to deliver more responsive and culturally competent care. Trust isn’t abstract, it requires giving communities, especially immigrant families, low-income patients, and people of color, a meaningful role in shaping how AI is designed and deployed.

AI’s impact can be visualized in concentric circles. On the outer circle are administrative tasks—billing, claims, and supply chains—where automation can cut costs and reduce inefficiency. The next layer addresses provider workflows, helping with documentation and communication so clinicians can spend more time with patients. At the core is the clinical space itself, where AI could support medication adherence, discharge planning, and culturally tailored care. This framing underscores that AI is not just about efficiency, but about reimagining healthcare delivery around human needs.

Equity was a throughline across the discussion. If AI models are trained on narrow or biased datasets, they risk reinforcing systemic inequities. Yet AI also presents an opportunity: tools that support language access, community health worker–specific electronic records, and improved data interoperability could help democratize care. Achieving this requires deliberate investment—building diverse datasets, ensuring safety-net providers are included in pilots, and centering patient voices in design.

The policy environment adds another layer of complexity. With HR1 reshaping Medicaid funding and priorities, health systems face both uncertainty and urgency. Resource-strapped organizations may now be more open to turnkey AI solutions that save money or generate revenue quickly. But panelists warned against adopting tools without keeping patients at the center: AI should serve as an adjunct to human connection, not a replacement for it.

The conversation made clear that the future of AI in healthcare isn’t just about algorithms or efficiency gains. It’s about trust, inclusion, and equity. Done right, AI could relieve overburdened providers, make systems more responsive, and close long-standing gaps in care. Done wrong, it risks deepening disparities. The challenge—and opportunity—lies in ensuring AI innovation is tethered to patient-centered design and the lived realities of the communities it seeks to serve.

Innovation Spotlights

We believe the most powerful way to inspire hope in the face of today’s pressing healthcare challenges is by highlighting the founders who are on the ground, building solutions for patients often overlooked by the current system. At our Fall Gathering, the Innovation Spotlights featured:

Melissa Pancoast, Founder and CEO of The Beans, a platform that simplifies the path to financial balance through design and technology, so that people can stress less about money.

Neeraj Sonalkar, building the Health Futures Lab, a strategic innovation platform to realize systems change through co-design of new care models and payment models.

Milan Chavarkar, Founder and CEO of PriMi Health, an agentic AI platform delivering personalized healthcare recommendations, starting with fertility.

Lee Sanders, Pediatrics and Health Policy Professor at Stanford University, shared a Health Equity framework that includes not only access to care, but also emphasizing quality of care that incorporates the latest technologies to ensure patient outcomes.

With these inspiring Innovation Spotlights and rich conversations throughout the day, our Fall Gathering was a true success. We’re excited to see the collaborations, partnerships, and new ideas that will continue to grow from this community—and we look forward to coming together again soon.

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Health Equity Innovators Fall Gathering: Highlights & Takeaways

Why We Invested: Koda Health