Growing and scaling a team over the last year — especially in the high-demand digital health industry — has often felt like navigating a ship in the eye of the storm. Then most recently, our Austin-based company faced a literal storm when the majority of our employees were left without power, WiFi, heat, and running water for several days.

The pandemic has created uncharted territory for even the most seasoned CEOs. As a leader with an untraditional background, I was emboldened to find the success of your business doesn’t solely rely on who you know, where you live, or where…

Healthcare Interview Series with Wheel CEO & Co-founder Michelle Davey

Early on in my journey as a first-time founder and CEO, I quickly recognized the importance of building relationships and growing my network with peers and mentors to get a better understanding of how Wheel can best advance the healthcare industry forward.

The healthcare landscape is so vast and expansive, it’s nearly impossible to be an expert on all the moving parts — and getting advice from those who were on similar journeys has proven to be invaluable.

This comes back to how we landed on the name “Wheel” to…

Well, we’ve just about arrived at putting an end to 2020 — the year that nobody expected or wanted.

I’ve written before about what it felt like when our new normal was suddenly forced upon us. One day it was business as usual, the next we were grappling with a virus that we knew little about yet was exponentially spreading.

While the healthcare industry has historically been resistant to change, the pandemic allowed little room for sluggish responses and preconceived notions. For the last ten months, everyone from industry stalwarts to digital health innovators have been sprinting at full speed…

Telehealth has been the darling industry of 2020. The silver lining in an unprecedented pandemic, it’s rapidly becoming an incredible catalyst for evolving healthcare as we know it.

This is our moment! We’ve finally changed hearts and minds about what we’ve been championing for the last ten years. As an industry, we’ve collectively shepherded our virtual care technologies into mainstream adoption, made regulators take notice of policy barriers and introduce changes, and secured record funding for our disruptive businesses.

But have we really climbed the mountain and planted our virtual care flag atop the peak? …

I get asked nearly every day, “So, who does Wheel work with?” With a smile, I always answer that question the same way, “We power a lot of the healthcare companies you know and love.”

It’s not always satisfying to be on the other end of that answer, but when I explain why Wheel doesn’t publicly talk about our clients, everyone gets it.

We are the industry’s secret weapon.

It used to be that building your own clinical network was seen as a differentiator — a way to ensure quality patient experiences and clinical outcomes in the telehealth industry. But times have changed. …

It happened so fast. One day it was business as usual, and seemingly the next day the global pandemic was upon us.

At Wheel, I remember thinking, “Okay, first we need to make some rapid decisions. Do we close the office? Do we cancel travel? How do I prepare my teams for an overnight change in how we work?”

But then it became increasingly clear that there were BIGGER, far more critical decisions to be made — about our business and industry. How could we scale faster to meet the demand for virtual care solutions? As a startup fresh off…

I recently had a critical conversation with both my Chief Medical Director, Dr. Rafid Fadul, and my Co-founder, Griffin Mulcahey. And the net of the conversation was this:

“This is a perfect storm, and it’s scary: a world on the brink of a pandemic, entire countries in crisis and quarantine, and a growing shortage of doctors and healthcare workers. How do we orient the public conversation towards the solution that we KNOW exists to help mitigate fear and spread of contagion?”

Digital health. Virtual care. Telemedicine. All synonyms for the solution that’s been right in front of us for decades…

As a child I was chronically sick, interacting with the healthcare system early and often. Growing up in a rural Texas town, my access to specialized care was limited — so it wasn’t until my symptoms exacerbated over 15 years that I finally discovered I had an autoimmune disease.

Sadly, I’m not alone in my all-too-long journey to diagnosis and help. Whether in a rural town with limited provider options, an underserved community without quality clinics, or a bustling metropolis with shockingly few available doctor’s appointments, too many people cannot access the care they need, when they need it.

That’s…