10 Innovators Making Healthcare More Accessible with AI

At Techonomy, we believe that artificial intelligence isn’t just the future of healthcare—it’s the future of healthcare access. The real promise of AI isn’t simply about faster diagnostics or operational efficiency. It’s about fundamentally reshaping who receives care, how they access it, and whether the system recognizes their needs at all.

AI can democratize personal health information. But more importantly, it can help level the playing field in how care is delivered—bridging geographic gaps, reducing diagnostic delays, and unlocking personalized insights for those who’ve historically been excluded from the system. That kind of transformation doesn’t happen by accident. It requires leadership, vision, and a deep commitment to deploying technology in an ethical, equitable, and intelligent manner.

Ruth Yomtoubian, VP of Global Innovation at VSP Vision adds, “The real opportunity goes beyond efficiency. AI gives us the tools to reimagine access itself. As leaders, we must ensure that what we scale isn’t just technology, but trust and inclusion across the entire healthcare system.”

That’s why we’re spotlighting this year’s AI and Health Access honorees in partnership with VSP Vision. These founders, clinicians, engineers, and strategists are demonstrating what it takes to get it right. They’re using AI not as a buzzword, but as a lever for expanding access to rural communities, underserved patients, overlooked conditions, and more. From retinal scans that detect systemic disease to platforms that unify fragmented health records, these leaders are building tools that see people more fully—and systems that serve people more fairly.

Yomtoubian comments, “the innovations highlighted in Techonomy’s AI & Health Access Pioneer list reflect a powerful shift: AI isn’t just optimizing healthcare—it’s redefining who gets access and how. In vision care, we’re seeing this through earlier disease detection via accessible diagnostics and smarter benefit navigation for underserved communities.”

We honor these changemakers not just for what they’ve built, but for who they’re building it for. They are setting a standard the rest of the industry would do well to follow.

Allon Bloch, CEO & Co-Founder, K Health

Allon Bloch is democratizing primary care through K Health’s AI-powered virtual platform. By removing insurance barriers, K Health offers on-demand medical consultations to underserved communities. Its Medical Chat intake tool and Provider Co-Pilot support clinicians with data-driven insights, enhancing both efficiency and diagnostic accuracy. Under Bloch’s leadership, partnerships with Cedars-Sinai, Hackensack Meridian Health, and Hartford HealthCare have extended virtual care to new populations, while approximately 75,000 Ukrainian refugees in the U.S. have received free virtual services. In collaboration with Mayo Clinic Platform, K Health is developing AI-driven cardiac care solutions aimed at preventing heart disease and stroke. Bloch’s work highlights how AI can widen access without compromising quality.

Dr. Jennifer Schneider, CEO & Founder, Homeward Health

Dr. Jennifer Schneider is transforming rural healthcare with Homeward Health’s hybrid care model. Launched in 2022, the company deploys mobile clinics at Rite Aid locations, conducts in-home visits, and uses cellular remote monitoring to bridge the gap faced by rural Americans, who experience 23% higher mortality than urban residents. Growing up in a small town and living with type 1 diabetes, Dr. Schneider personally understands these challenges. As a Livongo veteran who guided its IPO and merger with Teladoc, she brings deep health-tech expertise to Homeward. Beginning with cardiology services, Homeward immediately increases access to primary and specialty care in remote communities.

Eliav Shaked, CEO & Co-Founder, RetiSpec

Eliav Shaked is redefining Alzheimer’s diagnostics through RetiSpec’s hyperspectral-AI algorithm that transforms routine retinal images into cerebral amyloid assessments. By leveraging existing, low-cost fundus cameras and delivering cloud-based results in minutes, RetiSpec bypasses invasive lumbar punctures and scarce PET scans. This non-invasive approach can be deployed in primary care and community eye clinics worldwide, enabling earlier detection and intervention. Shaked has forged partnerships with memory clinics, ophthalmology networks, and patient advocacy groups across North America to train clinicians and integrate the technology into daily workflows. His strategy illustrates how pragmatic engineering and global rollout can democratize critical diagnostics and promote equitable care.

Amanda “Mandy” Ralston, Founder & CEO, NonBinary Solutions

Amanda Ralston, M.Ed., BCBA, LBA, leads NonBinary Solutions (NBS) to modernize autism and neurodivergent care. As demand for Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) grows—impacting 1 in 36 individuals—many service providers lack experience. Ralston’s flagship platform, Knowetic.ai, is an AI-assisted Clinical Decision Support System that integrates evidence-based protocols, recent research, and standardized workflows. By streamlining treatment planning (reducing time by up to 50%), standardizing clinical logic, and offering interactive mentorship to less experienced clinicians, NBS improves care consistency and outcomes. Under Ralston’s guidance, providers gain data-driven insights that empower more confident decision-making for clients across the spectrum of neurodivergent needs.

Shashi Shankar, CEO & Co-Founder, Novellia

Driven by personal loss and frustration with fragmented health records, Shashi Shankar founded Novellia to unify disparate medical data into one continuously updated, patient-controlled record. Novellia’s AI-enabled platform aggregates health histories from multiple systems, enabling clearer decision-making for patients with complex diagnoses like cancer or rare diseases. For biopharma teams, Novellia offers research-ready, longitudinal datasets that accelerate drug development and uncover disparities; published studies on HER2+ breast cancer and non-small cell lung cancer have revealed gaps in biomarker use and adverse event management. By centering patients and optimizing data for innovation, Shankar is paving a path toward smarter care, faster discoveries, and more equitable outcomes.

Rebecca Love, Director of Nurse Innovation & Co-Founder of SONSIEL

Rebecca Love, RN, MSN, FIEL, is pioneer  in nurse-led AI innovation. As founder of Northeastern University’s first Nurse Innovation & Entrepreneurship program, she empowers nurses to create AI-driven solutions that tackle healthcare disparities. Love organizes nurse-focused hackathons, yielding technologies that enhance patient outcomes and access. She also co-founded SONSIEL (Society of Nurse Scientists, Innovators, Entrepreneurs & Leaders), a UN-recognized nonprofit championing nurse innovators worldwide. Through these initiatives, Love cultivates an ecosystem where nursing expertise and AI converge to address gaps in care delivery, from rural clinics to urban hospitals, ensuring technology serves diverse patient populations equitably.

Dr. Billy Magee, D.D.S., M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Operation Smile

As Chief Medical Officer at Operation Smile, Dr. Billy Magee leads a global initiative to close the surgical health equity gap for more than 500 million people globally through a game-changing initiative called Operation 100. Under his leadership, Operation Smile is leveraging AI to support consistent, objective surgical evaluations. This innovation was created to directly address the global shortage of surgical specialists by making high-quality assessments accessible in areas with limited infrastructure or medical personnel. Operation Smile combines advanced analytics with grassroots partnerships (NGOs, local clinics, and governments) to deliver sustainable solutions that address both clinical and social determinants of health. Dr. Magee’s pioneering work demonstrates how AI can scale access to surgical care worldwide.

Rich Mulry, CEO, Northwell Holdings

Rich Mulry heads Northwell Holdings, the corporate venture capital and innovation arm of Northwell Health. He oversees a portfolio of over a dozen AI-enabled healthcare investments and has helped launch five internal companies focused on addressing challenges like physician burnout, disease detection, and care navigation. Within Northwell, Mulry champions a culture of innovation, accelerating internal AI tools such as clinical decision support applications and predictive analytics for patient triage. He also co-founded a digital health system consortium that fosters national collaborations across health systems. Under Mulry’s strategic leadership, Northwell Holdings is catalyzing solutions to improve access and outcomes at scale.

Heather Cole-Lewis, Director of Health Optimization, Google

Heather Cole-Lewis spearheads Google’s Health Optimization efforts, leveraging data and responsible AI to advance digital health equity. Since joining Google in 2022, she has developed metrics and frameworks to assess the impact of digital health tools on underserved populations. Previously, as Director of Behavioral Science and Global Lead for Health Equity Investments at Johnson & Johnson, Cole-Lewis led initiatives to fund AI solutions targeting health disparities in chronic disease management and maternal care. At Google, she guides cross-functional teams to ensure AI-driven health products are both effective and accessible, helping to close gaps in care across socioeconomic and geographic divides.

Ali Tafreshi, CEO & President, Topcon Healthcare

Ali Tafreshi leads Topcon Healthcare’s mission to leverage oculomics—AI-powered retinal analytics—to democratize health insights. Under his leadership, Topcon has partnered with major health systems to validate AI-driven retinal screenings capable of detecting conditions like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. In two years, Topcon has invested in over ten AI and digital health startups and launched IDHea.net, a data-as-a-service platform for ocular health innovation. Tafreshi also co-founded The Alliance for Healthcare from the Eye, promoting ethical AI deployment in vision-based diagnostics. By transforming the eye into a non-invasive portal for systemic health screening, Tafreshi is advancing equitable, cost-effective care.

These innovators will be celebrated during the reception of our June 9 panel, AI for Access: Expanding Care & Benefits Through Innovation, in partnership with VSP Vision’s Global Innovation Center.