Transforming Healthcare Access: Derek Streat on DexCare, AI, and the Future of Care

AI in Healthcare: Derek Streat on AI Innovation and Expanding Access

 

Derek Streat, CEO and Founder of DexCare, is an experienced entrepreneur with a track record of founding and leading six venture-backed companies, four of which have achieved successful acquisitions. His ventures have included scaling businesses to over $100 million in revenue and establishing non-profits that benefit more than half of all children with kidney transplants. Streat focuses on solving large-scale, impactful problems by leveraging innovative data solutions to bring transparency and efficiency to markets, reducing costs and delivering societal benefits.

DexCare is a care orchestration platform that optimizes healthcare delivery and workforce capacity while enhancing patient convenience. It integrates with existing systems to unify data, forecast demand, allocate resources, and guide patients to the most appropriate care, delivering actionable insights and streamlined operations.

DexCare was born out of your personal journey with healthcare, specifically in helping your child access critical care. How did this experience shape your vision for DexCare, and how does it continue to influence the company’s mission today?

Fifteen years ago, my three-year-old child needed a lifesaving kidney transplant. It was an arduous journey filled with sleepless nights as my wife and I struggled to navigate a fragmented healthcare system. We watched as our little one moved between specialists, surgeries, and intensive care, ultimately receiving a transplant. Through it all, I realized just how fortunate I was to have unfettered access to care. For many Americans, that’s not the case.

Over 37% of Americans live in healthcare deserts. My own experience, combined with years of working closely with healthcare systems, revealed a clear need to bridge the access gap for everyone. In fact, not every patient needs to see a physician – they need the right care, in the right place, at the right time. And that insight led me to found DexCare, a platform designed to orchestrate where and how care is delivered. By reducing provider burnout, creating capacity, and expanding access, we aim to serve more patients effectively. Incubated at Providence, DexCare spun out in 2021 and now proudly partners with leading health systems across the country, including Texas Health Resources, Tampa General, and Piedmont Healthcare.

You’ve successfully founded several healthcare-focused companies. What specific challenges did you encounter in founding DexCare, and how did your prior ventures prepare you for launching this care orchestration platform?

From idea to prototype, to raising capital and scaling, every startup faces familiar hurdles. In healthcare, these challenges are amplified by talent wars, long sales cycles, cautious capital markets, and an ever-shifting regulatory landscape. Success demands a careful balancing act. Having founded and exited multiple companies, I’ve been in the trenches and gained firsthand insight into what it takes to build resilient teams and products capable of thriving under pressure. These lessons became essential when launching DexCare and crafting a strategy to succeed amid the complexities of healthcare.

My foray into healthcare began with Medify, an intelligence company that used NLP technology to create structured data from the vast, global repository of medical literature. The platform made a real difference for patients with rare diseases, bringing together small, scattered populations into larger groups with meaningful insights. At its peak, one in ten doctors across the U.S. relied on our knowledge base to find treatments and therapies that could make a difference for their patients. Eventually, Medify became part of Alliance Health, a leading health network.

After Medify, I began tackling a different set of challenges, focusing on how technology could directly influence clinical practice through C-SATS.

An AI-powered platform, C-SATS leveraged robotics and machine learning to evaluate surgical performance, providing surgeons with actionable insights to improve their skills and patient outcomes. This work with AI—long before today’s hype— opened my eyes to the uncharted complexities of integrating advanced technology into a high-stakes environment like healthcare. While the platform sidestepped privacy concerns by using anonymized surgical footage, it surfaced deeper issues, as surgeons were apprehensive about being credentialed based on technology, as it had direct implications for their careers and livelihoods. This experience taught me that introducing innovation in healthcare requires more than technical expertise—it demands building trust with stakeholders and proactively addressing the unintended consequences that can emerge when technology intersects with human lives.

Throughout my career, I’ve focused on dismantling systemic barriers—scarce resources, disconnected data, and inequitable access—by leveraging technology rooted in practicality, not hype. When building DexCare, I prioritized data intelligence as the cornerstone of our AI applications. And this focus ensures clean, reliable, and unified data that powers how care is orchestrated, routed, and delivered. By exposing capacity imbalances—identifying overburdened providers and underutilized resources—we’re reimagining healthcare to optimize operations and to deliver better outcomes for patients.

DexCare was incubated within the Providence Health system. Could you talk about the advantages of developing a startup from within a large healthcare organization, and how that shaped DexCare’s growth?

DexCare was born within Providence to solve a key challenge in healthcare: balancing supply and demand by leveraging existing marketing, IT, and operational infrastructure. Being built inside a health system gave us an intimate understanding of the dual challenges facing healthcare today. For organizations, it’s the constant struggle to meet growing care demands with limited resources. And for patients, it’s the frustration of finding care when and where it’s needed. This perspective uniquely positions us to empower health systems with critical infrastructure for more effective digital discovery and access, while simultaneously optimizing system capacity. And our incubation within Providence allowed us to refine the platform before scaling to health systems nationwide.

AI in healthcare has been heralded as revolutionary, but it has also faced significant hurdles. How have you seen AI evolve in healthcare over the years, and where do you think it has fallen short of its potential?

The rise of AI in healthcare has sparked both excitement and caution. While AI is becoming more mainstream, significant hurdles remain before it can transform the industry. A recent survey revealed that 96% of healthcare CIOs see AI adoption as a competitive advantage, yet integration challenges—like system interoperability and workflow alignment—often stand in the way. And without seamless integration into the daily process, clinicians, physicians, and administrators are unlikely to embrace these tools.

The crowded landscape of over 14,000 AI-focused companies adds to the complexity, making it difficult for health systems to separate hype from solutions that deliver real value. Choosing the right technology partner requires more than evaluating features—it demands solutions that integrate smoothly, enhance existing workflows, and address real-world challenges.

But the core issue isn’t just finding the next tool—it’s unlocking the potential within healthcare’s existing data. Sustainable systems depend on harmonizing data across care records, workflows, and third-party platforms. Only then can we tackle real priorities, like freeing clinicians to focus on people over paperwork and closing critical care gaps. And this is precisely where DexCare fits in.

DexCare uses AI to optimize healthcare delivery by predicting and distributing care resources. Can you walk us through how the platform’s AI works and how it has impacted care delivery at scale?

DexCare’s care orchestration platform harnesses advanced data intelligence by consolidating key inputs—scheduling, modalities, utilization, locations, and costs—to determine where, when, and how care should be accessed. Our AI not only ingests and organizes massive data sets but also dynamically aligns care delivery with patient needs. For instance, the platform categorizes content—whether it’s an article on seasonal flu, preventive care, or specialized services—and matches it to the most appropriate pathways to care, all while understanding complex taxonomies and synonyms. The result? By linking relevant content to the most suitable venues of care, the platform ensures patients are guided seamlessly to the services they need, enhancing both access and outcomes.

The results speak for themselves. DexCare enables 40% more patients to receive care using the same clinical resources, drives a 24% increase in new patient acquisition, and saves over 34,000 hours of physician time. By eliminating unnecessary steps and presenting clear, actionable choices from the start, we’re transforming patient access and operational efficiency at scale—delivering measurable improvements for patients and providers.

AI has the power to automate tasks and streamline processes, but it can also create fear around job displacement in healthcare. How do you see AI impacting the healthcare workforce, and what strategies can mitigate these concerns?

Addressing fears of job displacement in healthcare begins with clarity. AI isn’t here to replace the human touch in care delivery—it’s here to complement it. Technology, including AI, augments the capabilities of healthcare professionals, but it’s not a silver bullet for addressing the growing gap between increasing patient needs and a shrinking physician workforce.

Platforms like DexCare demonstrate how AI can be a critical tool in extending the capacity of limited healthcare resources. By intelligently balancing workforce demands, controlling costs, and optimizing capacity, AI helps health systems operate more efficiently. This not only ensures patients receive the care they need but also alleviates burdens on providers, reducing burnout and creating a more sustainable healthcare environment. It’s about building smarter, more resilient systems.

What are some of the unintended consequences you’ve observed in the implementation of AI in healthcare, particularly in terms of accountability for AI-driven mistakes? How does DexCare address these ethical challenges?

When I was at C-SATS, we used robotics and machine learning to train surgeons and to improve patient outcomes. While innovative, this approach raised important questions about privacy, consent, surgeon autonomy, and the ethical use of data. These challenges highlighted a crucial truth: implementing AI in healthcare requires rigorous, standardized policies to ensure the safe and ethical use of the technology.

In healthcare, there is no margin for error—lives are at stake. This makes it imperative to establish clear guidelines and frameworks that can serve as a ‘North Star’ to navigate uncharted legal and ethical questions. And accountability and transparency must be at the heart of AI applications in healthcare. By focusing on data integrity and designing systems to enhance, not overshadow, human decision-making, we can advance innovation responsibly while addressing the needs of the industry.

While AI offers tremendous potential for improving access to care, what steps do you think healthcare systems need to take to ensure equitable AI adoption, especially for underserved populations?

AI adoption in healthcare, especially for underserved populations, requires a focus on data fidelity, diversity, and aggregation. In an industry beset by fragmented data silos, the ability to unify and analyze information is crucial. Generative AI has the potential to create life-saving connections by integrating patient records, population health disparities, and propensity models to improve diagnosis, treatment, and care outcomes. However, these advancements depend on using bias-free datasets at scale to avoid perpetuating inequities.

Responsibility doesn’t rest solely with health systems. A unified approach is needed, starting with standardizing AI deployment at scale. Sensible, national-level regulations can ensure AI improves our collective healthcare while, at the same time, must avoid overreach that stifles innovation. Overly restrictive measures risk hampering progress, but clear guidelines on infrastructure, usage, and data governance are essential. These standards can help address bias, mitigate risks, and foster a system where AI elevates care quality for all patients, not just the privileged few.

From a founder’s perspective, what advice would you give to entrepreneurs looking to bring AI into healthcare, considering the unique regulatory and ethical challenges of the industry?

Successful entrepreneurs, particularly in healthcare, must not only challenge the status quo but also reject the notion that the system is beyond fixing. The opportunities to improve healthcare are immense, but once you dive deep into the self-imposed complexities and the hurdles the industry presents, the scale of the problems can seem overwhelming. True innovation requires resilience—the ability to confront these challenges head-on and to remain steadfast in your mission. Your vision to improve care and outcomes must always outweigh the obstacles of scaling technology.

Success in healthcare isn’t just about the technology – it’s also about aligning with the needs of patients, providers, and systems, and having the resolve to smile even when the path gets steep. My advice: Stay adaptable, embrace setbacks, and focus on building solutions that solve for immediate, real-world problems.

Looking ahead, what are the most exciting AI advancements you foresee in the next 5–10 years for healthcare, and what specific areas do you think AI will struggle to penetrate?

Predicting the future is tricky—it’s uncertain and ever-changing. With thousands of companies exploring AI from every angle, the potential is incredible, but so are the challenges. What we do know, however, is that AI is poised to fundamentally reshape how care is accessed, delivered, and experienced. One of the most exciting advancements I foresee over the horizon is truly personalized medicine—tailored treatment plans and unique therapeutic “cocktails” designed to give each patient exactly what they need to heal and thrive.

Healthcare – long hamstrung by fragmented data and outdated systems – is on the brink of breaking free. And by connecting patient records, addressing population disparities, and using predictive models, AI has the power to create life-saving solutions while shifting the focus of healthcare toward greater access and consumer-centric care.

We’re still in the early stages of this journey and navigating unknowns. While we can’t predict the exact breakthroughs ahead, we know AI is steadily improving how care is delivered—driving better outcomes for patients and empowering providers. The progress already being made is inspiring, and I’m proud to contribute to this transformation.

This story was originally published by Unite.AI on December 11, 2024: https://www.unite.ai/derek-streat-ceo-and-founder-of-dexcare-interview-series/