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Dr. Monique Smith & Dr. David Wright of Emory's Health DesignED

Atlanta Healthcare Entrepreneur Meetup

By Atlanta Ventures

March 10^th, 2022

On Wednesday, March 9th, HealthIT folks joined us virtually for a conversation between A.T. Gimbel, Partner at Atlanta Ventures, and both Dr. Monique Smith and Dr. David Wright of Emory’s Health DesignED. The three spoke about what Health DesignED does, acute care, machine learning, and much more. Below are some of the highlights from the event.

These Meetups are part of an ongoing series of talks about Healthcare in Atlanta, with an objective of making Atlanta the premier place to start and grow a HealthIT business. The goal of these meetups is to facilitate connections, hear from industry professionals, and truly dig deeper into Healthcare problems that Atlanta entrepreneurs can help solve.

Check out the full video below!

ABOUT THE EVENT

Health DesignED’s mission is to reimagine acute care so that it is effortless and equitable. Health DesignED uses health expertise, design thinking, and agile practices to prototype high quality, equitable, tech-enabled acute care. As examples, they piloted a symptom checker as a digital front door to health care, launched an omni-channel engagement to send 1.5 million COVID-19 related health education and resource messages and nudge healthier behaviors, and delivered on-demand virtual care through new channels.

Dr. Monique Smith is the Founding Executive Director for Health DesignED. Dr. David Wright is the Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Emory.

Dr. Monique Smith & Dr. David Wright of Emory's Health DesignED

THREE TAKEAWAYS FROM THE EVENT:

Start with problems and then iterate solutions. Focus on problems that have positive health outcomes as well as financial benefits.
Have a willingness to pivot. Be open to tweaking the solution to more effectively solve a big problem.
Looking into the future, two big problems to solve are:
How to effectively integrate the vast amount of information/AI into the workflow of how physicians practice.
Digital health has delivered a lot of innovation into many widgets, but a lot less innovation into solving hard problems of access, need, and diversity.

Digital health has delivered a lot of innovation into many widgets, but a lot less innovation into solving hard problems of access, need, and diversity.

“I was someone who grew up in Atlanta. I saw the beauty of what was built here from an ecosystem perspective.”

The Health DesignED team is currently looking for a Director of Programs; if interested you can learn more about the role at this link. The Emory Careers website is listed at the end of the document to formally apply. The Emory School of Medicine is also looking for a Sr. Associate Dean for Education Transformation and Innovation position. More details can be found here.

Dr. Monique Smith & Dr. David Wright of Emory's Health DesignED

Stay involved. Join the Meetup.

JOIN HERE

Footnotes

Virtual event hosted by Atlanta Ventures

FootNotes

Virtual event hosted by Atlanta Ventures

© 2026 Atlanta Ventures

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