The Clinical Realist cover art

The Clinical Realist

The Clinical Realist

By: Dr. Sarah Matt
Listen for free

Healthcare innovation is broken. We have billion-dollar AI running on 1990s infrastructure. We have startups dying in "Pilotitis." And we have leaders frozen by analysis paralysis.

Dr. Sarah Matt (The Clinical Realist) is here to fix the disconnect between the tech stack and the trauma bay.

Join Dr. Matt—physician, strategist, and author of The Borderless Healthcare Revolution—as she cuts through the hype to reveal what actually works in modern medicine. No buzzwords. No fluff. Just the raw, unvarnished truth about how to lead, build, and survive in the future of healthcare.

If you are tired of the "Star Trek" vision and want the "Clinical Reality," this is your show.

Subscribe to The Sarah Matt Briefing for weekly insights on healthcare AI, access strategy, and the business of medicine: https://drsarahmatt.com/newsletter-signup

© 2026 The Clinical Realist Economics Hygiene & Healthy Living Management Management & Leadership Physical Illness & Disease
Episodes
  • What an Acquirer Is Actually Buying: Exit-Readiness for Healthtech, with Dr. Roxie Mooney

    What an Acquirer Is Actually Buying: Exit-Readiness for Healthtech, with Dr. Roxie Mooney
    Jul 1 2026
    Most healthtech founders solve a real clinical problem, get piloted in a few systems, and then discover that solving the clinical problem was never the same thing as building a company someone would actually buy. Dr. Roxie Mooney, DBA, has spent her career on that exact gap. In this episode of The Clinical Realist, Dr. Sarah Matt talks with Dr. Roxie Mooney, founder and CEO of Legacy DNA, where she works with midmarket healthtech and pharmacy companies, often private-equity backed, who are twelve to thirty-six months out from an acquisition or a capital event. She holds a Doctorate in Business Administration focused on commercializing healthcare technology. She helped scale BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy from roughly 750 million dollars to 2 billion in revenue, which led to back-to-back acquisitions by Nautic Partners and then Elevance Health, and she has been part of four successful exits. The conversation covers what an acquirer is actually buying, why most healthtech companies are commercially unready long before they think they are, pilotitis from the commercialization side, the first metric a strategic acquirer opens the diligence folder to find, where pharma and healthtech commercial logic split, and what the current deal climate means for a company eighteen months from an exit. What you will take away: - What a strategic acquirer is actually buying, beyond the clinical science - The signs a founder does not yet understand what makes a company acquirable - Why pilotitis is the enemy of exit readiness - The first metric in the diligence folder - A clear read on the current M and A climate for healthtech Find Roxie: LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/roxiemooney/ | Substack https://healthinnovatorsedge.substack.com | Book: How Health Innovators Maximize Market Success | Company: Legacy DNA (https://legacy-dna.com) Book a Discovery and Clarity Session: https://calendly.com/sarahmattmd Subscribe to The Sarah Matt Briefing: https://drsarahmatt.com/newsletter-signup

    —

    Resources & Links:

    📖 Get the Book: "The Borderless Healthcare Revolution" is available now on Amazon and major retailers.

    💼 Work with Dr. Matt:
    Looking for a keynote speaker or strategic advisor?
    Visit: drsarahmatt.com

    🔗 Connect on Social:
    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahmattmd/
    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DrSarahMatt-ClinicalRealist

    📧 Subscribe to The Briefing: drsarahmatt.com/newsletter-signup

    —
    Disclaimer:
    The views expressed on this podcast are those of Dr. Sarah Matt and her guests. They do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated institutions. This content is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice or a professional consulting relationship.
    Show More Show Less
    45 mins
  • AI Is a Power Shift, Not Just a Tool: Dr. Robert Pearl on What Generative AI Actually Changes for Physicians and Health Systems

    AI Is a Power Shift, Not Just a Tool: Dr. Robert Pearl on What Generative AI Actually Changes for Physicians and Health Systems
    Jun 24 2026
    Two years ago, every health system was running an AI pilot. Today, most are still running AI pilots. The technology improved dramatically. The deployment gap between what a board approves and what happens in an exam room stayed the same. In this episode of The Clinical Realist, Dr. Sarah Matt talks with Dr. Robert Pearl about what that gap looks like from inside a system that actually closed it. Pearl was CEO of The Permanente Medical Group and Co-CEO of Kaiser Permanente for 18 years, running 22,000 physicians and 103,000 staff while practicing facial plastic surgery. He is now a clinical professor at Stanford GSB and the School of Medicine, and the author of ChatGPT, MD: How AI-Empowered Patients and Doctors Can Take Back Control of American Medicine. The conversation covers the part that does not fit on a conference slide: the honest before-and-after between narrow AI and generative AI, why patients gaining information parity with physicians is a power shift and not just a convenience, the diagnostic error comparison that almost no one in medicine will make publicly, and what it actually takes to close the boardroom-to-care-floor seam before the tools scale past the governance. What you will take away: - The honest clinical difference between the first wave of narrow AI and generative AI in practice (not in press releases) - Why physician resistance to AI second-opinions is about power structure, not just liability or hallucinations - The diagnostic error comparison between AI and physicians, and why the data is not being discussed publicly - What health system boards are being told about AI ROI versus what is actually happening in exam rooms - Where the governance needs to be before the tools scale Book a Discovery and Clarity Session: https://calendly.com/sarahmattmd Subscribe to The Sarah Matt Briefing: https://drsarahmatt.com/newsletter-signup

    —

    Resources & Links:

    📖 Get the Book: "The Borderless Healthcare Revolution" is available now on Amazon and major retailers.

    💼 Work with Dr. Matt:
    Looking for a keynote speaker or strategic advisor?
    Visit: drsarahmatt.com

    🔗 Connect on Social:
    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahmattmd/
    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DrSarahMatt-ClinicalRealist

    📧 Subscribe to The Briefing: drsarahmatt.com/newsletter-signup

    —
    Disclaimer:
    The views expressed on this podcast are those of Dr. Sarah Matt and her guests. They do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated institutions. This content is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice or a professional consulting relationship.
    Show More Show Less
    36 mins
  • Why Health Systems Keep Getting Patient Experience Wrong | Amanda Brummitt, FACHE

    Why Health Systems Keep Getting Patient Experience Wrong | Amanda Brummitt, FACHE
    Jun 17 2026
    Patient experience gets treated as a soft metric. Amanda Brummitt, FACHE, has spent 25+ years in health system operations proving it is a margin lever, a retention lever, and the first thing most AI rollouts ignore.\n\nIn this episode of The Clinical Realist, Dr. Sarah Matt sits down with Amanda Brummitt, Principal of Brummitt Group, to unpack why patient experience is strategy, not sentiment, and what health system leaders get wrong when they bolt AI onto a broken experience.\n\nGuest: Amanda Brummitt, FACHE, Principal, Brummitt Group\nHost: Dr. Sarah Matt, MD, MBA, surgery-trained physician-executive\n\ndrsarahmatt.com | https://calendly.com/sarahmattmd

    —

    Resources & Links:

    📖 Get the Book: "The Borderless Healthcare Revolution" is available now on Amazon and major retailers.

    💼 Work with Dr. Matt:
    Looking for a keynote speaker or strategic advisor?
    Visit: drsarahmatt.com

    🔗 Connect on Social:
    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahmattmd/
    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DrSarahMatt-ClinicalRealist

    📧 Subscribe to The Briefing: drsarahmatt.com/newsletter-signup

    —
    Disclaimer:
    The views expressed on this podcast are those of Dr. Sarah Matt and her guests. They do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated institutions. This content is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice or a professional consulting relationship.
    Show More Show Less
    27 mins
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
No reviews yet