
About Healthbox
Healthbox, a HIMSS Solution and healthcare advisory firm, drives innovation from the inside and out, helping organizations build internal innovation programs, assess the potential of employee-led projects, and look to the market to find solutions to implement or invest in.
Our History
Healthbox launched in 2010 as one of the world’s first healthcare-focused accelerators. In partnership with leading healthcare organizations, we set out with the goal of supporting entrepreneurial innovation to drive the industry forward. Through our work, we recognized that innovation must be embraced on a larger scale across the industry to truly empower the reinvention of healthcare. In 2014, Healthbox launched advisory services to help organizations develop their own innovative strategies and programs to support exponential improvements in the service and delivery of care. Healthbox advisement has enabled transformative results, including the commercial launches of caregiver-led projects, pioneering the first sustainable and longest-running innovation program partnership, and delivering actionable strategies that continue to produce lasting impact. Since March 2018, Healthbox has been a part of HIMSS, the worldwide leader enabling the promise of better health through information and technology. Together, we are empowering the reinvention of healthcare on a global scale.
Our Team

Alex Kirsch
Alex Kirsch | Technical Coordinator | alex@healthbox.com
Alex Kirsch is a proven servant leader bringing over 20 years of software development experience as a developer and project manager. His passion for transforming individuals into high performing autonomous teams using Agile methodologies has helped organizations like the state of Colorado’s health insurance marketplace, Connect for Health Colorado. He was integral in their adoption of Agile and successfully coached multiple scrum teams to modernize their platform to the cloud during a special enrollment for Covid-19. Alex is a certified Agile Leader and Scrum Master.
Alex Kirsch
Technical Coordinator

Callie Patel
Callie Patel | Director, Innovation Consulting | callie@healthbox.com
Callie leads client engagements across Healthbox’s consulting services. Prior to Healthbox, Callie managed healthcare engagements at Huron Consulting Group. Callie’s professional experience spans community-based hospitals, children’s hospitals, academic medical centers, and regional/national delivery systems, focusing on operational excellence, clinical transformation, technology implementations, and change management. Callie holds a BS in Industrial & Systems Engineering from University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as an MBA from Chicago Booth.
Callie Patel
Director, Innovation Consulting

Evan Cohen
Evan Cohen | Associate Principal, Strategic Investing | evan@healthbox.com
Evan is part of the investment team for the DaVita Venture Fund.
Previously, he led M&A and strategic payer activities at Genoa
Healthcare (OptumRx division), the country’s leading behavioral health
pharmacy, telepsychiatry and medication management services company.
Evan joined Genoa Healthcare through the acquisition of 1DocWay, where
he managed clinic-based telepsychiatry sales. He was formerly a
healthcare investment banker at Piper Jaffray, where he advised
biopharmaceutical, medical device, and healthcare services companies
on capital raising and M&A transactions. Evan began his career at
BlackRock, where he served as a fixed income product specialist
managing institutional client business totaling nearly $100B AUM. Evan
resides in New York City and received his BA in Economics from
Northwestern University and his MBA from Columbia Business School.
Evan Cohen
Associate Principal, Strategic Investing

Jeff Ries
Jeff Ries | Managing Director, Strategic Investing | jeff@healthbox.com
Jeff manages the DaVita Venture Fund. Previously, he led the Intermountain Healthcare Innovation Fund where he led investments in Zebra Medical Vision, Syapse, Sera Prognostics and Collective Medical Technologies. Jeff was formerly at Oxeon Partners where he focused on building and investing in healthcare companies. He was also an investor at Sandbox Industries where he helped manage BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners, a $600M healthcare fund. While at Sandbox, Jeff started several tech-enabled startups and helped raise capital for Cultivian Sandbox, an agriculture-technology venture fund. He began his career at LaSalle Investment Management, a private equity firm with $50B AUM. Jeff resides in New York City and received his BA in Economics from Northwestern University and his MBA from Harvard Business School.
Jeff Ries
Managing Director, Strategic Investing

Jess Debakey
Jess DeBakey | Manager, Innovation Consulting | jdebakey@healthbox.com
Jess supports Healthbox’s innovation consulting engagements. Prior to Healthbox, she supported healthcare consulting engagements at The Advisory Board Company. Her time there was largely spent on the design and implementation of innovative electronic medical record solutions for pharmaceutical market access initiatives. Jess holds a BA in Public Health Studies from Johns Hopkins University and MPH in Public Health Communication and Marketing from George Washington University.
Jess DeBakey
Manager, Innovation Consulting

Johanna Smith
Johanna Smith | Program Manager, Marketing | johanna.smith@himss.org
Johanna is a Program Manager supporting Healthbox marketing initiatives and strategies. She is a seasoned marketer with a history of creating high-quality deliverables for internal and external partners. Johanna’s expertise is centered around branding and creating powerful campaigns and communications to drive the organization-consumer relationship. Over the course of her career, she has demonstrated her passion for marketing through a variety of roles, both in CPG and healthcare. Some key areas of success are in engaging teams to produce industry leading content and the planning, execution and monitoring activities associated with brand evolution. Prior to joining HIMSS, Johanna was the National Marketing Manager at The Chartis Group, a management consulting and analytics firm operating solely within the healthcare industry. While in that role, she led cross-functional teams to develop and launch social media campaigns; conducted market research to identify brand building opportunities; and developed effective digital, print and social content to increase brand awareness among providers and the media.Johanna holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing, from DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois, where she was a selected as a member of the Integrated Marketing Education (IME) Honors Program.
Johanna Smith
Program Manager, Marketing

Julie Campbell
Julie Campbell | Director, Innovation Consulting | julie@healthbox.com
Julie leads client engagements across Healthbox’s consulting services. Julie comes from an extensive background in health system consulting with the Huron Consulting Group. As a liaison to executive teams, she has implemented lean process improvement solutions across clinical, quality, workforce, and supply chain engagements, lead Population Health Management strategic assessments, and supported internal strategic development. Julie graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in Business Administration, and holds her MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Julie Campbell
Director, Innovation Consulting

Justin Gernot
Justin Gernot | Vice President | justin@healthbox.com
Justin leads business development for Healthbox and shares responsibilities for general management and services delivery. Prior to joining Healthbox, Justin held sales and management roles with GE Healthcare, Sg2, Intuitive Surgical, and Dell EMC, where he introduced new clinical technologies, engaged provider leaders to create new service lines, and led the commercial efforts around new clinical, business and IT strategies. Justin holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from The Ohio State University and MBA from the Kellogg School of Management with concentrations in Finance and Marketing.
Justin Gernot
Vice President

Matty Francis
Matty Francis | Principal, Strategic Investing | matty@healthbox.com
Matty is part of the investment team for the DaVita Venture Fund.
Matty Francis
Principal, Strategic Investing

Natalia Kokoszka
Natalia Kokoszka | Operations Coordinator | natalia@healthbox.com
Natalia supports the leadership team and manages projects including Healthbox participation at the HIMSS Global Conference and Healthbox Forums. Prior to joining the Healthbox team, she focused on healthcare administration, operations, and development with providers such as Team Rehabilitation and Loyola University Medical Center. Natalia holds a Bachelor of Science in Health Systems Management and Business Administration from Loyola University Chicago.
Natalia Kokszka
Operations Coordinator

Neil Patel
Neil Patel | President, Healthbox & EVP, HIMSS | neil@healthbox.com
Neil is responsible for leading the Healthbox mission to empower the reinvention of healthcare through innovation consulting and fund management services. Neil was named President of Healthbox in 2016 and led the company to an acquisition by HIMSS, the global leader in transforming health through information and technology, in 2018. Prior to joining Healthbox, Neil worked at The Chartis Group, where he developed long-range strategic plans for children’s hospitals, integrated delivery networks, and academic medical centers. Neil started his career at Sg2 in a technology evaluation and consulting role, focusing on surgical services, operations, and enterprise strategic planning. Neil holds a BS in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA with concentrations in finance, healthcare, and entrepreneurship from The Kellogg School of Management.
Neil Patel
President, Healthbox & EVP, HIMSS

Reed Goldberg
Reed Goldberg | Associate, Strategic Investing | reed@healthbox.com
Reed supports Healthbox’s strategic investing activities. Prior to joining Healthbox Reed worked at The Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City, assisting with the development and planning of an International Surgical and Ambulatory Facility. He has researched and written reports on more than 60 companies in the digital health space. Reed holds a BA in Economics and Global Health from Northwestern University.
Reed Goldberg
Associate, Strategic Investing

Susie Lewis
Susie Lewis | Senior Product Lead | susie@healthbox.com
Susie Lewis is the Senior Product Lead for the Healthbox Innovation Platform, Idealy. Susie’s approach to running product combines the insights and tools from her MBA with a diversity of corporate and nonprofit leadership experiences. The result is a sensible, pragmatic, and disciplined approach to articulating priorities, managing stakeholders, and driving projects to completion. Susie has spent her career managing projects, programs, campaigns, events and partnerships aimed at creating positive change in both the workforce and the world. As a core member of the Healthbox technical team, Susie leverages agile practices including Scrum, Agile Leadership, Kanban, and more.
Susie Lewis
Senior Product Lead

Tom Reis
Tom Reis | Technical Lead | tom@healthbox.com
Tom is responsible for leading technical development of the Ideal innovation facilitation platform. Tom has been using a wide variety of modern web technologies and programming languages to solve difficult business challenges since 2013. He has previously worked on the Public Library Association’s Digital Learn digital literacy platform and developed the cloud-based process management platform for UV-Concepts Inc.’s Constellation Program, which aims to reinvent the portable medical equipment disinfection process. Tom graduated in 2013 with a BA in Physics from the University of Colorado in Boulder Colorado.
Tom Reis
Technical Lead

Tony Mango
Tony Mango
Analyst, Innovation Consulting

Tynan Szvetecz
Tynan Szvetecz | Director, Product | tynan@healthbox.com
Tynan is a lifelong technologist, entrepreneur, and trusted advisor. He has led the development of innovative new enterprise platforms for Allscripts, DaVita, The University of Texas Medical Branch, Envision Healthcare, and US Oncology. His leadership in enterprise and healthcare technology is now focused on growth and development of the Healthbox innovation platform, Idealy. His capabilities span executive strategy & forecasting, business model development, agile change management, innovation readiness, cloud-based platform development, and solution distribution.
Tynan Szvetecz
Director, Product

Yuriy Onyskiv
Yuriy Onyskiv | Manager, Innovation Consulting | yuriy@healthbox.com
Yuriy supports Healthbox’s Innovation Consulting engagements. Prior to Healthbox, Yuriy led investments in Midwest-based startups at Quake Capital Partners in New York City while also working with the active fund portfolio. Additionally, Yuriy has entrepreneurial experience co-founding Socrates, a medical education assistant for medical students and junior doctors. He also has extensive experience in management consulting, leading projects in healthcare M&A, financial restructuring, and change management at Crowe and Huron Consulting Group. Yuriy holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin and a Master’s degree in Health Policy & Economics from the London School of Economics & Political Science.
Yuriy Onyskiv
Manager, Innovation Consulting
Advisory Board

Devin Gross

Devin Gross

Larry Leisure

Larry Leisure

Sumit Nagpal

Sumit Nagpal
Healthbox Office Hours
Healthbox provides open office hours to BIPOC and women founders in the healthcare services and technology spaces to support and encourage entrepreneurship for underrepresented groups.
Entrepreneurs are invited to sign up for 1-1 feedback related to their
- Sales approach/business model
- Pitch preparation
- Fundraising advice.
Inviting all qualified founders to sign up for a session here!
Careers
There are no open positions at this time. Please check back for updates.
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