At forty I had experienced chest pain. My heart was fine, but a scan incidentally found early-stage cancer, forty-five days after my annual physical. A physical answers one question, are you well today, and it answered correctly. But nothing in that visit was designed to find cancer.
Becoming a patient in the system I spent years running allowed me to experience every gap it creates after diagnosis: the result no one calls about, the referral that goes nowhere, the decision no one owns.
I was a hospital executive with excellent insurance. I understood the system. I knew physicians. I could expertly manage my way through the complexity because of who I am.
No one should need my résumé to get through their own care.


— Hallie Woods, Founder











