30 Under 30 Healthcare 2026: AI That Improves Care And Cuts Administrative Burden
Across pharmacy counters, operating rooms and phone lines, a new wave of leaders under 30 is cutting waste from care and returning time to clinicians. The theme is clear: practical tools, measurable outcomes, and fewer bottlenecks for patients and staff.
Below are the standouts and why their work matters if you run a clinic, manage a service line, or own outcomes for patient access and safety.
Featured Entrepreneur: Asepha - Less Pharmacy Paperwork, More Patient Time
Former pharmacist Eunice Wu, 26, teamed up with Can Uncu, 25, to launch Asepha. Their software reads handwritten prescriptions and verifies medical codes so pharmacists can stop drowning in manual entry and focus on clinical counseling.
The two-year-old company has raised more than $4 million. The result: faster verification, fewer transcription errors, and a tangible lift in pharmacist capacity during peak hours.
Assort Health - AI That Actually Answers The Phone
Founders Jeffery Liu, 28, and Jon Wang, 28, built a text-to-voice system that checks physician calendars and books the right slot automatically. It tackles the grind of inbound phone scheduling where simple questions often take dozens of minutes.
With more than $100 million raised, the platform has shortened wait times on millions of calls. Clinics get fewer call-backs and no-shows; patients get confirmed appointments without the back-and-forth.
More Builders Using AI To Remove Friction
- Knowtex (Jocelyn Kang, 26; Caroline Zhang, 25): Automating clinical workflows to reduce clicks, handoffs and delays between teams.
- Illumant Surgical (James Hu, 29; Jhoneldrick Millares, 28): Combining AI and computer vision to improve image-guided procedures and decision support in the OR.
- Mandolin (Will Yin, 26; Rohit Rustagi, 29): Streamlining access to specialty drugs, tightening the loop between prescription, benefits verification and fulfillment.
Breakthroughs Beyond AI
Nudge (Jeremy Barenholz, 27): Focused ultrasound to image and noninvasively stimulate deep brain regions-aimed at new pathways for neurological care. For background on the modality, see the NIH overview of focused ultrasound here.
Intero Biosystems (Madeline Eiken, 28; Charlie Childs, 28): Growing miniature human intestines to test medications. If it scales, this could reduce reliance on animal testing and speed early-stage drug insights.
Researchers To Watch
Bradley Pierce, 29: U.S. Army general surgery resident who developed a life support system to sustain patients with traumatic abdominal hemorrhage on the battlefield.
Arya Rao, 24: MD-PhD candidate (Harvard/MIT) analyzing the underlying structures of gene therapies to help accelerate safer, more effective drug development.
How This Under 30 Healthcare List Was Built
- Open nominations plus independent reporting fed the candidate pool.
- Eligibility: under age 30 as of December 31, 2025; no prior selection to North America, Europe or Asia 30 Under 30 lists.
- Diversity snapshot: 41% women, 46% identify as a person of color, 77% founders.
- Judges: Gail Boudreaux (CEO, Elevance Health), Neil Kumar (Founder/CEO, BridgeBio), Annie Lamont (Cofounder & Managing Partner, Oak HC/FT), and Anirudh Joshi (Cofounder/CEO, Valar Labs; 2025 Under 30 alum in Healthcare).
What This Means For Healthcare Leaders
- Reclaim clinician time: Start where cognitive load is highest-pharmacy verification, prior auth, scheduling, and chart triage.
- Measure the basics: Call abandonment rate, average speed to answer, refill turnaround, time-to-schedule, and documentation minutes per encounter.
- Pilot with clear guardrails: Run a 60-90 day trial on one workflow. Define acceptance criteria (accuracy, throughput, exceptions) and an exit plan.
- Integrate, don't bolt on: Choose tools that plug into your EHR, PMS, and revenue cycle systems to avoid double work and shadow IT.
- Governance matters: Create a lightweight review for data use, model updates, and error reporting. Align with your compliance officer from day one.
- Upskill your team: Train staff on prompts, oversight and exception handling so AI handles the routine and humans handle the edge cases.
If You're Planning Next Steps
- Map one end-to-end workflow (e.g., new patient scheduling) and identify handoffs, rework, and delays.
- Set a cost-of-delay number for that workflow. It clarifies ROI and speeds buying decisions.
- Borrow benchmarks from peers and professional groups focused on reducing administrative burden (AMA overview).
Upskilling For Healthcare Teams
If you're standing up AI pilots or training frontline staff, curated courses by job role can help you move faster: Courses by job and Latest AI courses.
The throughline across these honorees is simple: reduce friction, improve access, and let clinicians practice at the top of their license. That's the work that moves patient outcomes and financial performance in the same direction.
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