Laguna Health Adds Six Healthcare and Business Visionaries to Its Expanded Advisory Board

• Digital at-home recovery platform leverages the expertise of industry powerhouses to further its mission of providing whole-person care in the context of the home
• In addition to healthcare, new advisors bring decades of experience from a range of diverse industry sectors including employee benefits and consumer products
• Advisors will support the Laguna management team in pursuit of new opportunities with prominent healthcare organizations

NEW YORK, June 1, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Laguna Health, a digital-first home recovery platform, today announced the addition of six healthcare industry and business leaders and visionaries to its Advisory Board, significantly expanding the company's access to expertise as it enters a period of accelerated momentum and growth. The new members are:

• Larry Kaiser, M.D., Managing Director, Alvarez & Marsal
• Harlan Levine, M.D., President, Strategy and Business Ventures, City of Hope
• Deborah Fine, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, miR Scientific and President, Global Impact, Impact NRS
• Eyal Zimlichman, M.D., Chief Transformation Officer and Chief Innovation Officer, Sheba Medical Center
• Buck Baker, Director, Total Rewards and Talent Acquisition (Retired), Yazaki North America
• Jason Shaplen, Chief Strategy and New Ventures Officer, Community Health Center

"The addition of so many esteemed executives from wide-ranging backgrounds to our Advisory Board further validates the platform we have built to modernize and dramatically improve the transition to at-home recovery, impacting the $180 billion home recovery market," said Yoni Shtein, CEO and co-founder of Laguna. "We welcome our new advisors and look forward to leveraging their collective expertise to advance our mission of solving one of the healthcare industry's biggest challenges."

From surgical procedures to major medical events like a heart attack or a stroke, patients are too often sent home from hospitals and healthcare facilities armed only with written instructions and discharge papers. They lack the support and tools they need to continue and complete their recovery in their home environment. As a result, patients are more likely to experience negative health outcomes, and more often than not, wind up returning to the hospital. Laguna provides the tools and technology for both providers and patients to transition to home care and ensure the continuation of recovery.

"Laguna is directly addressing a critical and overlooked gap in our healthcare system, enabling the continuity of care through technology and reducing costs for healthcare systems," said Deborah Fine. "The industry is taking notice, as evidenced by the momentum Laguna has seen with multiple high-profile healthcare systems and insurance carriers. Laguna's leadership team is building something innovative and impactful and I'm proud and privileged to work alongside this deep bench of colleagues and advisors, lending my expertise to help drive the company forward."

Cardiothoracic surgeon Larry Kaiser specializes in leading healthcare systems, primarily in restructuring, process improvement and strategy. He is currently a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal's Healthcare Industry Group in New York, a leading global professional services firm that provides advisory, business performance improvement and turnaround management services. Dr. Kaiser brings more than two decades of leadership experience in a variety of healthcare institutions, including President and CEO of Temple University Health System, President of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and Professor and Chairman of the Department of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania and Surgeon-in-Chief of the Penn Health System. He previously held senior faculty appointments at Washington University, St. Louis, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Cornell University. Dr. Kaiser is board certified in both surgery and thoracic surgery and has served as a director of both the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Thoracic Surgery.  

Dr. Harlan Levine leads strategy, innovation, business development, drug commercialization, payer strategies, and the Center for International Medicine at City of Hope. He also serves as the chairman of the board of AccessHope^TM, City of Hope's subsidiary focused on serving the employer market and making leading-edge cancer care available to all regardless of geography.

Dr. Levine holds board positions at Active Life Scientific and BioscienceLA; has held executive roles at UnitedHealth Group, Towers Watson, and Anthem Inc.; and is a long-term strategic advisor to Quantum Health.

Dr. Eyal Zimlichman is an internal medicine physician, healthcare executive, and researcher focused on assessing and improving healthcare quality and value, patient engagement, and patient safety. He currently serves as Deputy Director General, Chief Medical Officer, and Chief Innovation Officer at Israel's largest hospital, Sheba Medical Center. Dr. Zimlichman holds an appointment at the Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice affiliated with Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School and has served as an advisor to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Deborah Fine is an established executive and proven CEO within multiple industry sectors including healthcare, direct-to-consumer and wholesale consumer products, media, and entertainment. She has led six diverse B2B and B2C businesses to record growth and profit in both public and private enterprises.  Fine is President of Global Impact at parent company Impact NRS  and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at subsidiary miR Scientific, a biotechnology company developing and commercializing a breakthrough cancer diagnostic.  Since 2015, she has been a member of the Women's Leadership Board of the Harvard Kennedy School's Women and Public Policy Program.

Before retiring in 2018, Buck Baker held multiple human resources positions over a nearly 10-year period at Yazaki North America, a global leader in the research, development, and delivery of vehicle power and data solutions for automotive applications. A graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Business School, Baker held senior-level executive and consultant positions at Capital H Group, Hewitt Associates, and McKinsey & Company during his career. Previously he was also  Chairman of The Board of Trustees at The Roeper School.

A CEO, advisor, investor and leadership coach, Jason Shaplen specializes in leading and transforming organizations at inflection points or lifecycle moments through an enhanced focus on strategy, management, and culture.  The majority of this work is in digital healthcare and healthcare for the underserved, including Medicaid.  In 2021, Jason was appointed by the National Association of Community Health Centers to the inaugural Advisory Board of its Center for Community Health Innovation. He has founded two profitable social enterprises and advised numerous startup companies, working with CEOs and boards on strategy and management.

About Laguna Health

Laguna is a digital-first home recovery platform that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and clinical models to empower healthcare teams to better understand individuals' life context – including their behavioral health, socioeconomic circumstances, lifestyle habits and more. Laguna achieves better health outcomes by optimizing virtual care and automating data insights, making predictive barriers actionable, resulting in dramatically better transitions, lower readmissions, and faster recoveries. To learn more about Laguna, visit www.lagunahealth.com

Media Contact:
Kimberly Dreisinger | 805-350-4421
Mariah Borthwick | 347-764-7819
[email protected]

SOURCE Laguna Health