From Innovation to Impact: Why Strong Teams Build the Best HealthTech Products
Brenda Armstrong
3 days ago7 min read
Over the past 15 years, I’ve placed top talent across various industries, but my personal journey as a woman navigating healthcare has reshaped my focus. The gaps in care, the lack of research, and the overwhelming sense that women’s health is an afterthought have driven me to concentrate on HealthTech and more specifically, FemTech. Women’s health is grossly underfunded, under-researched, and underrepresented, yet the need for innovation has never been greater.
As I rally around the efforts to close these gaps, I continue speaking with HealthTech leaders who are making an impact. Their work fuels my commitment to ensuring that we’re not just building products, but that we’re building the right products—ones that truly improve lives—particularly for women. This paper brings together insights from industry leaders, founders, and hiring managers to explore how we can build better teams that will drive the future of HealthTech innovation.
Building Better HealthTech for Women
Women’s health has historically been overlooked in research, funding, and innovation. According to McKinsey’s blueprint for closing the women’s health gap, better products for women start with a deeper understanding of the unique challenges they face—ranging from reproductive health and maternal care to menopause and chronic conditions that disproportionately impact women. Their report highlights key steps for improving women's health solutions, including:
✺ Expanding Research & Data – Many conditions affecting women remain under-researched, leading to a lack of effective treatments and diagnostics. Investment in clinical trials and health data focused on women is crucial.
✺ Developing Inclusive & Personalized Solutions – Women’s health needs are diverse. Products must be designed with an understanding of biological, behavioral, and lifestyle differences.
✺Integrating FemTech into Mainstream Healthcare – FemTech is a booming sector, but its success hinges on integration with existing healthcare systems rather than functioning as a niche market.
✺ Addressing Systemic Barriers – Policy, affordability, and accessibility remain major hurdles in women’s healthcare. Addressing these barriers requires collaboration between HealthTech companies, investors, and policymakers.
By following this blueprint, companies can create more effective solutions that not only improve health outcomes for women but also drive economic and societal benefits.
However, building better products isn’t just about understanding the problem—it’s about having the right teams in place to solve it. The complexities of women’s health require cross-functional collaboration between clinicians, engineers, regulatory experts, and product managers. Without the right talent to drive these initiatives, even the most promising ideas can fail to materialize.
This is where many HealthTech companies struggle, leading to common pitfalls that prevent meaningful progress.
The Challenge: Where HealthTech Products Fail
The best HealthTech products seamlessly blend clinical evidence, user experience, and scalable technology. Yet, many fail because they are either:
▶︎Too Clinician-Driven: A product is built for doctors, but with little regard for usability by patients.
▶︎Too Tech-Heavy: Engineers focus on features, but the product lacks real-world clinical applicability.
▶︎Siloed Development: Regulatory teams are brought in too late, leading to costly redesigns and delays.
▶︎Lack of Market Fit: Companies build before deeply understanding the problem they are solving.
To solve this, product teams need to integrate clinical, regulatory, technical, and business expertise from day one.
Yet, even with the best technology and market strategies, the true differentiator for successful HealthTech products lies in the teams behind them. By learning from industry leaders who have successfully built and scaled HealthTech solutions, we can uncover what truly makes an impact in product development and hiring strategies.
Building Strong Teams: Insights from Industry Leaders
The Power of Cross-Functional Collaboration
HealthTech innovation cannot happen in silos. Successful products require input from diverse stakeholders—clinical experts, product managers, engineers, UX designers, and regulatory specialists. As Matthew Pepper, MD, MBA points out, “Teams should always be multidisciplinary from the beginning. Everyone needs to be in the room when defining the problem and roadmap.”
Fragmented solutions often stem from a lack of collaboration and a narrow clinical perspective. Grant Lunney emphasizes, “If you’re building a product for clinicians, you can’t assume they are the end-user. You need to deeply understand the workflow and how it integrates with real-world healthcare systems.”
Just as good data in leads to good data out, diverse user experience input leads to more inclusive, effective products. Product teams—especially those with clinical backgrounds—must avoid designing from personal experience or letting a single provider dictate development.
Too often, health tech companies rely on one MD, DO, PA, or NP, resulting in narrow solutions. Engaging a broad range of clinicians and system stakeholders ensures products fit real-world healthcare complexities.
Empathy as a Core Product Skill
Empathy is often overlooked as a technical requirement, but it is crucial for developing solutions that truly improve health outcomes. Digital health solutions must consider the full spectrum of a patient’s experience, extending beyond clinical settings and into daily life.
Tanu Bose, Ph.D., MBA, Co-Founder of MyStack (https://my-stack.ai/), underscores this by stating, “The best digital health solutions are built on an understanding that healthcare doesn’t happen in a doctor’s office—it happens in between visits. A product should serve the patient in their daily life, not just serve the clinician.”
When teams fail to prioritize empathy, they risk building products that are difficult to use, fail to engage patients, or do not align with real patient needs. True innovation happens when technical expertise is matched with a deep understanding of the human experience.
Bridging Clinical & Tech Expertise
A frequent issue in HealthTech is the disconnect between clinical teams and product development. Many companies struggle because they lack internal clinical expertise or fail to include medical professionals in the product lifecycle.
Jack Haeger, Lead Product Manager, warns that “So many digital health companies launch products that fail to gain traction because they were designed without real input from clinicians and patients. Having a clinical expert embedded in every phase of product development is critical.”
The most successful companies integrate clinical perspectives early and often, ensuring that technology serves real medical needs and aligns with regulatory and compliance standards. This not only improves adoption rates but also accelerates the pathway to market approval.
How to Hire for Product Success in HealthTech
So, what separates the companies that create groundbreaking products from those that fail to gain traction? It comes down to the people. The teams behind HealthTech products need to be as dynamic and adaptable as the solutions they’re building.
Finding Problem-Solvers, Not Just Technicians
A great hire isn’t just someone who can write code or understand compliance regulations—it’s someone who approaches problems with curiosity and a commitment to real-world impact. Gerrit Jacob, Product Manager, emphasizes, “Hire people who are obsessed with the problem, not just the technology.”
Too often, companies get caught up in finding candidates with the perfect technical background but miss out on individuals who excel at problem-solving.
Usman Raza, Principal Product Manager, notes that successful hires are those who can see both the big picture and the details: “A strong hire is someone who understands both the big picture and the small details. They can zoom out to see the problem, but also work through the technical constraints.”
Bridging the Gap Between Tech and Clinical Expertise
The best HealthTech products emerge when technologists and healthcare professionals work together seamlessly. But this kind of collaboration doesn’t happen by accident—it has to be built into hiring and team culture.
Lynda Moyer, Sr Product Manager/Strategy advises, “If you’re hiring someone from tech, make sure they shadow clinicians and patients. If you’re hiring from healthcare, get them to spend time with engineers and UX teams.”
This cross-training fosters understanding, improves communication, and ultimately leads to better product decisions. Without it, teams risk creating solutions that are misaligned with user needs and clinical realities.
Embedding Regulatory & Compliance Early
A major pitfall for HealthTech startups is underestimating regulatory and compliance needs. Engaging regulatory experts early in the product development process isn’t just about checking a box—it’s about ensuring a smoother path to market.
Pepper warns, “Companies make a huge mistake when they don’t engage regulatory experts at the start. It’s not just about compliance; it’s about building a product that can actually get to market.”
By hiring team members who understand how to navigate regulations proactively, companies can avoid costly delays and redesigns later in the process.
Diversity & Agility: The Hidden Advantages
Diverse teams don’t just make a company look good on paper—they lead to more innovative and inclusive products. Bringing together professionals from different backgrounds, disciplines, and lived experiences allows for richer problem-solving and better user insights.
Lunney puts it plainly: “Companies that build diverse teams—across gender, race, and professional backgrounds—develop better solutions. Diverse perspectives ensure that products serve broader populations and don’t reinforce existing biases in healthcare.”
Agility is equally important. The best teams aren’t just technically skilled—they’re adaptable, collaborative, and open to change. Companies that prioritize these qualities in hiring will build teams capable of driving long-term success in the ever-evolving HealthTech landscape.
By shifting the focus from rigid technical qualifications to adaptability, empathy, and problem-solving, HealthTech companies can build stronger teams that are capable of delivering groundbreaking solutions. The key to better products isn’t just better technology—it’s better people. Hiring wisely today will define the future of healthcare innovation.
At ITEOM Talent Partners, we understand that hiring is more than just filling a position; it’s about aligning purpose-driven professionals with mission-critical roles. Our expertise in executive search and placement ensures that HealthTech companies are equipped with the leaders, visionaries, and experts who can turn ambitious ideas into scalable, impactful solutions. Whether you're scaling your team, navigating product development complexities, or seeking leadership that can drive transformation, we are here to help.
HealthTech is evolving rapidly, and the companies that invest in the right talent today will be the ones shaping the future of digital health. Let’s ensure that the teams we build are as innovative, resilient, and forward-thinking as the products they create.
References
The insights shared here reflect the personal experiences and opinions of industry experts and do not necessarily represent the views of their employers or organizations.
