A lot of the contact patients have with their care teams—speaking from personal experience—is routine and administrative. It's not just about symptoms or treatment plans. It’s “I need my disability paperwork completed,” or “You mentioned a nutritionist—can I get their name and number again?” These kinds of requests are essential, but they’re often deprioritized in a clinical environment where emergencies and prescription needs naturally rise to the top. And yet, the voicemails, portal messages, and emails continue to pile up, creating a constant challenge for care teams to triage effectively. As a cancer patient, I understand that every call matters—it’s all necessary. But not everything is equally urgent.

What I’ve come to learn firsthand is this: I can be receiving excellent clinical care and still be having a frustrating or fragmented patient experience. That’s because “patient experience” isn’t limited to what happens inside the infusion center or during a doctor’s visit. It’s shaped by every interaction and touchpoint across the entire journey—from how easily I can get information, to how quickly someone responds, to whether or not I feel heard and supported when it’s not a medical emergency. These in-between moments matter.

That’s exactly why I founded Nova Health Labs. What began as a digital advocacy campaign to help newly diagnosed breast cancer patients manage information overload has since evolved into a digital health company with a broader vision. Today, Nova is an intelligent communications platform built for oncology—designed to help care teams deliver timely, personalized, and actionable information to patients without getting buried in manual workflows. I believe people living with cancer should be the architects of their care—but that can’t happen unless they have access to the right information at the right time. Our approach is to ease the operational bottlenecks in care delivery created by a widening gap between patient needs and available resources. When oncology clinics run more efficiently, both patients and providers win.