Andrew Hayek is Co-Founder & CEO of Triple Aim Partners (TAP), which builds healthcare services companies that improve the quality, experience, and cost of healthcare. Since its founding in 2019, TAP has co-founded ten companies focused on addressing gaps in the healthcare system across primary care, behavioral health, home care, and more. Before starting TAP, Andrew held leadership roles in healthcare services organizations including DaVita, SCA Health, and Optum Health. Andrew is teaching a new course at Wharton in spring 2026, “Building Value-Oriented Healthcare Services Companies”.

The Pulse: Could you share a bit about your professional journey to date, and how that has shaped your view on the healthcare system?

Andrew Hayek: I grew up in Iowa, and my mother was a nurse who later earned a master’s degree in social work and worked at our local Community Mental Health Center well into her 70s. Through her, I developed an early appreciation for patient care, service to others, and the lived experience of front-line clinicians—as well as a firsthand view into some of the gaps and unmet needs in our healthcare system.

After college, I worked at the Boston Consulting Group and then at KKR, a private equity firm. At KKR, I was working closely with the new CEO of Alliance Healthcare, one of our healthcare portfolio companies focused on diagnostic imaging and radiation therapy. He invited me to join him as COO, which was my first true operating role in healthcare. I loved the experience of working alongside clinicians and operators, leading teams, building culture, and being accountable for results.

After we sold that company, I went on to lead the value-based care division at DaVita, and then spent nine years leading SCA Health, an outpatient surgery company. When Optum acquired SCA, I was asked to lead Optum Health, a broad and diversified platform of clinically oriented businesses within UnitedHealth Group. Then, about six years ago, I partnered with a longtime colleague to create Triple Aim Partners.

At Triple Aim Partners (TAP), we focus on building value-oriented healthcare services businesses in partnership with outstanding leadership teams. We are launching our tenth company, and our portfolio spans primary care enablement, serious mental illness, hospice, home care, addiction treatment, and other areas. We tend to focus on underserved populations, structural gaps in the healthcare system, and opportunities to build companies that can be differentiated both in how they serve patients and how they engage the broader system.

In many ways, the U.S. healthcare system is a paradox. I’ve had family members with rare and complex conditions, and there is nowhere else in the world I would want them treated — we are truly world class in innovation, technology, and complex and acute care. At the same time, healthcare in the U.S. is extraordinarily expensive, often leading people to delay or forgo care, experience financial distress or bankruptcy, and see healthcare costs consume a growing share of household income. We also continue to have major gaps in prevention, behavioral health, and access, along with tens of millions of people who remain uninsured.

We chose the name of our firm intentionally. The “Triple Aim,” a concept coined by Dr. Don Berwick nearly two decades ago, refers to improving population health, improving the experience of care, and reducing the total cost of care. That framework serves as a true north for us — encouraging a system-level view of decisions and their downstream consequences. Our purpose is to build companies that are distinctive not only for what they do, but for how they do it: organizations that are deeply missional, clinically grounded, and operationally excellent.

The Pulse: At Triple Aim Partners, your goal is to build healthcare companies that improve quality, experience, and cost. Could you tell us more about some of your portfolio companies and how they approach these challenges?

AH: We’re drawn to spaces where there are clear gaps in the system and opportunities to better serve populations that are often overlooked.

Our first company, Prospero Health, brings home-based medical care to frail elderly patients with advanced illness. Many of these individuals live alone, are geographically or relationally isolated from family, and are navigating multiple chronic conditions and fragmented specialist care. Through a value-based payment model, Prospero brings longitudinal medical care, coordination, social support, navigation, and even spiritual support into the home for high-acuity seniors.

Another example is firsthand, a company that works with individuals living with serious mental illness who are often disengaged from both medical and behavioral health care. Our front-line teammates are peers — individuals with lived experience with serious mental illness, some of whom have experienced homelessness or incarceration themselves. They meet people where they are, build trust and relationships, and help engage them into care models that address sources of destabilization while supporting appropriate medical and behavioral health treatment.

We also built Diverge Health, which partners with primary care practices serving Medicaid populations. We deploy community health workers, people from the local community whom we train to deliver targeted clinical support and interventions, to help improve outcomes. In parallel, we support these practices in transitioning to value-based payment arrangements, which can provide additional flexibility and resources to better serve their patients.

We also have companies focused on home medical supplies, rural primary care, hospice care, and home health. We aim to launch about two companies per year, and one of the most rewarding aspects of our roles is trying to identify unmet needs and asking whether there’s a better way to design care that works for patients, clinicians, and the system as a whole.

The Pulse: Looking back 10 years, what were experts and policymakers most excited about in healthcare? Which ideas have endured, and which have faded?

AH: This question reminds me of a book written by Wharton professors called Seemed Like a Good Idea. Over the past 70 years, healthcare has seen repeated waves of reform efforts and structural “solutions,” yet the underlying pattern of rising costs and relatively poor population health outcomes has persisted.

Ten years ago, there was significant excitement about electronic medical records, accountable care organizations, and consolidation as mechanisms to improve outcomes and reduce costs. Twenty years earlier, there was optimism around health maintenance organizations and managed care tools like utilization review and prior authorization. Before that, the system shifted from cost-plus reimbursement toward DRGs and outpatient coding.

Each era has brought new ideas and partial improvements, but the fundamental trajectory remains: healthcare costs continue to rise faster than inflation, consuming a growing share of household income, employer spending, and state and federal budgets. At the same time, despite extraordinary advances in specialty care and medical technology, we continue to see rising rates of chronic disease, behavioral health challenges, and life expectancy that lags many peer nations.

One of the questions I continue to wrestle with is whether (and when) cost pressures and gaps in access will force more fundamental changes in system design. I also think a great deal about how much of health outcomes are driven by factors that sit largely outside the traditional healthcare system: diet, exercise, sleep, social connection, substance use, violence, and other social determinants. Those realities complicate any purely “medical” solution.

The Pulse: This year’s conference theme is Healthcare 2030: Preparing Systems, Policy, and People for the Next Decade. How do you think we should prepare the healthcare system for what’s ahead?

AH: I would start by grounding ourselves in the realities of our population-level outcomes such as chronic disease prevalence, behavioral health trends, and life expectancy, alongside per-capita healthcare spending, and comparing those outcomes to peer countries.

I would also encourage more explicit reflection on system design. Systems thinkers often say that the true purpose of a system is best understood by what it produces. Focusing on outcomes rather than intentions or rhetoric can help clarify where incentives, structures, and resource allocation are misaligned.

Finally, I think it’s important to keep in mind Gandhi’s wisdom that the true measure of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable members. In healthcare, that means asking hard questions about how our system serves newborns whose mothers rely on Medicaid, individuals living with serious mental illness, or middle-class families whose health crises become financial catastrophes. When we look at the stagnation of real income growth for working-class Americans over the past several decades, it’s difficult to ignore how much rising healthcare costs have contributed. Preparing for the next decade requires grappling with those realities directly.

The Pulse: You’ll be teaching a new Wharton course this year called Building Value-Oriented Healthcare Services Companies. What is your vision for the class, and why now?

AH: The goal is to share lived experiences from building value-oriented healthcare services companies, using case studies and guest speakers, including CEOs and presidents of companies we’ve helped build. Through those discussions, we hope to develop a practical framework for thinking about what to build, who to build with, and how to launch and scale successfully. We’ll also spend time on leadership, culture, and technology, all of which play critical roles in whether these models succeed.

It’s an honor to have the opportunity to teach, and I’m hoping for feedback that will help improve the course over time. I was never a great athlete growing up, but I was often described as determined and coachable — that’s the mindset I’ll bring to the classroom. If I have the opportunity to continue teaching, my goal will be to make the course better each year.

The Pulse: What advice would you give to those interested in innovating in value-based care and healthcare payment models?

AH: There are many ways to contribute to value-oriented healthcare, across a wide range of roles. For those who aspire to lead healthcare services companies, I would encourage developing a clear sense of your beliefs and values, building working knowledge across multiple healthcare domains, sharpening analytical judgment, and gaining experience leading teams and delivering results.

I also place a great deal of importance on the people you choose to work with. Several mentors took risks on me early in my career and shaped how I think about leadership and responsibility. I would prioritize working with leaders and teams you deeply respect, even more than optimizing for a specific role or title.

Finally, I would encourage staying closely connected to the Wharton community. You have access to an extraordinary network of peers and alumni who can serve as mentors, advisors, and collaborators throughout your healthcare career.