Blaine WarkentineMD · MBA

I find who actually pays in clinical markets — and show up with the plan written and the demo already running.

Clinical translator by training — MD, not a practicing physician, fluent on both sides of the table. Twenty years in orthopedic technology and health-system partnerships; now founder of co-op.care and SolvingHealth, shipping the systems I used to advise on.

$250MBrainLAB ortho vertical — built from zero
3 exitsHCA Healthcare · Anytime Fitness · Paragon 28
5 patentsImage-guided surgical navigation
20+ yearsSurgeon-to-technology translation

What I do

Two jobs, one skill. I take health-technology companies into the U.S. market — commercialization, health-system partnerships, reimbursement. And I embed with AI and deep-tech teams as the clinical translator who turns lab science and models into signed, reimbursed, adopted care.

Health System Partnerships

I've spent 20+ years building relationships between technology companies and health systems. I know how deals get done, where they stall, and why. From pilot programs to system-wide adoption, I speak the language on both sides.

The proof: seven years at Pristine →

Healthcare M&A Advisory

I've been in the room when healthcare companies get acquired. InVivoLink (HCA Healthcare), PumpOne (Anytime Fitness), Disior (Paragon 28) — I've helped navigate the diligence process, validate market positioning, and close deals.

The proof: the InVivoLink chapter →

Medical Device Commercialization

I built BrainLAB's orthopedic navigation vertical from zero to $250M. I know what it takes to bring surgical technology to market, gain surgeon adoption, and scale globally.

The proof: the BrainLAB chapter →

Right now I'm looking to go deep with a small number of teams — a health-technology company taking on the U.S. market, or an AI / deep-tech group that needs a clinical translator in the room, not on a call. Fractional, embedded, or full-time. If that sounds like your team, let's talk.

Start a conversation →

Systems, not apps

Healthcare doesn't have an app shortage — it has a systems shortage. I don't build another interface. I architect the whole chain, where every layer serves a clinical purpose and a human owns every decision that carries liability. Three I've built:

Image-guided surgical navigation

The system: the technology that tells a surgeon where to place the instrument — imaging, planning, sensors, and the OR workflow, integrated into one trusted loop. What it proves: I've architected clinical technology in the highest-stakes room there is, and gotten surgeons to trust it. Grew that vertical to $250M across two continents; five patents in the method.

The patents, primary source →

CareOS — a care operating system

The system: assessment → care plan → delivery → billing for home-based care, mapping soft home visits into hospital-grade structured data (Omaha System → FHIR). What it proves: I ship, now — a deployed platform, not a deck. Every layer earns its place, clinically and financially.

See it running: co-op.care →

On-device clinical-AI architecture

The system: an on-device model for orientation, sensors for signal, and a physician for every decision that carries liability — the machine never becomes the source of a medical fact. What it proves: I design at the current frontier, and I put human accountability at the exact seam where it belongs. Proven end-to-end on Apple's on-device model.

The architecture, published →

The pattern never changes: connect biology, sensors, AI, clinicians, and reimbursement into one chain — and keep a person accountable where it counts. That's the job. If you're building a system like this, I want to be in the room.

Let's build one →

The arc

Twenty years at the boundary between surgeons and technology — one continuous thread, not a list of jobs. Tap any stop to see what it taught me about getting innovation adopted.

View
Tap a stop below, then switch views to compare.
The throughline

Every role below is the same job in a different costume: translate between the people who hold the scalpel and the people who build the technology. Tap a stop to follow the thread.

What I'm building now

Founder, co-op.care (aging-in-place care cooperative). Clinical AI evaluation and safety testing for healthcare AI companies. Building SolvingHealth's physician-facing product stack — every card below is a real live domain.

FlagshipFamilies

co-op.care

Worker-owned aging-in-place care

A $59/month care cooperative where the caregiver is an owner. A physician-led assessment determines — case by case — when care qualifies as a medical expense, and documents it when it does. The caregiver stays. The family stays. Boulder-first, national-next.

Surgeons

SurgeonValue

Nine AI agents for an ortho practice

Wonder Bill catches the billing codes your EHR template skipped. Prior Auth drafts letters in 60 seconds. Pocket PWA hands patients a tap-to-refer rail. Zero EHR integration required — enter your NPI, profile live in 10 seconds.

Physicians

ClinicalSwipe

Physician attestation marketplace

AI generates clinical content; licensed physicians review and attest with a swipe, earning $12–400 per review. OIG audit-defensible via Advisory Opinion 25-03. WORM-anchored to Cloudflare R2 with 7-year object lock.

Builders

chanio

The governing layer for your AI projects

40 projects. 50 sessions. Context erodes every 200k tokens and none of your AI sessions know about each other. chanio is the tree they all reference into — a private knowledge graph organized into project channels, compiled nightly to your disk. You don't need another AI. You need one that governs all of them.

Developers

HarnessHealth

Cross-brand MCP primitives

The canonical Sage chat bar that lives at the bottom of every site in the ecosystem. 241 MCP tools across 14 modules. One-click Claude Desktop install. Built for builders, free-to-start, open-schema.

Athletes

SweatSciences

Metabolic health of athletes

Free sweat-rate calculator gives you exact sodium, potassium, and magnesium targets — then routes to a real-food cart (Skratch + bulk minerals) at ~$1.50 per session. No supplements, no manufacturing, no FDA. Content and affiliate model, Parker Warkentine as the founding distance athlete (4:19 mile).

Hardware

Sh-Room

The silent mushroom incubator

A $79, whisper-quiet, 78% recycled home growing system. 2-minute setup. 62% gross margin. For people who want to grow functional mushrooms at home, not buy supplements. Kickstarter-bound.

Every project above is a channel in chanio — compiled nightly, open loops surfaced, context held across sessions.

chanio.com — the governing layer →

Investor, operator, or partner? How these pieces are one machine — draft with AI, sign with a human, own the record — and the bet underneath, in one read.

The investment thesis →

Writing

On the post-AI transition in healthcare — accountability, reimbursement, and what it takes to make the science actually get adopted. Owned, not rented: every essay lives here first, in full. LinkedIn is where I hand it to my network.

Latest · Aug 18, 2026

The AI employee everyone’s building stops one layer short.

The licensed layer AI still can’t supply

The tutorials give the AI what you’d give a new hire — never what you’d give a licensed one. The missing layer, a named human who signs the output and owns the liability, is the whole game for regulated work.

Essay · Aug 18, 2026

You’re living in two worlds. Are you adapting to the second one?

A two-minute self-assessment

Built from Tyler Cowen’s thesis: the bottleneck isn’t the models, it’s whether you’ve changed what you actually do. Most people only freelance with AI — where do you sit?

Series · 4 parts Healthcare cannot run on extraction capitalism
Read the series →

Every essay lands here first, in full — then I hand it to my network on LinkedIn. No Substack, no algorithm, no email wall.

Read all writing →
More: The thesis RAPID Adapt VBC Field notes The engine essay

Education & credentials

Clinical training, business foundation, and deep domain expertise in orthopedic technology.

MD
Medical College of Wisconsin
Full medical degree with deep clinical training in orthopedic medicine and surgical technique.
MBA
University of Utah
Business foundation in strategy, finance, and healthcare commercialization.
Orthopedic Residency (Incomplete)
University of Maryland
Four years of orthopedic surgical training — trauma, sports medicine, joint reconstruction — before leaving in year four to join BrainLAB. I am not a practicing orthopedic surgeon; I am a clinical translator between surgeons and technology.
Surgical Navigation Fellowship
Long Beach Memorial / DePuy BrainLAB
Industry-sponsored fellowship in image-guided surgery and intraoperative navigation — the launchpad into twenty years at the boundary of orthopedic technology.
B.S. in business administration
University of Colorado Boulder
Undergraduate foundation in business, economics, and organizational leadership.
5 Patents
Surgical Navigation & Imaging (assigned to BrainLAB)
Five issued patents in image-guided navigation, intraoperative guidance, and surgical workflow — developed during the BrainLAB orthopedic vertical build-out. Tap to see the primary sources on Google Patents.

Get in touch

Fractional strategy, advisory board, healthcare M&A consulting, or just a real conversation about the agentic care stack. I read everything.

Boulder, CO · reads every message · usually replies within 48 hours