He was bleeding through his shirt, called six doctors’ offices, and not one of them picked up. That single moment — not a whiteboard session, not a pitch deck — is why Oakkar Oakkar built Keona Health.

Oakkar is the CEO of Keona Health, an AI engineer, a surfer, and a jiu-jitsu dad who’s spent over a decade trying to fix the most overlooked part of healthcare: what happens before you ever see a doctor. In this conversation, we get into why patient access is a 23-million-pathway problem, why most “AI wrapper” tools fail patients at the exact moment it matters most, and what surfing and jiu-jitsu taught him about building through years of “we thought this would take way less time than it did.”

If you’ve ever been stuck on hold, transferred five times, or repeated your symptoms to four different people — this episode is for you.

🕐 TIMESTAMPS

00:00 – Introduction: Why access is where healthcare actually starts

04:14 – What surfing taught Oakkar about patience, chaos, and control

07:56 – The origin story: how Keona Health actually started

14:16 – “We thought it’d take a few years.” Reality: 3-4x longer.

19:00 – What “access” actually means (and why we’ve watered the word down)

20:15 – The 23 million pathways problem in primary care

22:40 – Where healthcare is getting AI wrong right now

25:06 – Hallucination, handoffs, and why “ChatGPT wrappers” fail in healthcare

31:42 – The moment Oakkar questioned everything

34:11 – The AI “renaissance” — why it feels like starting the company over

37:00 – What building Keona taught him about people, not machines

40:15 – Advice for founders staring down a problem that feels too big

Learn more about Keona Health: https://keonahealth.com/

Follow Oakkar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oakkar/

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About the Show

The Advancing Healthcare Innovation Show is hosted by Michael Stamatinos, a nationally recognized connector, strategist, and advocate for innovation with purpose. Each week, Michael interviews healthcare leaders who are driving meaningful change—highlighting stories of access, resilience, equity, and transformation.

The AHI Show started with the idea of wanting to highlight stories of what healthcare innovation truly looks like in action. Our mission, highlight real people who are really innovating within healthcare. Guests include healthcare entrepreneurs, providers, payers, and professionals from the investment community. We showcase little wins as well as valuable lessons learned from setbacks through these interviews. The real innovators in healthcare are often the ones in the trenches doing the work with razor-sharp focus. We find these innovators and bring their stories to light.

🔗 Michael’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelstamo

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