For StartUp Health community member Katharine Barnard-Kelly, PhD, the biggest thing broken about healthcare is simple: patients aren't heard. A health psychologist with more than 20 years in diabetes care, Dr. Barnard-Kelly is a visiting professor in both the UK and the US, maintaining strong academic links on both sides of the Atlantic, and has published more than 250 peer reviewed articles in leading medical journals worldwide, including the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet. Her career took shape around an early research finding that stuck with her: patients and physicians routinely leave the same appointment remembering different conversations, with clinicians recalling more decisions being made than actually were. That insight, sharpened by her own lived experience after her son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes more than two decades ago, became a life's mission. "Hear me," she says. "That's what's broken about the healthcare system. The patient is not heard."

As CEO & Co-founder of Spotlight-AQ, Dr. Barnard-Kelly is turning that mission into a tool clinics can use every day. Her team's web-based platform asks patients to complete a roughly three minute pre-clinic assessment that maps their biomedical, psychological, and social needs, surfacing the results directly in the EMR so physicians can focus each visit on what matters most. It's built on her original Kaleidoscope Model of Care, designed to work for any healthcare professional, with any patient, in any length of consultation. The result, as one physician put it, is that Spotlight-AQ "made me the doctor I thought I would be when I went to medical school."

The traction backs up the vision. Dr. Barnard-Kelly led the first team ever to receive FDA qualification for a person-reported outcome measure in diabetes, and Spotlight-AQ's pivotal multicenter randomized controlled trial has since demonstrated both clinical efficacy and cost effectiveness, published in the Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology. The company has built partnerships spanning Dexcom, Stanford Medicine, Atrium Health, and NHS sites in the UK, along with industry collaborators including Abbott Diabetes Care, Syneos Health, and Embecta. Along the way, Spotlight-AQ has won the 2023 DCB Innovation Challenge Award, secured $1 million in non-dilutive funding, taken the top spot in the 2024 ADA Innovation Challenge, and placed second in the 2025 Breakthrough T1D Israel Innovation Challenge.

None of it, Dr. Barnard-Kelly says, would have happened without the community behind her. "Huge thanks StartUp Health for all the support you have given us," she shared. "We would not have been able to bring Spotlight-AQ’s clinical tool to reality if it were not for your endless support, advice, expertise and humour." Dr. Barnard-Kelly's story is a reminder of what's possible when Health Transformers show up for each other. If her work resonates, join the StartUp Health community to connect with Dr. Barnard-Kelly, collaborate on what’s next, or even support Spotlight-AQ's next chapter – and let us share your story with the ecosystem, too.

If you're building at the intersection of AI and clinical care, join the community to connect with Health Transformers like him, collaborate on the problems you're both solving, and share your own health moonshot story.