Shubs Upadhyay
28 episodes listed below
Health technology, tested against real-world constraint.
Global Perspectives on Digital Health treats digital health as a practical systems problem, not a showcase for shiny tools. Its conversations move from neonatal care in Eastern Congo to refugee records, humanitarian AI, funding shocks, and evaluation methods that measure local value.
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Global Perspectives on Digital Health is built around long, careful conversations about technology in health systems that cannot afford careless design. Its center of gravity is underserved communities, especially low-resource settings where infrastructure, language, funding, documentation, and clinical capacity shape every digital decision. The show does not treat innovation as self-evident progress. It asks what happens after a tool reaches the ward, the field team, the clinic, or the community health worker. One episode starts with neonatal nurses in Goma and turns into a wider discussion about decision support that helps clinicians work with what they have, rather than reminding them of what is missing. Another uses humanitarian AI to show how benchmark success can fail badly when advice ignores conflict-zone realities. The show is especially alert to workflow. Software that does not understand the people using it is treated as a system failure, not a minor usability issue. Its guests also bring in funding politics, including USAID cuts, philanthropy’s response, organizational pivots, and the pressure on social-impact groups with short runways. There is a strong concern for displaced people. Health records, digital identity, language barriers, chronic medication, and control over personal data are framed as urgent access problems rather than administrative details. Evaluation gets similar treatment. The show spends time on formative research, programme theory, logic models, stakeholder engagement, and the slow work required to measure whether an intervention creates value locally. It can be technical, but it usually defines its terms through concrete examples. The register is sober and pragmatic. There is warmth in the respect shown to nurses, founders, researchers, and implementers doing difficult work. Still, the show remains willing to challenge weak engagement, easy AI use cases, and products built around available datasets instead of real needs. It is best for people who care about the operational side of equity: how tools are built, tested, funded, governed, and adapted under constraint. Across the episodes, digital health becomes less a sector buzzword than a practical discipline. The show’s recurring question is simple and demanding: does this technology help the people who most need care, in the conditions where they actually live?
Made for: For policymakers, donors, investors, builders, founders, researchers, and implementers working on digital health for underserved communities. It also suits clinicians and product teams who want a grounded view of equity, workflow, and local context.
What sets it apart: The show stands apart by staying close to field conditions instead of celebrating technology in the abstract. It links AI, evaluation, funding, interoperability, and product design to the practical realities of nurses, displaced people, humanitarian workers, and local health teams.
🌍 Global Perspectives on Digital Health A podcast unpacking the stories, insights, and innovation shaping health systems and underserved communities. 🎧 Listen on Apple, Spotify. Watch on YouTube
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
It makes digital health legible by testing technology against local knowledge, limited resources, community participation, and evidence of real-world impact.
Global Perspectives on Digital Health follows health technology into the places where implementation gets difficult. Host Shabz Upadhyay, a physician working in digital health, interviews people involved in building, researching, funding, and evaluating care systems.
No oxygen on hand: you'll hear why a useful newborn-care app has to account for that first.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A neonatal care story that puts nurses and practical constraints at the center.
The episode follows a doctor in Goma as he describes neonatal care under intense pressure, but the nurses end up carrying the story. He says he was blown away by their commitment, and that is where the piece feels most grounded: in the people keeping the system working day to…
A careful look at how digital health evaluation reaches beyond tidy metrics.
Global Perspectives on Digital Health takes on a practical question: how should digital health and AI be measured in ways that reflect the people and systems around them?
A sober look at how social impact groups adapt when funding gets tight.
Global Perspectives on Digital Health frames this episode around the strain scarcity puts on social impact work. Public funding can arrive more in the shadows than in the open, organizations may not have as much time as they need to pivot, and the sector is left trying to keep…
Grant-process grit gives way to a clear look at refugee-led digital health.
Aral's conversation traces the slow, stubborn work of digital health for refugees: a 2021 USAID application, a year and a half of back and forth, a January stop work order, and the choice to keep building anyway.
A grounded case for local voices in healthcare design.
The episode makes a plain case for putting local voices inside healthcare design, not around it. The clinic-hours example keeps the point grounded: access can look fine on paper and still miss the people who need it.
A grounded look at digital health work where policy, field reality, and product design all meet.
The episode gives a practical view of digital health work in rural India, where the app matters less than the people and systems around it. Community health workers, public health officials, policy and programs staff, field teams, design engineering, and monitoring and…
Healthcare technology after the hype check.
Medtech lessons from inside the build.
AI strategy without the hand-waving.
Healthcare strategy from the industry floor.
Digital health after the pitch deck.
Joshua Bress says Goma nurses who adopted abandoned children changed his view of scarcity and pushed him toward NoviGuide.
A discussion on developing AI to address health inequities by focusing on real-world problems and engaging deeply with clinicians and patients.
Javier Elkin discusses the need for contextually relevant AI evaluation in humanitarian settings, contrasting standard benchmarks with real-world needs in conflict zones.
Paddy Michelle discusses the impact of USAID cuts on women's health and the importance of leading digital health initiatives in underserved communities.
This episode discusses the need for digital identities for displaced people to improve their access to health care and personal data.
Shea Sorensen joins Global Perspectives on Digital Health to discuss how digital health and AI can be measured and evaluated.
Nick Martin starts with funding.
It starts with a grant process.
The episode argues that healthcare design should start with the people closest to the ground.
Shabz Upadhyay speaks with Ruchit Nagar, founder of Kushy Baby, about supporting rural healthcare in India with software built for ASHA workers and nurses.
A physician and digital health expert discusses his journey from emergency medicine to using AI to create impact in isolated communities.
A clinician and digital health expert discusses bridging policy and on-the-ground impact for underserved communities through Digital Square.
This episode introduces the concept of health data poverty, focusing on underserved populations in LMICs, with guest Xiao Liu discussing definitions and the need for action.
Professor Alexandre Filho discusses his work at the University of Sao Paulo on ensuring machine learning algorithms for healthcare are inclusive and fair, particularly for disadvantaged areas in Brazil.