University at Buffalo School of Management

and sparking new startup ideas—from high tech to high touch. "There's this company called Whoop that makes a fitness tracker and it just raised more than $200 million in the latest funding round led by SoBank," she says. "Every day, we're unlock- ing data that wasn't previously available—and making that data understandable to people with- out medical degrees is where I can see entrepre- neurs playing a big part in the health care field moving forward. "A lot of new tech is focused on the aging population, too, like this new startup Papa that pairs young people with the elderly to help with everyday tasks like taking them to doctors appointments. It's such a simple solution, but it's helping a population that didn't grow up with access to technology." Overcoming the obstacles For all the new opportunities available in modern health care, those looking to shake things up also face substantial challenges from an established industry. In the late '90s, Tim Godzich, BS '88, MBA '89, co-founded Definity Health, the first company to offer a consumer-driven health care plan. It was the predecessor to today's health savings plans. Definity became the fastest-growing health care plan in America, with 500,000 members and $100 million in revenue, and eventually sold to UnitedHealth Group Inc. in 2004. Aer Definity, Godzich helped pioneer another area of the health care industry when he co-founded Liazon, one of the first private health insurance exchanges. Liazon is an online marketplace that companies can use to allow their employees to comparison shop for health benefits—an idea that rose to prominence aer public health exchanges went online for Americans aer the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010. Liazon sold to Towers Watson (now Willis Towers Watson) in 2013. Godzich says to bring these new ideas to light, he had to fight through an entrenched system. "Today, there are 40 million Americans with consum- er-driven health accounts, but when we started there were zero," says Godzich. "The U.S. spends $4 trillion on health care each year, so there are a lot of folks who are happy with the current system. I have a lot of arrows in my back from the status quo people in health care saying, 'It's not going to work'—but we proved them wrong." Spring 2022 Buffalo Business 13 Patterson at the Resolution Medical facility. Godzich

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