In healthcare, every choice has a human consequence. Reprioritizing a feature in your product can alter the tasks a clinic team focuses on during tomorrow’s shift, and a slight shift in wording can change what a patient understands about their treatment at the pharmacy window. Co-founding in this environment means balancing two priorities simultaneously: the “heart” that keeps you anchored to people, relationships, and ethical responsibility, and the strategy that delivers focus and results under pressure. The teams that scale don’t pick one; they build a way of working where both show up in every decision.
Start with the culture you can feel in a meeting. The most reliable predictor of whether a team solves complex problems is whether people feel safe speaking up. Google’s Project Aristotle identified psychological safety as the top priority for high-performing teams, and Harvard organizational behavior scholar Amy Edmondson has expanded on what that looks like in practice: honest candor without repercussions, genuine curiosity without ego, and the ability to rebound quickly from mistakes. If your meetings suppress dissent or status updates crowd out honest debate, performance will ultimately catch up with you.
Decide how you decide. Most “founder friction” is architectural. Map your recurring decisions, such as pricing, partnerships, hiring, positioning, and roadmap, and make roles explicit. One person leads the analysis, one person ultimately makes the call, the right people are consulted, and everyone else is simply informed. When decision rights are clear, execution speeds up, and accountability has a home.
Protect speed without steamrolling each other. Some moments can’t wait for perfect consensus. Use a simple rule: vigorously test ideas, then move forward together once a decision is made. “Disagree and commit” works when paired with two things founders control: the discipline to thoroughly review each other’s views before making a decision, and the humility to set precise review dates and reversal criteria upfront.
Make listening operational, not theatrical. Listening only works when it changes what you do next. For co-founders, that means building simple, repeatable ways to bring real voices into the work and then making decisions based on what you hear. One approach is to schedule short, structured touchpoints with the people you serve, for example, a monthly 30-minute debrief with a small group of clinicians, or a quick follow-up call with a few patients after a program. Tools like the AHRQ SHARE Approach for shared decision-making and experience-based co-design are helpful because they provide a framework that spells out how to present options, invite different perspectives, and transform those perspectives into design choices. The value for founders is straightforward: fewer launches that miss the mark, less rework, and offerings that feel immediately usable to the end users.
Turn values into habits. A founder cadence is simply a regular meeting where you apply your principles consistently, every time. Think of a weekly 30-minute session with a standing agenda. You begin with a few concrete inputs from the real world: what a clinician said in a recent call, what a partner questioned, and what a key metric is showing. Then you choose one or two decisions you need to make and run them through a one-page brief that forces both perspectives: the “heart” questions (who benefits, where trust is at stake) and the “strategy” questions (what you will de-prioritize to make room, what success metric you expect to move, and by when).
You close by asking how you worked together that week and noting one thing to adjust. Keeping a simple log of these decisions, what you chose, why, and when you will revisit it, creates a record you can learn from. Over time, this cadence reduces repeated debates, speeds up execution, and makes your values visible in how you act, not just how you talk.
Hire for the space between you. Many founder pairs overhire people who resemble themselves. The better move is to staff the seam. If one of you lives in narrative and the other lives in systems, your first operations leader should be a translator, someone who can turn field insights into dashboards and workflows without stripping the values from the story. To make that concrete for new leaders, create a two-page “founder user manual.” The first page should describe how each founder makes decisions (what information they look for, how they handle disagreements, and what “yes” and “no” typically sound like). The second page should outline how each founder prefers to receive feedback, how to escalate risk or concern, and what communication norms matter most. Sharing this document up front saves months of guesswork and lowers the temperature when deadlines compress.
Lead with evidence, speak with empathy. Healthcare raises the bar on ethics and accuracy. If the data isn’t ready, the message isn’t prepared. Bring clinical voices in early and compensate fairly. Keep patient dignity at the center, no fear headlines, no shortcuts on nuance. That standard pays off in reputation, partner trust, and fewer costly pivots later.
Where we’ve seen this work. In our EmpowerHER work, we began by asking where the real gap lay. Clinicians told us that the most challenging part was not the knowledge itself, but rather turning guidelines into conversations they could have during a 15-minute visit. Patients told us they wanted their concerns about side effects, family history, and quality of life to be taken seriously, not treated as an afterthought. We used those insights to redesign the program: sessions were built around real-world cases, discussion time was structured to focus on what to say and how to say it, and follow-up tools were designed to be printed or displayed on a screen in the clinic. When we measured the impact, the changes participants reported were practical ones—different questions they asked, more precise explanations they gave, and more confidence in shared decisions. In other words, the “heart” of the work and the “strategy” behind it ended up in the same place.
If you’re resetting a co-founder partnership, don’t wait for the calendar to clear. Block a weekly 30-minute founder meeting for a quarter. Publish your decision roles in a one-page document that the team can easily view. Pick one high-stakes call and run it through your brief, with a review date and explicit kill criteria. Ask three customers or clinicians what you’re getting wrong and report back on the changes you made.
The compounding effect arrives quietly: fewer surprises, faster implementation, and a team that knows what you stand for because they feel it in how you work.
About Bridge Medical Communications
Bridge Medical Communication was founded on the belief that medical innovations and the fundamentals of evidence-based medicine have the power to save and change lives.
Through over 30 years of collective experience in the healthcare space, the founders observed complex challenges facing a quickly evolving industry that could no longer be ignored. They set out to address these challenges by starting a boutique medical communications consultancy in 2012.
The business is, at its heart, about bridging the gap between the industry and the patient. Bridge Medical Communication believes that specialized communications to healthcare professionals play a pivotal role in optimizing the potential impact of medical innovations on the healthcare landscape and—ultimately—on the patient.
The vision of Bridge Medical Communication is to empower healthcare professionals to optimize patient outcomes through innovative communication tools, creativity, and strategic collaboration. The organization is thrilled to work with a reputable roster of clients who share these audacious goals.
Together, Bridge Medical Communication and its clients are making positive, impactful changes in the healthcare industry through information, education, and engagement.
About the Founders
Carolyn Pritchard has spent more than two decades working to improve the patient experience across the healthcare system. A former Registered Nurse and now a trusted leader in healthcare communications, she brings an energetic, people-centred approach to every project. Carolyn is a natural connector with a strong commitment to ensuring patients receive clear, compassionate and effective care. Her experience spans pharmaceutical organisations, clinicians, emergency departments and patient communities giving her a rare, holistic understanding of the system’s challenges and the opportunities to close its gaps.
Lorie Spence is a strategic thinker with a deep understanding of what healthcare professionals need to support better patient outcomes. With over 20 years of industry experience, she combines sharp analytical insight with a practical, forward-looking approach. Lorie leads finance and business strategy at Bridge, drawing on her MBA from Wilfrid Laurier University and her training as a Certified Facilitator and Coach. She is passionate about equipping clinicians with the tools and knowledge to adapt to evolving therapeutic innovations.
Together, Carolyn and Lorie co-founded Bridge Medical Communications to strengthen the connection between medical innovation and the healthcare professionals who deliver it. Their shared belief in collaboration over ego and in the transformative power of clear, empathetic communication has shaped Bridge into a trusted partner for clients across the healthcare landscape.
