Starlight: Designing the Future of Human-Centered, Tech-Powered Care
Starlight, led by CEO & Co-founder Nandan Rao, is building a new model of chronic care – one that blends behavioral science, remote monitoring, and AI with deep human connection to help patients follow their care plans and stay out of the hospital. As a member of the StartUp Health community, Starlight is part of a global movement to achieve health moonshots and transform care for millions.
By Nicole Kinsey
The Challenge
For patients diagnosed with chronic conditions like diabetes, heart failure, or hypertension, the hardest part often starts after the doctor’s visit. They leave the clinic burdened with instructions, devices, medications, and lifestyle changes – but with little support to actually make those changes stick. Meanwhile, doctors, already overwhelmed, struggle to follow up or offer meaningful longitudinal guidance. It’s a recipe for poor adherence, preventable complications, and avoidable hospital admissions.
Starlight is tackling this execution gap head-on, addressing a core question: In a future with ever-more capable AI, what role do we want human healthcare providers to play in our lives? Should they just deliver diagnoses and prescriptions? Or can they serve as trusted social and emotional support on a patient’s journey toward long-term wellbeing?
Origin Story
Nandan Rao’s path into health innovation was far from traditional. Once an indie filmmaker and cinematographer, Rao transitioned into the tech world, leading machine learning projects and pursuing a PhD in economics. But it was a deeply personal experience that redirected his path. When his father, who had long lived with diabetes, became ill, Rao returned home to be with him – and to help steer the struggling digital health company his father had built.
That company, battered by COVID-19 and changes in the employer health market, needed a radical reimagination. Rao and his co-founders began reaching out to health systems with the spark of an idea: that supporting patients between visits – especially in the difficult moments after diagnosis or hospital discharge – was a gaping hole in care delivery. It didn’t take long for the market to validate that instinct. Conversations with health system CMOs and CFOs turned into demos, pilots, and partnerships. What started as a concept became a must-have solution for health systems seeking to improve outcomes and reduce strain on clinical teams.
Under the Hood
At its core, Starlight helps patients do what their doctors told them to do – something simple in theory but deeply complex in practice. Patients are paired with board-certified health coaches who build trusted, ongoing relationships and guide them through the daily work of behavior change. These coaches work in tandem with Starlight’s remote clinical team, which includes nurse practitioners, social workers, and community health workers.
Patients also receive easy-to-use devices like cellular-enabled glucometers or blood pressure cuffs, and all the data flows back to Starlight’s platform to be analyzed in real-time and made available to both Starlight’s team and the patient’s doctors – providing early warnings, enabling timely interventions, and ensuring patients are never left to navigate their condition alone. Importantly, doctors don’t need to adopt new systems, and all services are reimbursable under existing Medicare and commercial billing codes.
“This helps doctors, who are busy. It also helps patients, who are really happy to get extra support. Our coaches work closely with the doctor, but the doctor doesn’t have to pay for the coach, nor do they need to use any new computer programs. This makes it really easy for doctors to work with us,” says Rao.
Starlight’s tech platform uses AI to streamline operations, summarize medical histories, and personalize patient communications. Yet, as Rao emphasizes, the “magic” still lies in the human connection. Patients may not remember the name Starlight, but they remember Coach Richard or Coach Celeste. That bond is what drives behavior change.
What’s Next
Today, Starlight is live in 12 states and actively working with four large health systems. Within a year, the company expects to be serving thousands of patients, with growing revenue, robust case studies, and a rapidly evolving platform rebuilt with user feedback and real-world experience.
Looking three years ahead, Rao envisions a care team of hundreds – coaches, nurses, social workers – serving hundreds of thousands of patients across the country. Key metrics like diabetes control, blood pressure stability, and ER utilization will continue to improve, validating the model at scale.
But success hinges on one big leap: solving care coordination at the systems level. That means making sure Starlight’s services are not only loved by patients, but also by doctors. Seamless communication across teams, EHRs, and insurance plans is the next frontier.
As a member of the StartUp Health community, Starlight is part of a collaborative global effort to solve some of the biggest challenges in health. They’re pushing toward a world where chronic conditions are managed not with isolation and confusion, but with clarity, support, and compassion.
“We won’t be able to make managing a chronic condition easy,” Rao says, “but we’ll help patients stay safe – and make sure they’re never alone.”
Connect with Starlight via email
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Published: Jul 10, 2025
