Using Technology to Improve Health Care

Michelle Higginson ’10, MBA ’11 co-founded Inlightened, which connects client organizations to the health care experts they need to advance their business objectives. Inlightened’s platform enables organizations such as pharmaceutical companies to identify and contract with health care professionals including clinicians and researchers or key opinion leaders for research, consulting and even clinical trials. 

“The platform makes collaboration easier on both sides,” says Higginson, whose inspiration for Inlightened came from her own observations working at Boston Children’s Hospital as a group marketing manager. In that role, she saw firsthand the challenges clinicians and the business community face in making connections, Higginson explains. 

After moving to her next marketing leadership role at software maker Avant-garde Health, she met Shelli Pavone, her future Inlightened co-founder, who shared her view of a system in need of disruption. “We knew we could change it,” Higginson says.  “It was time to innovate and fix a historically broken process.” 

They got to work in 2019, first building a network by identifying, vetting and onboarding a diverse pool of clinicians and health care professionals. They hired a development agency to build the platform and the supporting technologies. They officially launched the company in 2020. 

Higginson evangelized the company, onboarded key opinion leaders to the network, wrote their profiles and sold organizations on Inlightened. The innovation and hard work paid off. The network and the company grew. Higginson and Pavone sold Inlightened to LocumTenens.com in 2023, although they continue to operate it as an independent entity. 

Now executive vice president, Higginson has a clear view of how the company she helped create makes a difference: “We are making sure we’re inviting more diverse voices to the conversation and fueling the future of health care innovation.”