Press Release
Duke-Margolis Launches Capital Impact Council to Measure Impact of Private Investment in Health Care
Washington, DC (March 25, 2025) — The Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy has launched the Duke-Margolis Capital Impact Council to strengthen alignment of private investment with measurable improvements in health and health care.
The Duke-Margolis Capital Impact Council, co-chaired by FlyteHealth Executive Chair Dr. Cheryl Pegus and Duke-Margolis Director Dr. Mark McClellan, is comprised of mission-aligned venture capital and private equity investors and Duke-Margolis Advisory Board members. The council is dedicated to:
- advancing use of evidence and establishing best practices for achieving measurable health value improvements through private investment in health care.
- driving the impact of private investment in health care to improve the lives of people and communities.
In a keynote session of the American College of Healthcare Executives at the 2025 ACHE Congress on Healthcare Leadership (noon-1:30 p.m. CDT, March 25, 2025), co-chairs Pegus and McClellan will underscore the growing urgency—amid rising federal deficits—to determine how private investment can effectively and responsibly advance new care models and strategies needed to reform care and improve health.
The Capital Impact Council released its initial resource, a framework designed to align health system and investor incentives around private investment that improves health care and health. The paper—“Health Value Return on Investment (HV-ROI): A Framework to Support Private Investment That Improves Health Care and Health”—includes examples from members of the council that demonstrate application of the framework to establish a community of practice and collaboration to advance this goal.
“There are growing numbers of private investors focusing on health-value returns in both early-stage enterprises backed by venture capital and later-stage private equity to enable scale, supporting strategies that achieve financial returns alongside measurable improvements in affordability, access and outcomes,” said Pegus. “Many investment groups, their limited partners, and entrepreneurs demonstrate the synergy of positive health value impact and financial returns as an integral part of their business strategies. Systematic analysis and sharing of these approaches can expand the scale and scope of investors committed to this approach, growing private investment’s positive impact on health care.”
By sharing and developing examples, case studies, practical tools, metrics and analyses, the council aims to encourage routine use of effective assessments that demonstrate health value for patients, health care professionals, communities, entrepreneurs, and limited partners.
The HV-ROI framework includes two key elements:
- HV Model and Evidence: A baseline analysis of the positive impact of a proposed investment on health value as well as its potential financial ROI, based on published literature and preliminary evidence.
- HV Key Performance Indicators: Feasible and worthwhile metrics linked to the model that will be tracked and updated, enabling an organization to be proactive in advancing health value alongside financial ROI.
“The Capital Impact Council is an important extension of the Duke-Margolis work to advance value-based care, innovative payment models and strategies to reform health care,” said McClellan. “This effort is grounded in the reality that private investment is needed to enable innovative health care models, and the hypothesis that it is not only possible to make a positive health impact and earn strong financial returns—but that in an increasingly value-based health care system, it should be the best path for long-term returns for investors. By developing evidence to support a health value framework for investment, we aim to ensure private capital generates measurable improvements in health care outcomes while delivering competitive returns.”
The council has provided examples that demonstrate application of the HV-ROI framework from and will be collecting and posting additional examples at healthpolicy.duke.edu. Current examples include:
- American Heart Association Ventures and Attane Health
- American Heart Association Ventures and Pear Suite
- American Heart Association Ventures and Simplifed
- American Heart Association Ventures and Sober Sidekick App
- Cylinder and 7Wire
- Echo Health Ventures and DispatchHealth
- Echo Health Ventures and Strive Health
- Healthier Capital and Amae Health
- Temasek and WelbeHealth
Capital Impact Council
- Mark McClellan, Co-Chair, Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy
- Cheryl Pegus, Co-Chair, FlyteHealth
- David Brailer, The Cigna Group
- Craig Cimini, The Cigna Group Ventures*
- Rob Coppedge, Echo Health Ventures
- Blake Goodner, Bridger Capital
- Greg Grunberg, Temasek
- Marc Harrison, Health Assurance Transformation Corp. (HATCo)
- Dan Mendelson, Morgan Health
- Brian Morfitt, Frazier Healthcare Partners
- Amy B. Raimundo, KP Ventures*
- Amir Dan Rubin, Healthier Capital
- Lee Shapiro, 7Wire
- Lisa Suennen, American Heart Association Ventures
*new as of 2025
About Duke-Margolis
The mission of the Robert J. Margolis, MD, Institute for Health Policy at Duke University is to improve health, health equity, and the value of health care through practical, innovative, and evidence-based policy solutions. For more information, visit healthpolicy.duke.edu and follow us on LinkedIn @www.linkedin.com/company/margoliscenter.
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Contact: Patricia Green
Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy
301.520.6482
