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Care, Code, and Capital

Care, Code, and Capital

Written by: Megadata Health Systems
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Care, Code, and Capital explores how healthcare, technology, and investment intersect to shape the future of the industry. Host Dan Brody speaks with founders, operators, and investors about what’s actually working in health tech — and what it takes to turn innovation into real-world impact.© 2026 Megadata Health Systems
Episodes
  • The AI Revolution in Skilled Nursing | Episode 5 of Care, Code, and Capital

    The AI Revolution in Skilled Nursing | Episode 5 of Care, Code, and Capital
    May 26 2026


    Shalom Reinman didn't set out to build a healthcare technology company.

    He set out to find a job. His brother talked him out of his entrepreneurial ideas and into a billing role at a nursing home. $23,000 a year. 2008. He figured he'd learn the business.


    He learned more than that.


    He taught himself accounting. He fixed a company-wide billing glitch on a Sunday because it needed fixing. He mastered IBM business intelligence systems. He built Excel workbooks so sophisticated they started to break. And when they did, he pushed to hire a programmer — to a boss who asked him, straight-faced: "How is a programmer going to help me fix a boiler?"

    Two years later, that same boss was asking job applicants what they knew about a data warehouse.


    Shalom eventually built one of the most advanced analytics platforms in long-term care from inside a nursing home company. When the opportunity came to take it to the broader industry, he left and started Megadata.

    Today, Megadata has 80-plus integrations, a Series A from Blueprint Equity, and data warehouse customers who are building AI-powered workflows on top of their data — without writing a single line of code.

    In the newest episode of Care, Code, and Capital, Dan Brody sits down with Shalom to talk about what 18 years on the inside of long-term care data actually taught him:

    • Why the user interface of healthcare technology is about to look nothing like it does today
    • How Megadata's team used oxygen saturation data to detect Covid outbreaks before anyone in the building knew they had one — and how that story ended up on ABC Nightline
    • What the combination of a data warehouse, 80-plus integrations, and tools like Claude actually unlocks for a nursing home operator
    • Why the operators moving on AI now are the ones who will set the pace — and what happens to those who don't

    One line that stuck with us: "The humans who use AI most effectively are going to be the most valuable people in the room. The ones who avoid it — they get left in the dust."

    Worth your time, whether you're an operator, a technologist, or anyone trying to understand where healthcare data is actually going.
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    1 hr and 4 mins
  • Building the "Disney World of Healthcare" with Marc Halpert

    Building the "Disney World of Healthcare" with Marc Halpert
    May 11 2026
    This is not a story about a nursing home operator. It's a story about someone who fell in love with taking care of people — and built 63 facilities because of it.What does it take to lead one of the most innovative long-term care organizations in the country? For most people in this industry, the answer involves capital, connections, and a clear roadmap. Marc Halpert had a phone call, a flight to Minnesota, and a decision he almost said no to three times.He said yes. And then he built something that someone eventually called the Disney World of healthcare.In Episode 5 of Care, Code, and Capital, Dan Brody sits down with Marc Halpert — CEO and co-founder of Monarch Healthcare Management — for a conversation that covers the director of nursing who ran across a room and hugged him, the moment he stood on stage in front of his entire company and couldn't hold it together, and why Monarch was the first nursing home in the United States to deploy automated robots before anyone else was even talking about it.This is not a highlight reel. It's the full picture.‍How Marc Got InMarc will tell you the foundation was built before he ever ran anything.He started in healthcare as an admissions coordinator, working his way through a psychiatric facility on the South Side of Chicago before anyone handed him a title worth talking about. What followed was a decade of intentional groundwork inside a multi-facility company. He stripped and waxed floors. He worked as a dietary aide, passing trays when his cooking didn't pass muster. He went through administrator training, ran an 84-bed mom-and-pop nursing home, and started building a real understanding of what great care could look like when someone actually cared enough to build it.Every department. Every role. Not as an executive observer — as someone who had to actually do the job."In 2005, if you wanted to make money in healthcare, you were told to become an administrator. But I never really thought about the money. I just wanted to do better than what I was seeing."By the time Marc was ready to build something of his own, he didn't just understand how to run a facility. He understood what it felt like to be every person inside one.The Phone Call That Started EverythingEleven years ago, Marc got a call from a friend about an opportunity in Minnesota. He said no twice. The third time, he said yes — because someone told him you can't say no a third time.He flew to New Prague, Minnesota, walked into the first facility, and fell in love."My entire company knows the love story of how I came to Monarch. Every single person."What he inherited was four nursing homes, three assisted living facilities, a small corporate office, and 18 employees. The care was good. The staff was warm. The census was fine. The problem was simpler and more stubborn than any of that: complacency. A status quo that nobody had ever thought to challenge.Marc thought to challenge it on day one.The name came from Josh's wife, who discovered the Monarch butterfly is the state insect of Minnesota. The logo came from a design firm that kept returning with one consistent element across every rendition: orange. A Tough Mudder race that summer produced t-shirts that said "Bleed Orange." One by one, staff members started showing up in orange shirts, orange watches, orange kicks — and something started to feel like something real."It transfers this concept of branding because you're not just you — you're part of a family."The First Nursing Home in America to Use RobotsInnovation made it into Monarch's mission statement a few years ago. Not as a talking point — as a commitment. Because Marc had already seen enough of the future to know where long-term care was going, and he wasn't interested in waiting to be surprised by it.Monarch was the first nursing home in the United States of America to deploy automated robots in a resident care setting. The program launched in partnership with the University of Minnesota Duluth. The robots came in, interacted with staff and residents, and delivered on some of what they were supposed to — and not all of it.Marc will tell you it didn't fully work. He'll also tell you it was one of the best decisions he ever made."When I saw the demo for the first time, I said — wow. This is the future. It's going to go somewhere."His take on AI follows the same logic. He's been using it in his day-to-day work and will tell you with a laugh that he still doesn't fully understand how it works. What he knows is that it opened up a new world. His staff knows more about it than he does. He surrounds himself with people specifically because of that."I'm excited. The future is going to bring us something."What he's clear about — even with all of that optimism — is where the line is."Is a machine going to take care of a resident? No. No human needs to take care of human. That's not going anywhere."The Hug That Changed a BuildingMarc tells a story about walking into a ...
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    47 mins
  • "Delusional" Enough to Build Something Real with Efriam Weinfeld

    "Delusional" Enough to Build Something Real with Efriam Weinfeld
    Apr 27 2026
    This is not a polished success story. It's the real one.What does it take to build a healthcare company from nothing in the aftermath of a once-in-a-century pandemic? For most people, the answer would be: probably more than you have.Efraim had less than most. No pre-built portfolio. No safety net. Two facilities that nobody else wanted to touch. And a name for his new company rooted in the Hebrew word for "to ascend" -- because even before the first resident walked through the door, he had already decided this thing was going to rise.In Episode 3 of Care, Code, and Capital, Dan Brody sits down with Efraim, founder and CEO of Aliya Healthcare, for one of the most honest, wide-ranging conversations we've had on this show. They go from Efraim's earliest days as a 20-year-old pharmacy tech figuring out the industry, all the way to navigating million-dollar losses, crisis-level self-doubt, and the moment everything turned around because a pipe burst in a building across town.‍How Efraim Got InHe'll tell you himself: nepotism got him in the door. But what he does with that admission is more interesting than the admission itself.Efraim came back from Israel with no particular plan, enrolled in a pharmacy tech job, and set his sights on working his way up the honest way. That lasted about a year -- until the owner's son walked in on day one and landed a $70K salary and a floor manager title without ever having seen the inside of a pharmacy. That was the moment Efraim picked up the phone and called his family in long-term care."Pride does not pay the bills," he says.What happened next was the education that shaped everything. Because he was always the "extra person," Efraim got cycled through every department every time someone quit or got fired. HR, admissions, operations, finance. Not as an executive observer, but as someone who had to actually do the job, sometimes before he understood what the job was.He calls it "baptism by fire." Dan draws a parallel to Zappos, which intentionally rotated employees through unrelated departments to build total operational understanding. The difference for Efraim is that his wasn't intentional. It was chaos. And he wouldn't trade it."I'm thankful for the chaotic style in which I learned. I don't know if I would have learned any other way."‍What Covid Actually Taught HimAsk any long-term care operator what they learned from Covid and most will give you a policy answer. Efraim gives you a human one."No matter what the policy, procedure, or process is -- nothing beats showing up. Just actually being in the building. Being with people. Showing that you care."During Covid, the gap between organizations that made it and organizations that didn't often came down to this. Leaders who stayed behind closed corporate doors saw their teams lose morale, their operations unravel, and their residents suffer for it. Leaders who got into the trenches -- even when they couldn't do everything the clinical staff could do -- changed how their people felt about coming to work every single day.That lesson became the foundation for everything Efraim built next.‍The Birth of AliyaPost-Covid, Efraim found himself at a crossroads with his family's business. Succession planning got complicated. Family dynamics made the next chapter hard to see clearly. And the entire industry felt like it was still trudging through something heavy and unresolved.So he left, and he started over.The timing was fortuitous in one specific way: Manor Care (by then operating as ProMedica) was divesting its Illinois portfolio. Out of the available properties, Efraim and his partner Michael Erlich took the two that nobody else wanted. The runts of the litter. The ones with the worst reputations, the most ground to make up.He named the company Aliya -- a Hebrew word meaning "to ascend, to rise up." The logo is a phoenix. Rising from the ashes. The color is purple, a regal and calming choice that would go on to become a rallying point for staff, residents, and eventually a Chicago Bulls sponsorship that landed a recovering patient courtside at a Bulls game.The brand wasn't just aesthetic. It was a declaration of intent."It's not just a name. I think there's a lot of value in that. People can rally behind it. There's something to believe in."‍The Zero-Budget PhilosophyOne of the most counterintuitive things Efraim shares in this episode is his acquisition approach. He doesn't tour buildings before he buys them.It sounds reckless until he explains the reasoning.He does look at the market data: proximity, acuity mix, competitive landscape, reputation signals. But he deliberately avoids forming detailed operational impressions of a property before taking it over. His phrase for this approach is "zero budgeting" -- meaning he isn't inheriting the old identity of a building. He isn't looking at a facility that's been "a dialysis building" or "a short-term rehab building" and assuming that's what it will always be.He goes in ...
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    49 mins
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