Chain Reaction Ep. 15: Hurdle's Vision for Smarter Healthcare

Emma Stone, VP of Global Operations at Hurdle, manages supply chains where failure costs human health, not just customer satisfaction. Medical diagnostics require speed - results matter for patient care. They require compliance - regulatory oversight is strict. They require precision - cold chain breaks destroy samples. Managing all three simultaneously is genuinely difficult. Most healthcare logistics still operates on models built decades ago - centralised labs, multi-day turnaround, geographic constraints. Hurdle is rethinking the model from the patient backwards. Distributed diagnostics - samples tested closer to home. Faster turnaround. Accessible testing. This requires supply chain thinking that's different from traditional pharma or medical logistics. Samples are perishable. Networks need to be denser. Coordination between collection sites and labs demands precision. For supply chain leaders in healthcare, pharma, or regulated sectors, Emma's conversation is valuable. She explains what actually changes when you redesign around patient outcomes rather than just optimising existing processes. The conversation covers specific logistics tactics for distributed healthcare systems and what regulatory frameworks demand. It's grounded in someone building actual systems at scale, not theoretical possibilities.