How This Doctor's Heartbreak Moved Him To Change Healthcare
Hey there, friend of BLOCK71. Have you ever wanted to do something for the longest time, but inertia kept pulling you back, until something pushed you over the edge?
As a senior medical adviser for Medibank (Australia’s largest private health insurer) with over 30 years of experience, Dr. Nelson Lau has been passionate about improving healthcare with technology. But he didn’t know how to bring his advocacy to the next level, until a particularly haunting incident took place.
During Australia’s strict COVID-19 lockdowns, Dr. Lau found himself at the frontlines of a telemedicine emergency response taskforce. One day, an 80-year-old woman with a history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) called the hotline to report that she was COVID-positive but had no symptoms.
Due to the overwhelming volume of calls and limited doctor availability, she was placed in a queue. When Nelson finally called her back the next day, there was no answer. Following protocol, police officers were dispatched to check in on her.
But it was too late. She had passed away.
“These data points that we had – 80-year-old with a history of COPD, COVID positive, no symptoms — even these few data points meant she should have been seen immediately by a doctor or gone to the hospital via ambulance because of the risk factors,” Nelson explained. “She could have been drowning in her lungs and not felt anything.”
This preventable tragedy revealed a critical healthcare gap that technology could bridge. With thousands of patients waiting in queues during COVID peaks, Nelson realised that proper AI-powered triage could have identified high-risk patients immediately and increased their odds of survival.
“Technology can really save lives,” Nelson emphasised. “If no one’s doing it, then that’s something that really motivated me to just get started and work on that.”
This mission led Nelson to make a dramatic life change. Despite having stability as a medical professional, he quit his practice, moved his family to Vietnam, and founded HealthBridge AI – an AI-powered healthcare platform that transforms patient care.
At First, Over 50 Investors Said No
Dr. Nelson Lau presenting HealthBridge AI’s revolutionary tool — JarvisMD at the GlobalHealth Asia-Pacific Summit 2025.
The journey hasn’t been easy. Nelson and his co-founder faced endless rejections – over 50 VCs either declined or ghosted them. Many investors just couldn’t grasp the complex intersection of healthcare and AI that they were pioneering.
“When you combine those two things, it was kind of just going over their heads,” Nelson recalled. “One VC later told me that we were actually spending most of our time educating investors about both of these fields.”
What makes Nelson’s AI solution different from the many “AI scribes” flooding the market is his unwavering commitment to patient safety. While competitors rushed products with 70% accuracy that sometimes hallucinated critical medical information, Nelson refuses to compromise.
“That’s dangerous. You can’t release something in public like that,” he insisted. “Coming from a medical background, do no harm comes first.”
But All It Took Was A Yes
After countless setbacks, the founders’ persistence started paying off when they first landed a spot in BLOCK71 Singapore and Microsoft’s Generative AI programme last year, where they received hands-on mentorship to fine tune their product.
The founders then went on to receive pre-seed funding from 22Health Ventures, a healthcare-focused VC that immediately understood HealthBridge AI’s potential. This breakthrough then helped open doors throughout Singapore’s healthcare ecosystem.
Today, the startup is developing AI tools that can reduce doctors’ administrative time by up to 70%, while improving clinical efficiency through AI-powered scribing, letter writing and clinical recommendations. There is also an AI clinical co-pilot that analyses patient histories to help overwhelmed healthcare providers make more informed decisions quickly, preventing unfortunate incidents like the one Nelson encountered.
Every founder’s journey is tough and support is really important. If you are also trying to make your mark with your startup, consider enrolling into BLOCK71 and be part of a community that welcomes brave founders like Nelson.