Building Techquity: HLTH Foundation’s Global Push for Equitable Healthcare Technology

Janna Guinen, Executive Director of the HLTH Foundation, joins Access Amplified to talk about building a healthcare future where technology serves everyone, regardless of income, location, or background. She shares how the HLTH Foundation is leading the global techquity movement and unveils their upcoming database of real-world case studies designed to help innovators, payers, and providers turn equity from a concept into concrete action.

The HLTH Foundation, under Janna Guinen’s leadership, has made techquity, the intentional integration of equity into healthcare technology, its central mission. For Janna, this work is urgent: technology can be a game-changer for access, but only if it’s designed and distributed with underserved patients in mind. Her own path to this focus began after hearing the term “techquity” from Dr. Kyu Rhee, CEO of the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), inspiring her to align the Foundation’s work around it. 

HLTH Foundation’s Techquity for Health Awards recognize global leaders creating digital health solutions that advance equity. Now in their third year, the awards feed into a first-of-its-kind Techquity Case Study Database, launching this month, featuring over 70 high-scoring projects from organizations of all sizes. Janna highlights examples like Elevance Health’s enterprise-wide equity-driven data restructuring and Waianae Comprehensive Health Center’s elder-focused telehealth literacy program—both showing the power of intentional design, community engagement, and iterative improvement. 

Beyond celebrating best practices, the database is meant to inspire and guide others, offering practical, replicable approaches to embedding equity. Janna emphasizes that techquity isn’t just for underserved groups; it’s about creating better healthcare for everyone. For system-wide impact, she calls for strong measurement, trust-building with patients, and encouraging organizations to “just start,” even small, intentional steps can have outsized effects when replicated across the industry. 

As HLTH Foundation’s first Executive Director, Janna Guinen has shaped the foundation’s mission and strategy to promote equitable and inclusive healthcare from the ground up. Since joining HLTH Foundation in 2020, Janna has led significant growth of CSweetener, the foundation’s free healthcare mentorship program for women and nonbinary healthcare executives, and launched initiatives and programs in techquity (digital health equity), patient inclusion and healthcare leadership–with a focus on underserved or underrepresented people. Throughout her career she has advised providers and health tech innovators on communications, content strategy, program development and executive visibility.