Applying Casino Loyalty & Data Science To Transform Healthcare
CareCognitics unique platform brings technology innovations from the casino, hospitality, and gaming industries to engage patients and reward actions that drive improved health outcomes.
Our Story
CareCognitics is a technology company that is dedicated to driving digital transformation in the healthcare industry. Our passionate leadership team hails from some of the nation’s top universities, delivering some of the most recognizable brands in the world. Together, our mission is to advance healthcare though innovation and efficiency, and to improve the lives of patients by influencing them to be more proactive in their health. Our ambitious goal is to touch and improve the lives of 1 million patients by 2025.
Founder Story
CareCognitics founder Sunny Tara was an aspiring computer science student when he lost his father to cardiac arrest. Having experienced first-hand the frustrations and sorrow of losing a loved one to a chronic condition, he wondered what more could have been done to keep his father from being taken at such a young age. CareCognitics was his answer.
Brand Promise
CareCognitics digital platform offers a multifaceted suite of tools to motivate patient engagement and improve communication between medical professionals and their patients. We believe in our platform and we work with our clients to ensure that we do not succeed unless they do.
Our Commitment
CareCognitics is committed to closing gaps in care, and ultimately improving healthcare outcomes. Our digital platform is the perfect medium for secure, continuous, and personalized medical communication.
CareCognitics’ evolution can be traced back to the mid 90’s when Sunny Tara was hired by an auto parts company called AutoZone. A young Data Scientist fresh out of college, Sunny was tasked with using his knowledge of data collection to grow and expand the company. It was during this period Sunny first recognized “growth” is directly correlated with “serving customer needs”. By creating the first CRM system with centralized database and a national warranty system, Sunny was able to transform AutoZone’s model of efficiency. His system ultimately helped grow the auto retailer’s nationwide footprint by 400-percent.
After leaving AutoZone, Sunny joined Harrah’s Entertainment (later named Caesars Entertainment Corporation), where he ran technology for the gaming giant. It was here he learned the concept of “customer loyalty” and helped develop retention programs by utilizing incentives. While Sunny knew you couldn’t change the odds for customers, he believed you could change their experience, which would still result in a win-win. Sunny was directly responsible for helping make the Harrah’s loyalty program Total Rewards
Sunny eventually ventured into the Health Care industry developing a company called DocBeat. This breakthrough digital platform also focused on efficiency, enabling critical care teams to more quickly address acute situations. The objective was to deliver safe care quickly by streamlining communication in acute care. DocBeat was ultimately successfully acquired by Vocera which was then acquired by Striker.
CareCognitics is the culmination of Sunny’s career to date and combines all his experience and knowledge into one platform. The CareCognitics mission for him is as much personal as it is professional. At a young age he lost his father to cardiac arrest because the right care couldn’t reach him in time. Now he’s dedicated to revolutionizing health care, through digital transformation, incentivizing patients to be more proactive in their own health and allowing physicians to provide care outside the 4 walls of a doctor’s office year-round.
After leaving AutoZone, Sunny joined Harrah’s Entertainment (later named Caesars Entertainment Corporation), where he ran technology for the gaming giant. It was here he learned the concept of “customer loyalty” and helped develop retention programs by utilizing incentives. While Sunny knew you couldn’t change the odds for customers, he believed you could change their experience, which would still result in a win-win. Sunny was directly responsible for helping make the Harrah’s loyalty program Total Rewards
Sunny eventually ventured into the Health Care industry developing a company called DocBeat. This breakthrough digital platform also focused on efficiency, enabling critical care teams to more quickly address acute situations. The objective was to deliver safe care quickly by streamlining communication in acute care. DocBeat was ultimately successfully acquired by Vocera which was then acquired by Striker.
CareCognitics is the culmination of Sunny’s career to date and combines all his experience and knowledge into one platform. The CareCognitics mission for him is as much personal as it is professional. At a young age he lost his father to cardiac arrest because the right care couldn’t reach him in time. Now he’s dedicated to revolutionizing health care, through digital transformation, incentivizing patients to be more proactive in their own health and allowing physicians to provide care outside the 4 walls of a doctor’s office year-round.
Our Dreamers & Innovators
Meet our passionate team of leaders from top universities, with proven track record delivering for some of the biggest brands that have all come together with a mission to advance healthcare through digital transformation and influencing patients to be more proactive in managing their health.
Leadership Team
Sunny Tara
Sunny is the Founder & CEO at CareCognitics. Prior to CareCognitics, Sunny’s last venture docBeat, a digital health company, was successfully acquired by Vocera communications. Sunny has a proven track record of successfully delivering industry first solution in the Casino, Hospitality, Gaming, Entertainment and Retail verticals. Sunny holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Science from University of Kentucky at Lexington and a Master’s degree (Summa Cum Laude) in Computer Science from the University of Memphis. Sunny is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and completed the prestigious Advanced Management Program (AMP) at HBS. 
Vishal Agarwal
Vishal is the Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer of CareCognitics. Prior to CareCognitics, Vishal was the Co-Founder & CTO of BeyondCurious an Innovation Consultancy. Vishal is a seasoned technology evangelist who brings over 20 years of experience in solving complex challenges and creating solutions that have transformed businesses. Vishal is a Silicon valley native and holds a Bachelors degree in Electronics Engineering from University of Mumbai and Masters in Information and Data Science from UC Berkeley School of Information.
John Lynn
John is the Chief Marketing Officer of CareCognitics. John is also the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 10 blogs containing over 11,000 articles with John having written over 5500 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 18 million times. John also manages Healthcare IT Central and Healthcare IT Today, the leading career Health IT job board and blog.
Spencer Kubo
Spencer brings a diverse set of experiences and expertise to the chronic care management strategies of CareCognitics. Previously, he was Medical Director of the Heart Failure-Heart Transplantation Program of the University of Minnesota, where he authored over 250 original articles and abstracts. He has also been Chief Medical Officer or a consultant to numerous medical device companies developing breakthrough treatments to improve the lives of patients with cardiac diseases. He maintains a part time clinical practice and most recently was the Physician Lead of the Heart Failure Service Line for Allina Health. In that capacity, he lead a multidisciplinary group focused on improving outcomes of heart failure patients treated at any of the 12 hospitals and over 90 clinics in the Allina system.
Jeffrey A. Marquis
Mr. Marquis has over 25 years of executive level financial and strategic management experience with an emphasis on e-commerce and hospitality. Mr. Marquis held the positions of President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer at Guest Services, a $400 million Virginia hospitality company, over a period of 18 years. Prior to that, Mr. Marquis was the Chief Financial Officer of Travelscape.com, an Internet travel services company located in Las Vegas, Nevada. During his tenure, he led three rounds of private equity financings, managed a tenfold increase in revenues and was instrumental in negotiating the sale of the company to Expedia.com. During his career, Mr. Marquis has also been the portfolio manager of a family private equity fund and a public accountant at KPMG. Mr. Marquis attended the Harvard Business School’s prestigious AMP program, holds a master’s degree in the Management of Information Technology from the University of Virginia, and a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from the University of San Diego.
Robert Blount
Bob brings over 20 years of experience leading and developing revenue teams during times of digital transformation and rapid growth. He has held a variety of sales and marketing leadership roles at both enterprise companies and start-ups. Brands where he had a direct impact on growth include PayrHealth, LeadMD, Dell Technologies, Salesforce, Real Chemistry, and Ogilvy PR. As a founder and co-founder of two different health technology companies, he knows what it takes to build a business from the ground up. Bob is helping drive digital transformation in healthcare through digital marketing and virtual health initiatives. Bob has served on several boards, most recently as Chairman of the Board at MedicAlert.
Janae Sharp
Janae Sharp is a physician suicide loss survivor and the Founder and CEO of the Sharp Index, a non-profit dedicated to better physician mental health. Her work involves healthcare data and analytics marketing to improve healthcare outcomes for the underserved. Janae has learned to code in python, and enjoys making communication easier in tech production, but her true passion is in match making companies to create elegant health IT systems and improve health. She has worked with interoperability and social determinants of health and is an expert on patient and physician engagement. Janae serves on the Board of Utah HIMSS and Healthcare Analytics News, as well as working with companies dedicated to reducing physician suicide.
Gerard Ramalho
Gerard Ramalho is a Communications Expert and Veteran Broadcaster with 30 years on-air experience. He has been awarded 7 regional Emmys for Excellence in Journalism and was inducted into the Nevada Broadcasters Hall of Fame. He currently teaches Journalism as an Adjunct Professor at UNLV. He also has experience in the non-profit world working in various capacities at a number of organizations as Media Liaison, Board Member and Staff Director of Development.
Advisory Board
The CareCognitics Advisory Board’s primary role is to help the team gain new insights and advice to solve business problems and explore new opportunities by stimulating robust, high-quality conversations. This extension to our team is not here to make decisions, but rather to provide current knowledge, critical thinking, and analysis to increase the confidence of the decision-makers who represent the company.
CareCognitics in the News
Casino Loyalty Programs And The Healthcare Experience On The HCbiz Show
- December 24, 2021
Vishal Argawal, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of “Care Cognitics,” appeared on HCBiz show, a podcast dedicated to unraveling the business of healthcare. He was interviewed by host Don Lee in Lee’s final onsite interview at...
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ANNUAL WELLNESS VISIT: OPPORTUNITY LOST TIMES 3?
- December 21, 2021
ANNUAL WELLNESS VISIT: OPPORTUNITY LOST TIMES 3? For Patients: Missed opportunity to implement interventions that could PREVENT complications For Primary Care: Missed opportunity to coordinate care for patients with multiple conditions; under-achieving on a performance...
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5 KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM PRIME HEALTH INNOVATION SUMMIT
- December 20, 2021
by Sunny Tara, This Post was Originally Published on MedTech Boston on June 10, 2019 The 2019 Prime Health Innovation Summit in Denver, Colorado, got something big right: Organizers brought together the innovation and entrepreneurial...
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