Physician · Founder · System Builder
Dr. Kara Hartl uniquely combines extraordinary clinical expertise with a deep, lived knowledge of rural communities — a career spent at the gap between expertise and access.
Harvard-educated and Bascom Palmer–trained, she spent fourteen years on the Alaska frontier, exited her first company in 2021, and now builds the technology and care models the rest of the industry hasn’t figured out yet.
Founder and CEO of Troy Medical. Creator of the Rural Health Hub.
At a glance
Where she came from
Educated at Harvard University and trained at the world-renowned Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, Dr. Kara Hartl has dedicated her career to expanding access to high-quality medical care in underserved communities.
In Alaska, she built a multispecialty medical center from the ground up, transforming it into one of the most technologically advanced medical and surgical facilities in the state.
What she built
After a successful exit from her first company, Dr. Hartl relocated to Austin and shifted her focus to rural health innovation, medical technology, and scalable care-delivery models.
She is the founder and CEO of Troy Medical and creator of the Rural Health Hub — a purpose-built platform designed to bridge rural communities to the greater medical ecosystem.
Where she’s going
The Rural Health Hub develops the digital and operational infrastructure needed to unify a fragmented landscape, intentionally designed for rural healthcare. Through a common platform, it aggregates rural patients, medical providers, hospitals, payers, cost-saving programs, and health improvement initiatives — creating a single, scalable lever capable of reaching across rural America.
Rather than relying solely on telehealth, the Rural Health Hub integrates on-the-ground clinical infrastructure with remotely located specialists, advanced diagnostics, and AI-enabled technologies. It provides the specialty connectivity and comprehensive operational support required for rural hospitals and clinics to stand up and sustain high-impact programs.
Dr. Hartl is at the forefront of rural health innovation, actively scaling this model across the country and redefining how healthcare infrastructure is built, connected, and delivered in underserved communities.
The intersection
Education & training
Frontier experience
Fourteen years practicing on the Alaska frontier — the lab for everything that came next.
Serial entrepreneur
Built a 30,000 sq ft eye center, launched a fellowship, founded a nonprofit, exited the practice in 2021.
Mission-driven
Every venture aimed at the same goal: making specialty medicine reachable for the people big systems forget.
The story
Dr. Hartl solved a problem for her own patients. They needed the hybrid clinical model. They needed access to providers — and she knew how to do it.
She figured out how to do it. Now she’s doing it for the rest of the country — the 60+ million rural Americans whose zip code still decides their access to specialty care.
The impact
0%
of Americans live in rural communities.
0%
of rural counties are designated medically underserved.
0M+
rural Americans whose zip code limits their specialty access.
0%
higher mortality rate in rural America.
How she’s doing it
Four connected pieces — each playing a specific role in the bridge between rural communities and the rest of medicine.
01
The operating company behind the Rural Health Hub. Continues to run a robust practice in Alaska — the on-the-ground laboratory where the team learns how to operationalize rural programs that scale.
Visit Troy Medical →02
The tele-specialty arm. Brings cardiology, endocrinology, neurology, rheumatology and more to the patient’s local clinic — a real exam room with a real specialist on screen.
03
The coordinated platform that connects rural clinics to specialists, with the workflows, training, and ongoing support each community needs to actually run modern healthcare.
Visit the Hub →04
Harness the power of the Rural Health Hub. Built for rural clinics, providers, hospitals, and payers — making the bridge between communities and modern medicine visible, operational, and durable.
Philanthropy
Dr. Hartl’s philanthropic work brings surgical eye care and full-stack hospital infrastructure to communities that historically have had neither.
01
The international nonprofit Dr. Hartl founded during her Alaska years — dedicated to curing blindness in underserved communities around the world through surgical eye care, training, and the on-the-ground partnerships those programs require.
02
Helping stand up a network of eye hospitals across India — making world-class surgical eye care visible and operational in communities where the infrastructure didn’t previously exist.
Visit India Eye Institute →Network
Partners
Talks & press
Recognition
Women We Admire · 2023
Recognition
CEO Monthly
Feature
Medical Economics
Read →Engage
Speak
Rural specialty access, hybrid telehealth, and building healthcare infrastructure from a clinician’s seat.
Get in touch →Advise
For health systems, telehealth companies, and digital-health investors who want a physician-operator’s view, not a consultant’s deck.
Get in touch →Partner
For hospitals and clinics ready to stand up specialty programs that actually last.
Get in touch →Press
A clear, quotable voice on rural medicine, founder-physician dynamics, and what’s broken with the current model.
Get in touch →— Dr. Kara Hartl