Health data is the most intimate information most people hold. It speaks to vulnerability: visits to specialists, diagnoses, treatments, fears about the future. Yet for decades, that data has lived in fragmented silos, locked behind multiple hospital portals, rarely aggregated, almost never working in a patient's favor. But the fragmentation problem is not the real crisis. The real crisis is that under current law, third-party apps can legally sell your medical records to insurance companies and employers, and most people have no idea it's happening.

In this episode of Lead with AI with Dr. Tamara Nall, Stephen Rouse, co-founder and head of growth at Savva AI, spent years frustrated by that reality. He'd query ChatGPT and WebMD about his own symptoms, get generic answers divorced from context, and wonder why AI couldn't do better. About two years ago, with his co-founder Amit Shah, he decided to build something different: an app that aggregates medical records from all your different providers, keeps that data entirely on your phone, and never monetizes it.

 Why Generic Answers Aren't Enough   

Rouse has lived the fragmented health data experience firsthand. By his mid-30s, he had medical records spread across five or six different portals: University of Utah MyChart, UCSF MyChart, Stanford MyChart, and others accumulated over a lifetime of moving across the country. Each system required logging in separately. Each held pieces of his story, but no system held the whole story.

When he asked ChatGPT why he had a headache, the AI came back with possibilities ranging from brain cancer to nothing useful. Generic guesses disconnected from his actual medical history, wearable data, or the patterns that might have made the answer meaningful. "Why do I have a headache?" he asked. "Oh, you might have brain cancer. Well, you know, I might be hung over too." The gap between generic answers and personalized ones felt like an obvious place to build.

Health data is the most intimate information most people hold. Yet it lives in fragmented silos, locked behind multiple hospital portals, and often monetized without consent. The real crisis isn't fragmentation—it's that under current law, third-party apps can legally sell your medical records to insurance companies and employers.

Stephen Rouse, co-founder of Savva AI, spent years querying ChatGPT and WebMD about his own symptoms, getting generic answers disconnected from his actual health history. Two years ago, with co-founder Amit Shah, he built something different: an app that aggregates all your medical records, keeps them on your phone, and never monetizes them.

The Hidden Loophole  

The 21st Century ONC Cures Act, finalized in 2022, allows consumers to access health records through third parties. That's good. But the law contains a critical gap: third-party apps do not need to be HIPAA compliant. They can sell your data to insurers and employers.

The stakes are concrete. If an insurance company learns from your fitness app that you log excessive alcohol and food, they can raise your premium. If they detect pre-diabetes before you do, they might deny coverage. The 23andMe bankruptcy showed what happens when health data gets brokered in court. Rouse built Savva differently.

Privacy Built In, Not Bolted On  

Savva's approach is radical: don't collect the data. When you download medical records or upload information, nothing reaches Savva's servers. Nothing lives in the cloud. The app runs entirely on your phone.

Savva uses the FHIR standard (a federal healthcare API) and built direct connections to 314,000 EHR sites across the country. Search by city or doctor, authenticate in your provider's portal within the app, and your records pull locally. Same with wearables—data stays on-device.

If you choose cloud-based AI like ChatGPT or Gemini, Savva encrypts your data in transit and at rest. The AI provider never sees who you are.

The Story That Changed Everything  

Stephen connected all his medical records and rediscovered something he'd completely forgotten. In college, an emergency room visit in Long Beach. Fifteen years later, the app surfaced a varsacel diagnosis from 2011. Suddenly, he had the full context. Visit notes. The ability to ask questions rooted in his actual history.

A beta tester pulled a cardiologist report from a visit years ago on the other side of the country, completely forgotten. She could now see all visits going back to 2006. Track A1C levels, weight, and SpO2 max over time. Ask the AI questions grounded in real medical history, not generic guesses.

Global Vision  

Rouse's five-year goal: connect a hundred million people in Western Europe and the U.S. via EHR. His bigger goal: a billion people in underserved regions—Tanzania, rural India, anywhere modern EHR systems don't exist. Patients still show up with notebooks. Savva's plan is to give them digital health records at $10 a year.

Quick Answers  

Q: Does Savva replace my doctor?
No. The app helps you see patterns, track biomarkers over time, and ask informed questions when you visit your provider. It's a tool between appointments, not a replacement for medical care.

Q: How does Savva make money if the app costs $10 a year?
Savva owns direct connections to 314,000 care sites, so it doesn't pay API fees to third-party vendors. The founders believe health data access should be affordable globally.

Q: What if I don't have electronic health records?
Thirty-five percent of Americans still lack electronic records. Savva allows manual upload of documents, images, and files to build a digital record by hand.

Take Control Today  

Your health data is yours. It should not be fragmented across six portals, monetized by insurers, or sold in bankruptcy court. Visit Savva AI to join the beta or download the app. It costs $10 a year. Start by connecting your medical records. See what patterns emerge. Ask questions. Own your health story.

For more on healthcare innovation, AI privacy, and what founders are building right now, follow Lead with AI with Dr. Tamara Nall.

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