Kyra Bobinet

Kyra Bobinet, MD MPH—CEO/Founder of Fresh Tri. Award-winning public health physician using first principles thinking to rethink behavior change in healthcare. Specializing in healthcare innovation, technology-enabled behavior change, behavior neuroscience, health disparities, and population health management, M.D. from UCSF, MPH from Harvard. Awarded the Harvard TH Chan Innovator Award and UCSF Martin Luther King Jr. Award. Adjunct Faculty for Stanford School of Medicine and Dr. BJ Fogg’s Behavior Design Lab. Well-Designed Life, Dr. Bobinet’s best-selling book has been called a must-have tool for health innovators worldwide.

Dr. Bobinet was formerly the Medical Director of Health and Wellness Innovation at Aetna, where she designed large-scale, evidence-based clinical interventions and algorithms. Among her many designs, she was famously the inventor of Aetna’s Mindfulness product–the most cited clinical study on mindfulness, which proved significant outcomes and claims cost reductions of $2000 per member per year. Mark Bertolini, then CEO, championed this product for years before his retirement. Her clinical algorithm design also was patented by Aetna and served to grow their $1B care management business. 

As a Native American (Ojibwe), female physician, and public health expert, Dr.Bobinet brings decades of experience working in health disparities, diversity, and disenfranchised communities. From serving tribal and inter-tribal communities as a physician, to founding a non-profit, re-entry program for incarcerated youth of color, to designing large-scale interventions for Aetna’s 30 million members, she has dedicated her career to lifting up and empowering the holistic health of all people. Fresh Tri is born of Bobinet’s worldview and philosophy, and is designed specifically to be inclusive of different cultures, ethnicities, and identities.

Dr. Bobinet’s product originated several years ago when Fresh Tri was hired by Walmart as a design firm to explore the behavioral underpinnings of chronic conditions experienced by store associates. She conducted in-depth qualitative and quantitative behavioral studies with thousands of Walmart associates (low SES and minority populations) who had achieved lasting weight loss and good chronic condition management. Despite disadvantageous social determinants of health (SDOH), including financial and time constraints, high stress, food unavailability, and other obesogenic factors, these individuals beat the odds. From this research, the Fresh Tri app was developed to target underserved populations in chronic condition management. Dr. Bobinet founded and designed Fresh Tri based on a revelatory mindset discovered during this field research. Fresh Tri uses this “Iterative Mindset” as a novel Behavior operating system (Behavior OS) —whereby practice and iteration of each simple daily activity builds it into an autopilot habit—safe from damaging feelings of failure.  

When it comes to health engagement, Dr. Bobinet devotes her life to helping people crack the code of how, what, and especially, WHY we engage. A great strength of the Iterative Mindset approach is its high engagement with high-risk populations. She designed a social feed that lights up with activity throughout the day and is powered by the thousands of downloads Fresh Tri’s received. Her engagement figures are impressive, bringing a multi-disciplinary, design-first approach which is rooted in science and encoded in technology. Most importantly, she’s accumulating proof of concept and positive outcomes, including in a 60-day study with Walmart Associates. She is launching another study with the CDC at present. Her deep expertise in behavioral and neuroscience-based design, as well as design of large-scale (national and global) health promotion and outcomes solutions, engages users where they are, reaches the most underserved populations, and serves an industry in need of more engaging, retentive, and outcomes-designed solutions.

Dr. Bobinet’s work is not only transformative, but also addresses and disrupts long-held, often specious claims of efficacy and engagement peddled by outdated “wellbeing platforms'' and monolithic weight programs that have failed many in ways still incomprehensible. Her design and language is taking hold among some of the most influential players in the marketplace, and will extend as she continues to develop Fresh Tri’s product to broaden its habits to different contexts and for various stakeholders.