Presenting the World's First:Digital Health Sales Institute!
Commercial Excellence in Digital Health: The World's First Sales Certification Built for How Healthcare Actually Buys
A selective, 8-week professional certification designed to prepare experienced professionals, founders, and organizations to sell digital health the way healthcare actually buys.
THIS IS NOT A SALES COURSE.
IT'S A PERFORMANCE INSTITUTE.
Industry Expert Led
Learn from people who've actually sold digital health products into health systems, payers, pharma, and government — not just talked about it.
Earned, Not Attended
DHSI Certification is performance-based. You must demonstrate applied digital health sales capability under real-world conditions. Only those who meet the standard earn the credential.
Access to Sales Roles Before They Reach the Open Market
We connect you to digital health sales roles that are filled through relationships — not applications.
At a high level, the DHSI helps:
The Results Are In
Pre- and post-program assessment data from DHSI's first certified cohort.
of participants would recommend DHSI to another founder or digital health professional
average increase in confidence selling digital health to provider organizations
average confidence using their network for qualified introductions — every participant rated a perfect 5/5 after DHSI
average confidence navigating multi-stakeholder healthcare buying committees
Inaugural cohort, n = 6. Presented as early, first-cohort data.
What Founders and Leaders Are Saying
Dr. Kevin Henderson
Physician / Computer Scientist / Founder
Evonn Henderson
Former Manager, $100MM Hospital Venture Fund
Tayaru Bayyana
CEO & Founder, SereniCare AI
Former head of engineering for Cigna
Frank Sawyer
Former Hospital COO
Jumpstart Health Investors is DHSI's first venture fund client, using DHSI to de-risk commercial execution across their digital health portfolio.
Digital health funding hit record levels. Commercial readiness hasn't kept pace.
The market opportunity is undeniable,
but the talent gap is widening.
Market Explosion
$800B+ projected digital health market by 2030, growing 18-20% annually—one of healthcare's most resilient investment categories.
Investment Shift
68% of VC funding now goes to companies with proven commercial execution after $100B+ invested.
Buyer Complexity
12-18 months healthcare sales cycles with 8-12 stakeholder buying committees, vs. 3-6 months for traditional software.
Post-COVID Caution
73% of health system executives say they won't move forward without seeing how a solution fits into their workflow and improves the bottom line.
Talent Crisis
20,000+ projected shortage of trained digital health professionals needed by 2028.
Inaccurate Revenue Projections
70-90% of digital health startups fail to meet their original revenue projections.
Opportunity is massive. Access is narrowing. Prepared talent wins.
The Gap DHSI Closes
Healthcare doesn't have an innovation problem. It has a commercial readiness problem.
The numbers reveal a fundamental mismatch between how sales professionals are trained and how healthcare actually buys:
Traditional Sales Training
Healthcare Buying Reality
The Cost of This Mismatch:
| By the Numbers | What It Means |
|---|---|
| $240K-$500K | Average cost per failed sales hire |
| 60-70% | Failure rate for hires lacking healthcare domain expertise |
| 80%+ | Digital health companies don't convert pilots to contracts. |
| 9-12 months | Ramp time before healthcare sales reps become productive |
DHSI systematically closes this gap.
Courses
Training built for the people who sell, scale, and invest in digital health.
Full Access CDHRP Certification
Professionals ready for a live, intensive cohort experience
Join a structured, live cohort with peers, faculty, and real-time case work to earn your Certified Digital Health Revenue Professional credential.
Live virtual cohort
Join Full Access CertificationSelf-Guided CDHRP Program Plus
Professionals who want self-paced learning with added support
The same flexible CDHRP curriculum, enhanced with additional coaching, accountability, and direct instructor access.
Self-paced + guided support
Start the Plus ProgramSelf-Guided CDHRP Program
Busy professionals who need flexibility
Learn the CDHRP curriculum at your own pace with recorded lessons, exercises, and downloadable frameworks.
On-demand, self-paced
Start the Self-Guided ProgramResources
Free tools and frameworks to sharpen your digital health commercial strategy.
The $10M Mistake Checklist
Digital health founders
A free diagnostic tool: five commercial gaps that quietly kill funded digital health startups.
Free PDF download
Get the Free ChecklistLinkedIn AI Tool Kit
Founders & sales professionals
A free collection of AI prompts that turn your LinkedIn profile into a buyer-magnet — headlines, About section, outreach, and know-like-trust networking.
Free PDF download
Get the Free Tool KitRecommended tools
Partners
Tools we trust to help you earn more from what you know — and get more done without growing your payroll.
Partner resource
Turn What You Know Into a Course That Pays
Your experience is worth more than one-off consulting hours. LearnWorlds gives you everything you need to package what you know into an online course — build it, brand it, and sell it — without writing a line of code.
Start Your Course With LearnWorldsPartner resource
Get Marketing Muscle Without Adding Headcount
Bring on ambitious, vetted marketing interns for one project or the long haul. Real help with campaigns, content, and outreach — no salary, no recruiter, no full-time hire.
Find a Marketing InternPartner resource
Get the Work Done That Isn’t Your Strength
A pitch deck that needs rescuing, a landing page, a promo video, a cold-email rewrite. Fiverr puts you in front of vetted specialists at every budget — so the project moves this week instead of waiting on a hire.
Hire a Specialist on FiverrMedia
DHSI in the press, on podcasts, and on stage.
Podcast Appearances
Interviews and episodes featuring DHSI faculty on selling, scaling, and investing in digital health.
Coming soonPress & News Coverage
Jumpstart Health Investors selected DHSI as their sales enablement partner for their 138+ portfolio companies. Read the announcement.
Read the storySpeaking & Panel Highlights
Conference talks, workshops, and panels where the DHSI team shares what healthcare buyers actually require.
Coming soonSigCom — Signals from the Commercial Front Line
Bi-weekly signals from the commercial front line of digital health — what buyers are telling us, what's closing, and what's quietly killing deals.
Subscription coming soonHow DHSI is Different
Independent by design
Built around how health systems really make decisions — not how vendors pitch them.
Industry expert led
Every instructor has closed multiple digital health deals
Not sponsored. Not academic
Built for healthcare reality, not product promotion
Digital Health-specific
Designed for 12-18 month cycles and 8-12 stakeholder committees
Application only
Selective admission, limited cohort size
Industry benchmark of excellence & trust
85% passing threshold maintains value
Built by someone who's lived every side of this problem.
Kirk Barnes
Founder, Digital Health Sales Institute
Kirk Barnes is the founder of the Digital Health Sales Institute and a nationally recognized authority on selling, scaling, and commercializing digital health solutions. He began his career as an award-winning sales professional and sales leader at Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Takeda, where he consistently ranked among top performers and later led teams responsible for driving complex healthcare sales across highly regulated markets. During this phase of his career, he contributed to the commercialization of two healthcare products that ultimately scaled to more than $1B in revenue, building a rare blend of frontline sales credibility and executive leadership experience.
Kirk later became a senior leader at the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) at Georgia Tech, where he designed and launched the first healthtech program in ATDC's history, working at the intersection of startups, universities, investors, health systems, and government partners. Since then, he has coached hundreds of digital health startups and thousands of sales professionals, served as a board member and strategic advisor to numerous digital health companies, and advised multiple leading accelerators and innovation programs. His work spans biopharma, venture capital, startups, and economic development, giving him an unmatched, real-world perspective on what it truly takes to sell and scale digital health—experience that forms the foundation of the Digital Health Sales Institute.
"DHSI is a long overdue and much needed resource for founders, individuals and corporations. We look forward to being partners with you!"
— John Valentine, Senior Director, MassChallenge
Our Relationships: Where Opportunity Flows
We connect you to digital health roles that never hit job boards.
Venture Capital
Innovation Ecosystems
"70-80% of senior digital health sales roles are filled through these networks before they're ever posted publicly."
Frequently Asked Questions
Digital health isn't slowing down. But the door is getting harder to open.
If you want to be on the inside of where healthcare sales is going—
not chasing it later—Join us for an info session.