Healthcare is a family business—at least for Caroline and Luke Burkey, the wife and husband duo who are revolutionizing healthcare education through their company, Samsara. Samsara is a virtual classroom platform that is designed to enhance teamwork and communication skills among professionals in the healthcare industry. Caroline Burkey, MD, a Hematology and Oncology Fellow at UW Health, began her career as a Resident Physician and later advanced into the position of Chief Resident. In her newest role as Co-founder and COO of Samsara, she ensures that care providers can operate at their best by bridging technical medical knowledge with quality patient care and teamwork skills. This need became apparent to Caroline during her transition from medical school to residency, prompting Luke to join her in leveraging his experience in software product management to design the solution.
Samsara enables healthcare professionals and hospital systems to engage in interdisciplinary, team-based learning online, reducing operational costs and advancing innovative teaching approaches. The platform allows educators to design their simulations, assign roles, administer prompts, and coach students. As the Burkeys prepare for their first paid pilot with UW Health, they are focused on continuing to expand the platform’s features, aiming to make healthcare education more affordable and effective while prioritizing patient care.
Aimee Arnoldussen, the Burkeys’ mentor at D2P, stated that “Caroline and Luke embody the “entrepreneurial spirit,” solving problems, adding value, and delivering impact for medical educators. Keenly observant, they use well-designed experiments to test their business assumptions and adjust their strategy, making evidence-informed decisions, seizing opportunities, and continuously improving their team and product.”
We asked Caroline and Luke Burkey to discuss their experience with co-founding a company and Samsara’s impact thus far:
Where did the idea for your company come from initially?
The idea for our company was born from the challenges Caroline faced as a resident transitioning from medical school. Despite having strong head knowledge, she realized that being a physician required more soft skills and team leadership, which she felt unprepared for. This highlighted the need for teamwork education in healthcare. During a brainstorming session over coffee, we decided to create a platform to address this issue for hospitals and academic medical centers. Luke, who values active learning due to his struggles with traditional learning methods, joined Caroline in this venture to create a solution that would benefit both learners and educators. Luke’s background as a software product manager helped our husband-wife team take the problem, design a product, and create a solution.
How has D2P helped you, and what have you learned?
D2P has been an invaluable resource in our entrepreneurial journey. Aimee, in particular, was a great encourager and supporter even before we were accepted into the Igniter program in 2023. She provided us with constructive feedback and inspiration while she helped us think through our problems and build up our product. Once we joined the Igniter program, we met other mentors and leaders who played a crucial role in our development, allowing us to bounce ideas off each other and mature as a team. The D2P team, including Aimee, Amar, Abraham, and Cecily, were the first real users of our platform, helping us test and improve the platform’s functionality during the initial workshops. This support continues as we scale our business and secure new grants.
What other entrepreneurial resources/programs have guided you?
Programs like MadWorks and Milwaukee’s For-M have been instrumental in our growth, offering guidance, networking opportunities, and financial support. Wisconsin is an underrated place to build a business, and we have benefited greatly from the supportive community that values solving innovative problems locally. We have also worked with the UW Madison Law and Entrepreneurship Clinic, which offered helpful guidance as we set up our legal entity.
What’s your current focus with the company?
Our current focus is on completing our first paid pilot with UW Health. We’ve conducted limited educator pilots with the University of Wisconsin’s healthcare teams and are preparing modules for a larger audience to run this paid pilot. This involves enhancing the platform with features like role assignments and improved chat capabilities for educator-learner interaction. We will run the paid pilot in early fall and are working towards securing our first contracts, expanding our customer base, and evolving the platform to scale.
What are your hopes for the company moving forward?
We hope that Samsara will create new opportunities for healthcare workers to collaborate well and improve patient outcomes. We hope to inspire other Wisconsin innovators to build new products and services, creating jobs and driving forward ideas in healthcare. Our goal is to make healthcare more affordable and effective for patients while continuing to serve those who need it the most.
What drives you/why is this project important to you personally?
This project is about solving a problem bigger than ourselves, which we find incredibly inspiring. It has also strengthened our partnership and teamwork as a married couple. We have learned about each other’s skills and areas for growth. We enjoy building things together, and this project has been a wonderful opportunity to further our professional goals and our personal relationship.
What advice would you give to other campus innovators who are just starting to explore the potential of their ideas?
If you have an idea that keeps you up at night and energizes you in the morning, our advice is to pursue it. One of the greatest tragedies would be looking back and regretting not trying to make a positive impact. Make small personal sacrifices to see if your idea has potential. Time and money are often well spent on a passionate idea.
Is there an experience during the development of your project that surprised you or had a powerful impact on your direction?
One surprising lesson was to be open to solving needs in unexpected ways. Initially, we planned to deliver in-person lectures and interactive simulations. However, through customer interviews and feedback, we realized that many educators already had innovative ideas but needed a platform to deliver them effectively. This pivot led us to become a product company, focusing on creating a platform for educators to design and implement their simulations.
How do you balance the time you must spend on your project with other work and life responsibilities?
Balancing time for our startup with other responsibilities often means making sacrifices. As co-founders, married partners, and parents to two young children, we’ve had to be intentional about our time and money. Our incredible support system has been essential, including close family who help with childcare and advice. We are deeply grateful for their support, which has enabled us to pursue our entrepreneurial dreams while managing our family and full-time jobs.