Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / Dr. Jennifer Schneider, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer at Homeward

Transcript

Dr. Jennifer Schneider, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer at Homeward · Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast

• 0:01
  CEOs,
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  CFOs and executives from top hospitals and health systems are gathering at this
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  exclusive world-class event.
• 0:08
  To address the most pressing issues in healthcare today,
• 0:11
  Becker's 11th annual c e o and CFO Round Table is taking place in Chicago
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  this November and will feature more than 400 elite provider speakers and
• 0:21
  over a thousand hospital and health systems,
• 0:23
  C-Suite and VP attendees and good news healthcare providers have a chance
• 0:28
  at receiving complimentary registration as a reviewer. If you're interested,
• 0:32
  you can apply at the website in the description.
• 0:35
  This is Lauren Dedo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
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  I'm thrilled today to be joined by Dr. Jennifer Schneider,
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  co-founder and chief executive officer at Homeward. Dr. Schneider,
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  it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
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  Thanks so much for the chance to be here.
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  Now. I'm looking forward to talking with you. I know this is a big discussion,
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  a lot happening in healthcare right now,
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  and the work you do at Homeward is so critical.
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  But before we dive into my discussion,
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  can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your background?
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  Sure, absolutely. So, um, uh, my by way of background and training,
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  I'm an internal medicine doctor and a health services researcher,
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  and I've been in the world of digital health now for, uh, almost 15 years.
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  Uh, first at a company called Castlight Health,
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  where I served as a Chief medical officer and then at a company called Livongo
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  Health, where I served as president. Um,
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  but I'm really excited about the company that I was able to conch with my
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  co-founder, uh, Homeward Health,
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  and delighted to tell you a little bit more about that.
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  Absolutely. Well, perfect. Well, um,
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  thank you again for your time and effort today. Now,
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  when you look at the future,
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  what is your growth strategy for the next year or two?
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  What is Homeward really focused on and how do you plan to achieve it?
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  Let me start by telling you a little bit about Homeward.
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  So Homeward is a technology and enabled value-based care provider with a
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  mission to re-architect the delivery of health and care in partnership with
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  communities everywhere starting in rural America.
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  And the reason we picked rural America is because that healthcare delivery is
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  heavily, heavily broken in rural America, very specifically,
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  when we look at people who live in a zip code,
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  the last three digits designated as rural,
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  they have 23% higher mortality rates than those that live in an urban
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  community. Um, this is very personal to me.
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  So I grew up in a small town in Minnesota called Winona. Um,
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  I was introduced to the healthcare ecosystem at the ripe young age of
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  12 when I was diagnosed with type one diabetes.
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  It was actually that that led me to go into medical school. Um, I was,
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  had a very, very wonderful endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic named Dr.
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  Robert Nelson. And, uh,
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  it was really in the way he treated me that I became intrigued in the practice
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  of medicine. But it wasn't until, you know, many,
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  many years later when I looked back and started to understand what,
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  what types of care, uh, were the expected protocol driven types of care,
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  and then what were the types of care that real people received in real settings.
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  And there's oftentimes a very big discrepancy there. Specifically for me,
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  when I was do diagnosed with type one, um, uh,
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  the, I didn't see an endocrinologist for a very extended period of time,
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  which I did not think was AV normal,
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  did not think was weird until I went to medical school at Hopkins and learned
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  that much of the mortality happens early around diagnoses,
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  both coming in and out of diabetic ketoacidosis,
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  managing high sugars and low blood sugars.
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  And then I started to think more about that on my own healthcare journey.
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  It became obvious that there's a lot of work that we can and need to do in rural
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  America. In rural America, they're about, um, uh, you know,
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  most counties have an inadequate supply of primary care doctors and 8% of
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  counties have no primary care doctor.
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  The available specialist is about half of what it is in urban.
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  And so there's really a big a really a big, um,
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  discrepancy around what people need and what people can get in terms of services
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  and care in these markets. And so with my co-founder decided to launch, uh,
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  Homeward to help address these issues.
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  That's fantastic. And as someone, uh,
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  who grew up in a small town in Iowa as well,
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  I definitely have experience with the rural healthcare system and certainly, um,
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  know how important it's with within communities to have access to care and being
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  able to provide that. And I know right now in, in many spaces, uh,
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  rural healthcare centers and facilities are struggling more than urban
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  centers and large academic medical centers who have their own challenges and
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  their own rights. So, you know, when you look at the the rural healthcare today,
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  what do you see as being essential for preserving it and being able to, uh,
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  make sure that people have access to care and a really practical sense, um,
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  over the next several years?
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  It's a, it's a really great question. I think first and foremost that, um,
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  there's a lot of good work that's happening in rural communities,
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  and I think partnering with people is always a better approach than coming in
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  and trying to compete, particularly when access is the issue.
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  You don't wanna come in and try to drive more people out.
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  And so that's been a core tenet. In fact,
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  part of our mission statement is around the access,
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  accessibility and partnering with people. I think the second is that there's a,
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  the concept in healthcare around value-based care around truly getting paid for
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  the outcomes that you produce is critical because if you look at fee for service
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  and reimbursement rates in rural America where there's a disproportionately
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  high, um, population,
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  percentage of people in Medicare and Medicaid fee for service just doesn't work
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  just for most physicians to stay economically afloat. However,
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  if you align economic incentives to the care that needs to be delivered to do
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  the, the payment model under a total capitation or global capitation,
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  it allows and incense providers to do the right thing to invest in preventive
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  care, to invest in remote patient monitoring,
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  where you can access people more frequently and regularly at a much smaller
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  reimbursement rate to drive the outcomes that are necessary.
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  Got it. I think that makes a lot of sense and it's definitely a, a great way to,
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  as you mentioned, incentivize, making sure that, uh,
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  physicians and caregivers are really available and accessible and and focused in
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  those spaces.
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  Could you tell us a little bit about the most exciting and impactful initiative
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  or project that you're working on right now?
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  Yes.
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  I didn't have a chance to tell you when I was introducing a homer that we're
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  partnered with working in two states right now,
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  partnered with two really creative forward thinking strategic payers.
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  First is Priority Health, and that's in Michigan. Uh,
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  priority health is the health, uh, plan arm of Corwell Health,
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  which is the largest health system in the state of Michigan.
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  And the second one is in Minnesota, which is my, my home state of Minnesota,
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  um, uh, with partnering with Blue Cross Blue Shield of of Minnesota.
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  And so it's really in, uh,
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  it's really in partnership with these two people where we've been able to
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  deliver, launch, and deliver our care into the rural market.
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  That's fantastic. And you know, I know as you mentioned,
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  partnerships are such an important aspect of,
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  of being able to connect and deliver care. Um, when you look at, you know,
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  that a type of partnership like that, how do you develop a a an in, I guess,
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  or how do you develop a partnership that's beneficial for both sides,
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  especially in a, a space where healthcare is, um, very critical, but also,
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  um, not, you know, healthcare dollars and, and resources are scarce?
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  Yeah, yeah, it's a great, it's a great question. I think that, you know, I'll,
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  I'll talk a little bit about our model.
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  Our model is really to allow healthcare practitioners to practice at the top of
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  their licensure.
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  So really building everything in a technology stack that allows people to have
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  the experience in-person experience when they need it,
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  and then allow and allows us to take care of much of the,
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  the kind of the crud work, if you will,
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  or the backend office to help drive that efficiency.
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  It's very common in healthcare delivery systems where those of us whom are
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  really highly trained, spend most of our day doing fairly menial, um, work,
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  right? Just to get the job done.
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  And then investment in technologies to take part or take away some of that,
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  you know, uh,
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  menial part of the paperwork and allow training to work at the top of their
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  licensure is really important. I think the second is, again,
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  like I talked about relative to being able to partner within the ecosystem. So,
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  you know, today we know that the, um,
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  there's a number of people doing really high quality work within the ecosystem
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  and really coming in and helping drive and, and, um,
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  to help them develop what that could be. Um,
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  so thinking really closely around what is the service offering that we have that
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  could help accelerate health systems in these markets or help health systems
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  accelerate the things that they excel at,
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  and forming tight partnerships there is really critical to the success of people
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  living in the catchment areas of these health systems.
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  Absolutely. What a great point. And, you know, to look at the healthcare system,
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  it is about evolving so quickly and rapidly. I know over the past few years,
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  especially during the pandemic, there was a lot of changes.
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  And then we continue to see a lot of growth and development,
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  whether it's in the value-based space, looking at technology,
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  artificial intelligence, the way that that's impacting healthcare,
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  and then just the needs and and desires of consumers.
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  So what do you see as being the most important thing that healthcare executives
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  should do right now to make sure that their organizations are successful going
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  forward?
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  Yeah, well, I, you know, again, I would start by re uh,
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  restating again that, uh,
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  this idea around partnering with communities to improve access to healthcare is
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  critical. What that does, it allows, um, for trust.
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  And so trust and partnership, I think,
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  are critical in any model trust across the ecosystem,
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  but definitely trust with individual people that you're serving and servicing.
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  Um, uh, you know, for me, you know, we right now in the rural health space,
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  see a lot of hospitals are closing and there's a tremendous amount of provider
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  shortages, which is impacting the communities in need of the healthcare,
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  particularly in these rural areas. Um,
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  and it's important to be able to support providers to min, you know,
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  minimize those administrative burdens and help improve provider satisfaction.
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  At the end of the day, if we have provider burnout and can't provide that care,
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  we, we sort of missed the point. And so again,
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  divesting and leveraging the tech,
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  investing in and leveraging that technology to, to do that is critical. Um,
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  second, um,
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  I've always been a very strong advocate for empowering women in the workplace.
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  Um, this is truly important in healthcare where women make 80% of the healthcare
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  decisions.
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  So ensuring that women have a voice at the seat of the table as we're developing
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  the delivery care system is absolutely critical.
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  Or we could end up in a place that doesn't actually make meeting the needs of
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  the, this decision maker within the healthcare ecosystem. Um,
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  and so I think we really be,
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  we need representation of wo women leadership in healthcare.
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  That's amazing. Dr. Schneider,
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  thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.
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  This has been such a fun discussion. I,
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  I've learned a lot and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
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  Thank you so much, Laura. I really enjoyed the opportunity. Thank you.