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