- 2 days ago
Meet the Black healthcare innovators from the New Voices + "Release the Pressure" Health Innovators Hub and learn how they built businesses that advance health equity and address critical healthcare issues in the Black community, including heart health. "Release the Pressure" (RTP) brings together Black women from across America, reminding them to prioritize self-care to improve their heart health. Protect your magic, protect your heart!
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00:00I'm a Ghanaian-American, but I'm better known online as the medical myth-buster
00:03for talking about health inequities in medicine, healthcare disparities, and the ways that we
00:08in our community can better our health for all of us. But really what I'm excited about today
00:12is to moderate this incredible panel with some absolutely stunning and amazing innovators that
00:17are doing amazing work in heart health. But first, I want to say thank you so much to the
00:22American Medical Association and the New Voices Foundation for asking me to do this panel and
00:28for having us here. The American Medical Association has been working on Release the Pressure.
00:33It's a campaign that seeks to advance equitable opportunities to invest in heart health innovation
00:39and solution development. We're prioritizing investment in health innovation in programs developed
00:45by, with, and for the black community, as you can see up here by these incredible entrepreneurs.
00:51And really what Release the Pressure is about is it's about empowering the black community
00:56by providing access to resources and support that are needed to adopt a heart-healthy lifestyle.
01:02So the health innovators that you see here today on stage exemplify that mission of the Release
01:08the Pressure campaign. And through their work, they're designing creative and effective solutions
01:13to heart health and looking at disparities in a new way by using different tools, new tech,
01:19and, of course, new talent as well. So I'm excited to introduce to you an incredible group of powerful
01:24entrepreneurs. But I think, as an entrepreneur, you all have gotten good at giving your one-minute
01:28pitch. It's like the best way to talk about it is to have you guys do it. So we'll start right
01:32over here with Crystal and then we'll just work our way down. Why don't you tell us your name,
01:37what your company is doing in its name, and the booth people can find you at.
01:41Hi, my name is Crystal Dobson. I am CEO and founder of Cardiac Fit. Cardiac Fit is a telehealth solution
01:49that is a marriage between healthcare and fitness, and we offer low-cost alternatives to a preventive
01:54healthcare. Our mission is to tackle the traditional healthcare barriers seen within the healthcare
02:00system, which includes access to quality care, engagement of underserved communities, and costs.
02:06The problem is 30 million people have cardiovascular disease, with black Americans have 54 percent,
02:13they're more likely to die from CBD. And so Cardiac Fit aims to change that. Thank you. It's a pleasure to
02:19be here. Thank you so much. Ashley? Hi, everyone. My name is Ashley Wisdom. I'm the founder and CEO of
02:25Health and Her Hue, which is a digital health platform focused on connecting black women to culturally
02:30sensitive and black healthcare providers, as well as educational health content and community support.
02:36And you can find us at boot 7310, and we're raffling off tickets to see Usher tomorrow, so come on over.
02:42Did y'all hear that? Ushering off tickets to see Usher, so make sure you hit that booth. Go ahead, Jackie.
02:49Well, I don't have Ashley on that one, but I'm gonna have to go to that raffle.
02:52Well, hello, everyone. My name is Jennifer Ja'Kai Johnson. I'm the founder and CEO of Wellness.
02:59Wellness is a trauma-informed digital care clinic that provides integrative medicine to trauma.
03:05It was built after the unexpected passing of my son. When he passed, I ended up having broken
03:10heart syndrome, leaky heart valve, PTSD, anxiety, and ultimately, I just needed more than mental
03:17health care. So I searched for care and came up with integrative medicine in terms of having
03:22different clinicians to work on different parts of the journey. And so that's what we do at Wellness.
03:27Come check us out at Booth 7306, where you can learn more about integrative medicine and heart health.
03:32Amazing start.
03:34Good afternoon. I am Star Cunningham, the founder and CEO of 4D Healthware. We are at Booth 7308.
03:43Please come by and check us out. We also don't have Usher tickets, but we're close to them. So come check us out.
03:48At 4D Healthware, we are a virtual care company that is culturally competent. So we put devices in the home
03:56that manage you, monitor you. If a blood pressure goes up or if you need any type of support, we are
04:03also connected to clinicians, doctors, nurses, community health workers, social workers,
04:10to support you and wrap around health care. Thank you so much for having me today.
04:16Hey, everybody. My name is Kwame Tara. I'm the founder and CEO of Bear Health.
04:21Before I do my spiel, I want to ask everybody a question. Raise your hand if you know your credit score.
04:26All right. Most people here. Now, raise your hand if you know your health score.
04:30Good. A few people, right? So our app, Balanced by Bear, is kind of like Credit Karma, but for your health.
04:35Everybody gets a score between 0 and 1,000 that represents your overall health. So
04:39And it changes in real time. So if you go on a run one day, your score goes up a few points.
04:43If you get three hours of sleep one night, the score goes down. Based on those changes,
04:47we provide real-time feedback for how you can improve, as well as help you connect with
04:51health care resources as well. Last month on our app, our medical advisor took 1 million steps.
04:57And in that journey, he lost 20 pounds and came off blood pressure medication. So we launched the
05:03challenge for Essence Fest where we take 10,000 steps on our app. At any point during the weekend,
05:08you're entering for a chance to win $500. So come find us at booth 7111 for a chance to win and learn
05:15more about what we're doing. Amazing. So as you can hear, each of these entrepreneurs are doing
05:19incredible work in the health care space, advancing heart health. And we're going to be doing something
05:24a little bit different today for this panel. I'm not going to be just asking questions.
05:28Instead, we have a little game. We have these slips of paper over here. They all have a word that's written
05:32on it. We're going to ask the panelists to pick one of these out and say whatever topic comes first to
05:38mind related to their specific business. And we're going to start all the way on the left side with
05:43Kwame over there. So Kwame, I'll have you pick one out. And I may follow up with some questions.
05:53So I got the word team. Just anything that comes to mind as it relates to my business?
05:57Exactly. So I'll say as an early stage company, the most important thing that investors or grant
06:04writers or funders of any form are looking for is your team. So how qualified are you to do what
06:11you're doing? How dedicated are you to the work that you're committed to? And are you guys going to
06:17be attractive long term to investors to be able to get people to come and work behind you? I think one
06:22way that I've shown that with my company is we started an internship at Xavier University, Louisiana,
06:28where I invite students to have the chance to earn equity as well as cash in the startup
06:33in an effort to give them opportunity and exposure to what it means to be a part of this early stage
06:37company. And our vision is to actually create 20 millionaires, student millionaires through working
06:42with Bear. I absolutely love that. And just a follow-up question. How did you go about finding your team
06:48when you first started out? Because I think for every entrepreneur, it's going from that solo to actually
06:52having a team behind you to build out your vision. How did you do that? Yeah, I mean, I tried to keep
06:56it relatively organic, right? So I mean, one way I did for the internship was I posted on social media
07:01and then a lot of students decided to come, you know, look for internship programs, looking to put
07:06things on their resume. So that was relatively easy. But outside of that, I just show up everywhere in the
07:11health and wellness space, tell people about what I'm doing. Our medical advisor, Dr. Griggs, we started
07:16working together because I was filming a panel that he was speaking on and shared the content with him.
07:21And then he fell in love with what we're doing. And it's, you know, transformed his life in many ways.
07:25And he's now become a champion for what we do. So different, different ways to build the team.
07:29But I like it when it's, when it's organic. Love that. And hopefully out of that, you heard that
07:34you could, you hear if you're interested in one of these companies, come up, talk to someone who knows,
07:38maybe it's your future business that you're working with over here. Okay, I'm going to mix things
07:41up a little bit. Chris, we're going to go to you. So I got policy. So policy within the healthcare
07:50environment is so important. One thing that holds clear, especially when you're working with
07:56underserved communities, which is what we work with and standing businesses, but working with the
08:00African-American community is access to quality care, engagement of underserved communities and
08:08equity. And it's important for us to advocate for policies that support these types of things,
08:14because there's so many people that don't have access to quality care, access to quality cardiac care
08:21that looks just like us. So cardiac supports this. We are in Texas. We're in Dallas. And our congresswoman
08:29is Jasmine Crockett. And so we have a powerful woman that we can go to that supports us with NIH grants for
08:40creating technology, just like what cardiac fit is built on to increase innovation. That's going to
08:46increase access to rural populations and underserved populations. So thank you so much.
08:50Absolutely love that. And shout out to Jasmine Crockett. She's incredible for the work she's doing.
08:55Shout out to Jasmine Crockett. Congresswoman Crockett.
08:56I have a question about how do you go about finding those grants? I mean,
09:00policy is one thing, right? Finding federal grants is another. How do you actually go about finding
09:03those grants and making sure that it's advancing whatever policies that an administration is going
09:07about and making sure that stakeholders understand what's at stake for the black community?
09:11That's a really good question. NIH and SBIR grants are not something that we actively know about.
09:25So we did a lot of background education and research to really understand what the NIH is looking for.
09:31And so they're looking for ways to actually improve our health, improve health in the underserved
09:36populations. And the COVID-19 was a big part of that. COVID-19 actually showed that the African-American
09:44communities don't have access to quality care. And we have a lot of comorbidities that cause us to have
09:50increase in death for COVID-19. So you can actually go to the NIH. You can find a whole lot of grants that
09:56actually can support some of your innovations. And the SBIR is one of them. So we have two out there
10:03where we're looking at AI, artificial intelligence, and really predicting CBD within our community,
10:11and an innovation platform that we are presenting that's going to create a healthcare environment
10:16for our community. So we're really excited about that. Love it. Thank you for all that work that
10:20you're doing. Ashley, feel free to choose.
10:23Disruption. Okay. So in tech, the word disruption is a very overused word at times. I think when
10:35innovators are building in the healthcare space, because our healthcare system is so complicated,
10:40and to put it frank, it's very broken, it's really hard to frankly disrupt healthcare when you're
10:48innovating. We have to create a new healthcare system. We can't just build new solutions on top
10:53of a fundamentally flawed healthcare system. So when I think about the disruption of healthcare,
10:57I think about policy. I think about challenging institutional racism. And I also think about as
11:04innovators, us building together collectively and not building in silos. As you know, entrepreneurs
11:09who are building capital, sometimes capitalism will make us feel like we need to only be competitive.
11:14But in order to actually disrupt healthcare, we need to be building solutions together and not
11:18in silos. Absolutely. Ashley, I've had the chance to interview you about you being a disruptor,
11:24especially with Health in our Hue. Can you tell us a little bit about how you think it's being a
11:27disruptor right now? And if not yet, where do you see the biggest disruptions happening for Health in
11:33our Hue in general for the healthcare system? So one way I'll say that we have been disrupting healthcare
11:39has been with our provider directory. So we have a directory to make it easier for black women
11:45to and women of color to find providers who look like us, as well as providers who may not look like
11:50us, but are committed to providing affirming and safe care to black women. And one of the ways that we
11:55do that on our platform is that we allow our members to filter for providers based on race and ethnicity.
12:00And so I've talked to health insurance companies and I've pitched Health in our Hue and they're like,
12:04this is great. And then they try to go and do it themselves and they realize we actually don't
12:08have the race and ethnicity data on many of our providers. And so, and because they didn't think
12:13that it was something that was important for patients to know when they're looking for a provider,
12:18but we know as black people, we tend to want to be seen by a provider who looks like us, who knows
12:23our lived experience. And so we've added that capability on our platform because we know that
12:27that's what black patients want. And, but because of that now we have health systems and health
12:32insurance companies who are starting to think about ways that they can build features and
12:35capabilities to better serve their black members and patients. Absolutely. That's true disruption
12:41right there. Thank you. Mark it. Okay. So this is the data, right? One in two women will experience at
12:57least one or multiple traumatic experiences in her lifetime. However, for black and brown women,
13:04eight out of 10 of us will experience some form of trauma and 50% of black women over the age of 20
13:11have some sort of cardiovascular disease. So there's a huge market around understanding that we need
13:17to address our trauma. Eight out of 10 of the leading causes of death are associated with unaddressed
13:26trauma. So trauma causes stress, stress causes information, information causes chronic conditions.
13:32So this is a big market, but that's unsettling because there is a big market, right? That means we
13:38need to be taking better care of ourselves. We're looking at our heart health because all of that is
13:43connected as well as to trauma and what we go through. So I think for us, it's just understanding
13:49how big the market is, but looking at the best ways to address it. So for us, it was looking at three
13:54things. We wanted to make sure we provided her with whole person integrative trauma care. So when
14:00she comes to us, she gets a integrative doctor. She gets a trauma focused therapist and a coach.
14:06She gets an integrative registered dietitian nutritionist. She gets a yoga therapist and a
14:11naturopathic educator and a personal care coordinator on her journey. That was the first thing. The second
14:17thing, she wanted to have specialized therapists who would train deeply in trauma and grief.
14:22They're what I call generalist therapists, but trauma is a specialty. You have to be deeply trained in
14:29trauma. And so we focused on making sure our clinicians, our therapists were trained. They
14:34came in with certain trainings, but then we go on top of that and we invest in some more trainings.
14:39The last thing was culturally competency and making sure it was covered by insurance. We make sure that
14:45now we're in network with Aetna, Aetna Medicare. We work with the Victims Compensation Fund. So if you're a victim of
14:51homicide, domestic violence, human trafficking, intimate partner violence, the state can pay us
14:58to service our medical and therapy needs. So those are the main focuses. It's a big market,
15:03but we're working solely one woman by one woman.
15:06I absolutely love that and that you're looking at holistically the whole person, making sure that you
15:13have all these different individuals, different specialties adding to their care. I guess, how do you
15:19make, I mean, that's like you said, it's a big problem to have, right? So when you were starting,
15:23what was the problem that you were trying to first focus on before kind of looking at the whole entire
15:27system? And if there is one lesson you want people to know about when you think about like trauma-informed
15:32care and trauma and how that impacts our health, what would be the biggest lesson you tell people
15:36about how to mitigate it, how to lessen that? Initially, we were focused on stress and grief,
15:43but then I learned as I was talking to my mentors, they was like, you know, all of this is associated
15:48with trauma. And I didn't know that the unexpected passing of my son was a traumatic experience.
15:54I didn't know that I was having traumatic grief. I didn't know that all of these things were
15:58associated with trauma. So it turned out being much bigger than what I initially went into.
16:03It was trauma. And I was scared to say the word because I said, she's going to be like trauma.
16:08I don't, I don't have trauma. Nobody has trauma. But then when you do your trauma symptoms checklist
16:14and you look at the insomnia, look at the irritable bowel syndrome, look at the anxiety,
16:18the depression, the hypertension, the traumatic stress, the broken heart syndrome, you have trauma
16:23and we have to work on that. So it became larger. The biggest lesson I would say is that we really
16:28need a more trauma informed society. We need a more compassionate society. We need to know how to
16:34really nurture one another because if we had a trauma informed, compassionate society, we'll know
16:39how to approach much better. I think that's the really biggest one is trauma informed society.
16:44We have to have it. And what does that mean? That means understanding that each one of us may have
16:49some type of trauma we've been through. So keeping that in the back of our mind with how we talk,
16:53how we approach, how we interact. Think about trauma informed. Just be compassionate every day
16:58when you're meeting with someone. Give grace. Give grace. Give grace. You don't know what they've been
17:04through. Give grace. Absolutely. Thank you. And last but not least, Star.
17:09I have ROI. Return on investment. And I think about my company and what ROI means usually is when you put
17:25money into something, you get more money back. And ROI for us is when we provide care for someone,
17:33we have more in return. I'll give you a personal example of one of our patients who was diabetic.
17:41And she had her daughter assisting her as a caregiver. So the ROI is supporting the diabetes
17:49patient. That's tangible, right? We know what that is. They have a device. They have a reading,
17:55need to adjust their diet. We're assisting them saving their kidneys. That's tangible.
18:01The intangible part of that ROI is directly related to the daughter that's the caregiver.
18:08And when she called us and thanked us for monitoring her mom, for making certain that her mom was up,
18:16active, engaged, that she had not passed out from a diabetic coma or worse, she was then able to go to work,
18:24focus on her job, not have so much anxiety or trauma related to something bad happening to her mom while she
18:34was at work. That's the intangible. But that's the return that is a farther reach. So that's what we
18:40concentrate on. Getting the data from a patient and providing care, that's the easiest part of what we do.
18:48That downstream impact for that return on investment, that's what we're focused on to make sure those
18:56ancillary benefits come back even greater. Absolutely. And I love that you're making
19:01ROI more than just some financial thing, which is what we often think about, but thinking about
19:05literally what is happening in that person's life to transform it overall. And just a quick follow-up
19:10question. When you were getting started with this, what were the first things that you noticed that
19:13patients were not having to think about as much anymore? So the big thing is medication. It is so
19:21hard for people to not just remember to take a medication, but to take it properly. When you get
19:28that leaflet with your prescription from Walgreens, do you really sit down and read it from cover to cover?
19:37Do you understand the language in that leaflet? Do you know not to take that medicine with an acidic
19:44juice like orange juice? So making certain that that education point is there to make it easier for
19:53people to take their medications, stay on track with their care plan. We remove some of that by engaging
20:00with you on a clinical level, but also on a personal level to know what kind of support you benefit from
20:08having the most. Absolutely. Can we give a big round of applause for each of them?
20:14So as we heard, we had five different words. We had
20:18now I'm blanking on all of them. We had policy. There's one. Okay. Actually. Yeah. Hold it up.
20:24Policy. Disruption. Team. ROI. ROI and market. There we go. And each of these words represent
20:31both the external and internal things that are needed to create solutions and be entrepreneurs
20:36to build businesses. So release the pressure one more time is amplifying the health and helping
20:42health innovators and founders, solution developers and customers have a significant opportunity for
20:48impact at the organizational level. So to learn more or to take the pledge and prioritize your heart health,
20:53visit releasethepressure.com. Highly suggest you check it out. It has a great information on there.
21:00And to learn more about each of these innovative companies, please visit the innovators to your
21:04right, our left over there in the SoCo market slash new voices village area. Thank you to each of you.
21:11And hopefully you guys can stay around. If you guys have questions for them, we'll be around afterwards.
21:14Thank you so much.
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