How Collaborations Can Drive Learning in the Health Care Space

In May, the Health Innovators Fellowship (HIF) at the Aspen Institute partnered with the Pioneering Collective to sponsor an event in Washington, DC that brought together some of the brightest and most innovative minds in health care. During the program, HIF Fellows were interviewed about the cutting edge work they are doing in the health care space, as well as reflected on their leadership journeys – sharing with the audience both their personal and professional experiences as leaders. Throughout the evening, we heard poignant examples of values in action as Fellows do the hard work of building stronger communities and a more free, just, and equitable society. Driven by an Urgency to ActKameron Matthews
Chief Health Officer, CityBlock Health
Class 6Dr. Kameron Matthews knows all too well when there are gaps in the health care system. As a second-generation family physician, she has long been invested in community-level transformation that utilizes both policy and advocacy to bring evidence-based solutions to people who have been consistently neglected. In her personal life, Dr. Matthews has seen a lack of educated and informed caregiving as her mother has suffered from severe dementia. From these experiences came an urgency to act in ways that truly improve care, decrease costs, and improve experiences within Medicaid populations. Rather than reinventing the wheel, Dr. Matthews emphasized that the focus needs to be on Black and Brown people getting access to the wheel in the first place with the agency to use what is available to them. As Chief Health Officer at CityBlock Health, Dr. Matthews helps build exactly that. Dr. Matthews has a personal calling as well, driven by her experiences with her mother’s dementia. As a member of the newest class of the Health Innovators Fellowship, Dr. Matthews, like each HIF Fellow, must complete a venture that enables work outside of her day-to-day to bring her from “success to significance”. As part of her venture, she is working towards designing a new caregiving model in a primary care setting, one which goes beyond care coordination and management and does not depend on family members as a navigating body. While this work will be arduous and often unforgiving, she credits her ability to move forward with this idea to her peers in the Health Innovators Fellowship. From the personal and professional relationships built to the coaching, she says her Class has evolved into a true family, one she can consistently count on for advice and feedback. Shifting Mindsets and Moving the NeedleCybele Bjorklund
Senior Vice President, Policy & Government Affairs, Virta Health
Class 2Coming from years of working in the public sector, Cybele Bjorklund saw firsthand the challenges of deeply entrenched polarization, red tape, and status quo mindsets and what could mean for issues winning out over the health and wellbeing of ordinary people. Ms. Bjorklund left the world of Capitol Hill and Big Pharma behind and took on a role in the start-up world as Senior VP of Policy & Government Affairs at Virta Health. A major disruptor in its space, Virta Health uses dietary changes and telehealth to help people with hyperglycemic control to reliably and durably reverse the effects of diabetes.As a Class 2 Fellow of the Health Innovators Fellowship, Ms. Bjorklund was able to find the support she needed to drive real, impactful change in the metabolic health space. In aiming to make Virta Health more accessible, she began clinical trials with a physician from Class 3 of the Fellowship, working to make Virta an option across tech differences, food deserts, race/ethnicity, budgets, religious needs, and other unique circumstances. She has continued to rely on her Fellows as a trusted network with whom she can collaborate and be vulnerable. Persevering to Make a Real ImpactMichael O’Neil
Founder and CEO, GetWellNetwork
Class 5As Founder and CEO of GetWellNetwork, a global digital health company, Michael O’Neil did not face an easy path to creating a viable company. In fact, it took GetWellNetwork 12 years to get only 30 customers. Mr. O’Neil’s journey was rooted in his own experiences undergoing cancer treatment where he felt he had little agency in the care he was given. While working on his venture in this space as part of the Health Innovator Fellowship’s Class 5, Mr. O’Neil found transformation work to be incredibly siloed. Eventually, he discovered opportunities to engage in experience sharing and unexpected collaborations rooted in listening, inspiration, and knowledge sharing. Through feedback from and collaborations with other Fellows, GetWellNetwork was able to partner with Canopy Health to tech-enable skill and talent to amplify the impact of its work for hundreds of thousands of kids. As Mr. O’Neil’s work continues, he prefaces that not all problems can simply be solved with technology, but rather there are opportunities to figure out commercial models of care and make them more successful. In taking the next step in his venture, Mr. O’Neil is invested in developing pre-clinical interventions for kids and families to get help before problems get into crisis mode, particularly by working through school systems to get more kids into mental health care. ——————————————————————————————————————————-About the Health Innovators Fellowship: The Health Innovators Fellowship’s mission is to develop a community of energized, values-driven leaders committed to finding viable solutions to address U.S. health care’s problems. The Fellowship encourages Fellows to stretch themselves as leaders and align their work with their passions to have a greater impact on U.S. health care. Through their daily work and leadership ventures, Fellows are influencing health care now and setting the course for the field’s future. The program brings people together from across the full scope of health care – from heads of nonprofits or start-ups, to the venture capital world and those directly in the trenches as physicians and fire chiefs. Learn More. About the Pioneering Collective: The Pioneering Collective is a community of strategists, coaches, specialists, and peers helping leaders and their companies expand influence and impact. In envisioning a world where executive influencers accelerate positive cultural and business change, its mission is to amplify the presence, voice, and impact of leaders who are shaping the future. Learn More.