BEST OF ARCHIVE: Making Health Care Accessible
Over the last months since the launch of hi gray, we’ve asked leaders of digital health companies how they are addressing accessibility to health care. With barriers of physical distance — and with that, pricing — broken down, health care and medicine is more reachable by consumers than ever before.
Nick Desai, CEO of Heal
Many patients, especially seniors can have a difficult time getting to doctors’ appointments. Whether it is a physical mobility issue, having to rely on others for a ride, or public transportation which can be hard to navigate, Heal takes all of those issues away by having the doctor come to you. If a patient needs to follow up with their doctor, they can simply use our app at any time of the day or night or call us and their doctor will be in touch with them as soon as possible.
Grace Pelling, Product Lead of Cove
Accessibility is a core tenet of Cove. We want to make sure you have access to a doctor with experience treating migraine. All of our doctors receive ongoing training on Cove’s proprietary diagnostic framework. Our platform encourages ongoing conversation with your doctor, as we know treatment that may work for you at one point in your life may not work at a different point.
You can always log into your account and quickly send a message to your doctor with a question or concern on your schedule. It’s easy, it shouldn’t interfere with your day-to-day, and you can expect an answer back from your Cove doctor within 24 hours. We also work hard to ensure our service is financially accessible. The majority of our patients pay between $40 to $60 per month for ongoing medical care and prescription medication.
Gloria Lau, Cofounder and CEO of Alpha
The lack of accessibility in America’s healthcare system today is an important topic to address. For reference, 65 million Americans live in what many researchers call a “primary care desert,” where the total number of PCPs only meet 50 percent or less of what the community needs. Meanwhile, 28 percent of young people in the United States do not have a Primary Care Provider.
Alpha is dedicated to solving the problems surrounding this lack of accessibility. As patient information is collected, one of Alpha’s licensed and board certified doctors or nurse practitioners sends a treatment plan within 24 hours. For urgent care cases, a response will arrive within eight hours. The consistency in having one primary care provider ensures patients’ questions are answered, appointments are handled, and someone will help them proactively make decisions, without needing to travel to a physical location or coordinate schedules. It also means that patients can access their own health history, have it stored securely in Alpha’s HIPAA-compliant environment, and can take it with them everywhere via the online platform.
When treatment plans require a lab test or a visit to an in-person doctor, Alpha helps the patient find local, affordable providers and schedule any appointments or necessary lab tests.
Joe Ammon, Founder of Clove
Clove is our storytelling platform, there is so much we do on social media that is so much more than shoes, but just sharing stories. With Mental Health Awareness, we want to help drive that conversation and awareness by sharing experiences. We are able to help out more people in that way.
I think companies can do so much more good than just selling a product. Having representation of the industry across professions and backgrounds and ethnicities is something we literally think about every day.
Lauren Weiniger, CEO and Founder of Safely
We will continue to add as new innovations come to market. And that is the whole goal and model: I am not creating the latest innovation in diagnostics because there are brilliant people that are. But what I want this platform and this app to be is for consumers to be able to easily access those innovations, diagnostics, treatments that are right for them.