Providing affordable, human-centered healthcare in lower-income and marginalized communities is one of the goals of Cityblock Health. The challenges of tackling the healthcare system's inequalities, while serving patients with personalized medical care, behavioral health care and social services was the topic of a speech by the founder and CEO.
Is healthcare a right that should be available to everyone regardless of their ability to pay, and then it should be distributed equally? I agree. Absolutely. There are many ways to achieve that.
She said that it was unacceptable that we were looking at the same data 15 years ago. People are saying that black and brown people are dying more from carbon dioxide. Poor people are dying more from carbon dioxide. essential workers don't have health insurance We were aware of it. I need a break. I would design it differently and I am not happy about it. Something has to be done.
Cityblock works with people who lack access to basics like food, safe places to sleep and social support, which creates more risk factors for worsening chronic conditions. Many people use emergency rooms for crises because they don't get the kind of care that would have kept them at home.
I am passionate about caring for underserved communities and I am a doctor. I came to this work from a place of genuine love. "This is my life's work and my purpose." I am a deep pragmatist and I know that there are real economic forces that drive most of the decisions that people make in our healthcare system.
There is an opportunity for payers to figure out how to care for people differently in order to create more viable businesses.
When launching in a new market, like Indiana or Ohio, Cityblock looks for places where there are socio-economic differences and then looks for partners, payers and health insurers.
We spent the time figuring out where we should be. Can we be near public transportation, near grocery stores, so we can show up in places that are accessible to our members, and also positioning ourselves so we can go to the home and see people from there?
Shelters, housing agencies and food pantry are some of the community-based organizations that need to be worked with. The glue that knits together existing providers, the specialty providers, the hospitals, the communities, organizations and creates a seamless experience for the people we serve is what we think of ourselves as.
Many of these organizations have vulnerable business models. Many community-based organizations couldn't get enough workers during the Pandemic Many are grant funded. Cityblock needs to be prepared to support community organizations in its own way.
More individualized care can be supported by tech and data science. Data science can help Cityblock figure out who it needs to engage with first in patient populations that are often very different in age and needs.
All of them have to be engaged. Who am I going to chase first? I don't know who to call first. If they don't get a phone call tomorrow, who will go to the emergency room? Who isn't home today because they aren't working or who isn't engaging on the weekend? Those are some of the things we can use our data for.
People have to repeat their stories less when they seek care. I have to tell my whole story over and over again when we interview our members about what they don't like about the healthcare system. A lot of people face discrimination and stigma. More than half of our members are people of color.
The healthcare system makes people tell their story over and over again, which is counter productive to a therapeutic relationship that's going to result in better health outcomes. It's a meaningful lever for us to alleviate that.
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