Aspen Health Innovators Fellowship

Now more than ever, we need transformational health care.

How do we get there from here?

The U.S. health care system is plagued with complex challenges.

Equity. Access. Quality. Cost. Safety.

The problems are well understood. While the U.S. health care system is filled with committed actors working hard to improve health and health care in this country, deep industry silos prevent systematically addressing the system’s challenges.

With connected, values-driven leadership in health care, we can reach across sectors, develop new solutions, and drive progress. The Health Innovators Fellowship is challenging the next generation of

health care leaders to solve some of the industry’s most persistent challenges, from reestablishing trust in our public health infrastructure to improving Black maternal mortality. Having gained new perspectives through their Fellowship, these leaders can leverage their influence and platforms to develop scalable, meaningful solutions for our nation’s health care challenges.

The Health Innovators Fellowship: A Unique Model The Health Innovators Fellowship’s mission is to develop a community of energized, values-driven leaders committed to finding viable solutions to confront the challenges in our health care system.

Stakeholders in health care don’t often have an opportunity to step away from their day jobs and think holistically about the economic and societal impact of how health care is provided and distributed in the US. The Fellowship is one of the few venues convening healthcare professionals across sectors, geography, disciplines, and political orientations, providing space for individuals to learn from each other and reflect on their values, and cultivating a growing community of more than one hundred values-driven leaders.

Connecting an Ecosystem of Health Care Leaders for Action We know it will take different actors across health care to move the needle.

Cross-silo engagement happens in the seminar room in a process that is unique in health care, bringing together individuals from health insurance plans, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, public policy and government, venture capital and private equity, and start-ups as well as practicing clinicians and academicians.

By bringing these leaders together, we help them broaden their perspectives and break down the silos that prevent progress on tackling health care’s challenges.

How We Catalyze Impact Fellows actively participate in four transformative, retreat-like seminars over two years and develop a leadership venture addressing a compelling health care challenge through a scalable, innovative health solution.

The Fellowship : GATHERS A DIVERSE GROUP OF PEERS to challenge and support each other during the program and throughout their lives.

CULTIVATES AND SHARPENS FELLOWS’ VALUES through four transformative, retreat-like seminars grounded in the time-tested Aspen method of curated readings and moderated dialogue.

GALVANIZES FELLOWS TO TURN THEIR IDEAS INTO IMPACT through values-based, enlightened leadership and taking actions that positively affect the health care industry, their communities, and society.

Their commitment to the program—and the impact the experience has on them— continues long after the two-year Fellowship. The Fellowship experience prompts Fellows to think, act, and lead differently.

“

I’ve discovered through this experience that my goal in life is to create impact and value in areas of health care that I’m passionate about. And what I’ve learned in this Fellowship is that you can do that in a lot of different ways beyond the approaches I’ve taken in the past. The examples and encouragement of my fellow Fellows helped me come to this realization.

”

–Kedar Mate, Class III President and Chief Executive Officer, Institute for Healthcare Improvement

The Influence of the Fellowship Extends Far Beyond the Individual Health Car e U.S.

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We challenge Fellows to commit to embracing their leadership in new ways that positively affect the health care industry and the people, institutions, and communities around them.

Fellows: Leaders are challenged to step up in significant ways that affect their own organizations, their communities, and U.S. health care.

Fellows’ Organizations: Fellows lead their organizations with greater clarity of values and purpose.

Fellows’ Communities: Fellows identify and tackle problems in their own communities and beyond.

U.S. Health Care: Fellows mobilize their resources and work individually and collectively to implement values-driven reforms that improve U.S. health and health care.

How do Fellows turn values into action?

We require each Fellow to develop a leadership venture that addresses a compelling health care challenge through a scalable, innovative health solution.

Ventures are: • • •

an opportunity for Fellows to take risks and work with their peers to identify out-of-the-box solutions. an expression of Fellows’ values and commitment to leverage the Fellowship to move from thought to action. accepting the Fellowship’s challenge to go beyond observing problems to implementing solutions.

Health Technology

Social Determinants of Health

Mental Health

Health Care Equity

Delivery System Innovation

End-of-Life Care

“

I remember saying I wanted to pick a venture t at would be a challenge to build and could help a lot of people. RenalIQ progressed far beyond looking for undiagnosed Chronic Kidney Disease. It became a renal analytics platform that identifies undiagnosed disease but also predicts disease progression, utilization events, is also now a business intelligence platform that shows high and low performing physicians and hospitals, gaps in quality of care, etc.

”

– Ikenna Okezie, MD Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer, Somatus

Ventures Driven by Values Improving Seniors’ Health by Treating Loneliness as a Disease Sachin Jain, Class II President and CEO of SCAN Group and SCAN Health Plan Loneliness has negative effects beyond just feeling sad: there is a 45% increased risk of mortality in seniors who report feeling lonely.

Recognizing the effects that senior loneliness and social isolation have on physical and emotional health, Sachin leveraged his platform at CareMore, a senior-focused health plan and health care delivery system, to launch The Togetherness Program, which improves seniors health by treating loneliness like any other serious medical condition. With the program’s positive outcomes, Anthem, CareMore’s parent company, has adopted the intervention throughout its Medicare plans that touch more than 1 million seniors across the U.S., and the program serves as an example for other organizations.

“

As physicians, loneliness is

often staring us in the face, but we don’t ask patients about it because we don’t have anything to offer to help them. Now our clinicians can offer effective interventions that make patients less lonely and improve their health and well-being.

”

Getting Proximate to Find the Solution Lisa Fitzpatrick, Class III CEO & Founder, Grapevine Health

Why do low-income patients enrolled in Medicaid so often miss their clinic visits, use hospital emergency rooms to get basic or avoidable care, and fail to get the care they need?

This is what Lisa hoped to answer when she moved in the middle of the Fellowship from her downtown Washington, DC, condo to the city’s poorest neighborhood. She hoped that proximity to the problem would help her find solutions.

Lisa spent more than a year getting to know her neighbors and the community so she could better understand how they experienced the health care system. She learned that, to get low-income communities like hers engaged in health care, she needed to focus on three things: their trauma, distrust, and low health literacy.

“

[I] realized I was approaching this with a

judgmental mindset. I was asking, ‘Why won’t people engage in health care?’ And I should have been asking, ‘Why would they?’

”

Ventures Driven by Values Improving Health Outcomes by Doubling Down on Primary Care The US health care system suffers from complex challenges: deep inequities, soaring costs, poor patient outcomes. Everyone’s affected, but for some, the system simply doesn’t work at all.

Rushika Fernandopulle believes that in order to improve the system, patients needed an alternative. He created Iora Health in response. Focusing on primary care as a means to achieve better health outcomes, the system offers patients a team of providers and prioritizes relationships with the care team. Iora’s custom technology platform enables patients to have more frequent interactions with their care team, empowering them to ask questions and take control of their health.

Iora Health has also innovated its payment and care models. Their investments lowered costs and improved patient experience.

Rushika Fernandopulle Class III Chief Executive Officer, Iora Health Chief Innovation Officer, One Medical

“

The goal is to transform

health care in the US and maybe someday around the world. I think it’s all great to say ‘I’m going to make my little impact in this little corner of the world…’ but maybe we need to be more ambitious, and try and broaden that scope.

Because if not us, who?

”

Iora Health reduced hospitalizations for its members by 40% and reduced health care spending by up to 20%.

Poised to Disrupt the Norm Iora serves more than 50,000 patients with 50 locations across the country. As Rushika considered how to best scale the program, he was selected for the Aspen Institute’s Braddock Scholars Program, an initiative that pairs Fellows with senior mentors for support in growing their ventures and increasing their impact. Following this Fellowship, which allowed Rushika to think strategically about what kind of partner he wanted and how to position Iora Health in the marketplace, Iora was recently acquired by One Medical. Rushika is confident this will allow his vision to expand and further disrupt the US health care system.

Support from a Powerful Network Health Innovators Fellows work with and support one another, and, as part of the Aspen Global Leadership Network (AGLN), they can further extend their reach. The AGLN is a worldwide community of 3,000+ high-integrity, entrepreneurial leaders from more than 60 countries who participate in one of the 14

geographic or sector-specific Aspen Institute Fellowships and are committed to proactively confronting societal challenges.

Engagement with these leaders advances Health Innovators Fellows’ goals and enhances their impact.

Why the Health Innovators Fellowship?

Through their individual and collective work, our Fellows find innovative solutions to help ensure equitable, affordable, and compassionate health care. To ensure the Fellowship is accessible to applicants without regard to financial ability, the Aspen Institute relies on mission-driven donors. Each class of Fellows requires a significant investment of time and resources.

With more than 100 Fellows and counting from across the U.S., your support of the program will have a far reach and invaluable impact You’re not just funding a program; you’re funding the future of health care.

The Health Innovators Fellowship The Health Innovators Fellowship is designed for highly successful U.S. health care leaders who are ready to pause and reflect on how to use their skills and experiences to move from success to a place of growing significance. The Fellowship offers them a unique opportunity to clarify their own core values and explore questions of effective and enlightened leadership with a diverse group of peers with whom they may not ordinarily interact.

Fellows come from a wide variety of industries and sectors, ranging from medicine to venture capital to public health and beyond.

The Aspen Global Leadership Network The Aspen Global Leadership Network’s mission is to develop authentic, high-integrity leaders committed to proactively confronting societal challenges, individually and collectively, in order to create a more free, just, and equitable society.

The Aspen Institute is a global nonprofit organization committed to realizing a free, just, and equitable society. Founded in 1949, the Institute drives change through dialogue, leadership, and action to help solve the most important challenges facing the United States and the world. Headquartered in Washington, DC, the Institute has a campus in Aspen, Colorado, and an international network of partners.

Contact Tanya Harris, Executive Director Health Innovators Fellowship tanya.harris@aspeninstitute.org

Learn more at agln.aspeninstitute.org/HIF