The Friday Five - Celebrates Black Excellence in Health IT

HealthcareNOW Radio celebrates Black History Month, a time to recognize the achievements and honor the impact African Americans have made throughout United States history in all aspects of life. This week’s Friday Five recognizes trailblazing African Americans in the Health IT industry including innovators, influencers, administrators, leaders and recent guests on our shows.

Recent Guests

Damika Webb Barr, Esq., CIPP/US is the Policy and Government Relations at Verily Life Sciences. Verily believes that change in healthcare must happen from the inside. So they forging deep collaborations across the entire healthcare ecosystem, from academic research institutions to life sciences companies to hospitals and health systems

Host Todd Searls and guest co-host Louise Yinug interview Damika Webb Barr, leader of public policy and government relations at Verily Life Sciences, an Alphabet Company. Damika is an attorney with a passion for health care access and finding equitable solutions to long-standing community challenges. Since joining Verily Life Sciences in 2018, she has led their policy and advocacy efforts. Verily has been a leader in testing solutions for COVID-19, including an innovative partnership with the state of California to establish accessible testing sites. Prior to joining Verily in 2018, Damika served as regulatory compliance counsel for Lyft’s non-emergency medical transportation line of business. She also held health policy positions at Amerihealth Caritas and Lyft.

Andrew Suggs CEO & Founder of Live Chair Health. He is on a mission to save the lives of African American men by addressing chronic health conditions through the trusted relationships established between hair professionals and their clients. This seemingly simple idea is growing rapidly into becoming its own movement.

Host Dr. Nick van Terheyden aka Dr. Nick is joined by Andrew Suggs, Co-founder of Live Chair, harnessing the power of human connection to close the life expectancy gap of African Americans one barbershop at a time. Live Chair taps into the barber shop now a focal point with patient engagement most health systems can only dream about, fixing health disparities, one incremental nudge at a time. The trusted messenger that can bring positive change to huge SDoH disparities in the health of Black people.

Dr. Uche Blackstock is the Founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity who’s primary mission is to engage with healthcare and related organizations around bias and racism in healthcare with the goal of mobilizing for health equity and eradicating racialized health inequities.

Hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter welcome Dr. Uche Blackstock, Founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, an organization dedicated to addressing racial disparities in American health care and in medical education. An Emergency Medicine physician and Medical Contributor to Yahoo News, Dr. Blackstock is a rising activist seeking to address inequities that greatly impact people of color and ethnic minorities – leading to poor health outcomes in the pandemic, and across the healthcare spectrum. She is also seeking to address a lack of diversity in medicine, and the challenges people of color encounter when entering the medical profession.

Marc Watkins is the Chief Medical Officer at Kroger Health, the healthcare arm of The Kroger Co., is one of America’s leading retail healthcare organizations, with over 2,300 pharmacies and 11 specialty pharmacies nationwide, and 200 clinics. Our team of 22,000 healthcare professionals – from pharmacists and nurse practitioners to dietitians and technicians – serves over 13 million customers. Their vision is to help people live healthier lives.

Hosts Tammy Hawes and Clark Buckner talk with Marc Watkins, Chief Medical Officer at Kroger Health, about Kroger’s Food as Medicine initiative. Watkins also explains how Kroger is using engagement and personalization to improve health outcomes.

UNC Chapel Hill Nursing Professor and diversity advocate Dr. Rumay Alexander shares her take on how we can make nursing and nursing school more diverse and inclusive.

A second interview in honor of Black History Month is with Dr. Ernest Grant. Dr. Grant made history in January of 2020 when he became the first-ever male president of the American Nurses Association. Across his long and storied career, Dr. Grant has worked tirelessly to advocate for nurses and attract more people to the profession.

Innovators

Chrissa McFarlane is the Founder / CEO of Patientoryinc, a company that empowers users globally with a secure platform to manage and transfer their health data, to achieve actionable insights for improved health outcomes and well-being. She is the author of Future Women, a book about Minority Female Entrepreneurship and the Fourth Industrial Revolution in the era of Blockchain and Cryptocurrency. Check her out on this episode on this episode of The Tate Chronicles.

Melissa Hanna, JD, MBA, is the Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Mahmee which delivers data-driven care coordination and personalized support to new moms, everywhere. She has led operations and strategy at leading startups in healthcare, education, digital media and consumer goods. An activist-entrepreneur, Melissa received her MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University, and her JD from Southwestern Law School. Pitchbook named her one of the top black founders to watch in 2019.

Kistein Monkhouse, MPA is the CEO and Founder of Patient Orator the first patient-centric solution empowering the underserved by breaking down barriers creating difficulty to communicate medical symptoms and gain access to basic health care resources. She is a former healthcare frontline staff who saw an urgent need to build bridges across communities in healthcare. Her work is at the intersection of public and private health using stories to bring awareness to the importance of improving the health of people and communities with a focus on catalyzing storytelling to address social determinants of health. Check her out on this episode of PopHealth Week.

Influencers

New Administration Appointments

Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith is an associate professor of internal medicine, public health, and management at Yale University and was one of the co-chairs of President-elect Joe Biden’s Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board. For the majority of her career, Dr. Nunez-Smith has studied the effects of social and racial inequality on health outcomes. She is slated to lead lead a new White House task force dedicated to health equity to ensure that all aspects of COVID-19 from response to care and treatment are distributed equally.

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure has been selected by President Biden to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. She will need to be confirmed by the Senate. As a top official at the agency during the Obama administration, she worked to implement the 2010 Affordable Care Act. She is currently a managing director at Manatt Health and during the Biden-Harris transition period, she served as a co-lead of the Department of Health and Human Services agency review team.

Industry Leaders

Patrice A. Harris, MD, MA, a psychiatrist from Atlanta, is the immediate past -president of the American Medical Association, and the organization’s first African American woman to hold this position. She currently serves on the Board of Trustee Members. Dr. Harris has diverse experience as a private practicing physician, county public health director, patient advocate and medical society lobbyist.

Patrice Harris, MD, MA, discusses prioritizing mental health for physicians and patients as we enter the winter months of COVID19.

Rosalind Brewer has been named to be the new CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., a Global Leader in Retail and Wholesale Pharmacy, who’s purpose is to help people across the world lead healthier, happier lives. She is the only Black woman to lead a Fortune 500 company. She is currently the COO of Starbucks. She became the first African American to lead a Walmart division when she was the President and CEO of Sam’s Club. In 2013, Forbes named her to the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women and The Most Powerful Black Women lists respectively. She is a Trustee at Spelman College and a recipient of Spelman College Legacy of Leadership award.

Wright L. Lassiter III is the President and CEO of Henry Ford Health System, overseeing the $6.5 billion health system comprised of six hospitals, a health plan and a wide range of ambulatory and retail and related health services consisting of more than 250 locations and 32,000 employees. Under his leadership, Henry Ford has completed two successful mergers. He has been named by Modern Healthcare “100 Most Influential People in Healthcare” (2018/2017/2016) and “Top 25 Minority Healthcare Executives in U.S. Healthcare” (2018/2016/2012.)