Julia Cohen Sebastien, Co-founder and CEO, Grayce Ellen DaSilva, Founder and CEO, Summer Health Moderator: Holly Ojalvo, FORTUNE
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00 Hi, I'm so excited for this conversation, especially
00:02 as a member of the sandwich generation myself.
00:06 And for anyone who's not familiar with that term,
00:08 sandwich generation is someone who
00:10 is sandwiched between raising children and also taking
00:13 care of aging parents.
00:14 I wanted to see a show of hands.
00:16 How many of you feel like you identify with that moniker?
00:20 Sandwich generation, that's a lot of the room.
00:22 I feel like there's going to be a lot of nodding along
00:25 during this session.
00:26 So I can't wait to get right into it.
00:28 So speaking of which, digital health solutions
00:31 like Grace and Summer Health are transforming
00:34 our caregiving experience.
00:36 Just to start us off and get the lay of the land, in one minute,
00:40 both of you, please, give us your elevator pitch.
00:42 What is your platform, and what does it help people do?
00:45 Julia?
00:46 Yeah, so Grace is basically a virtual social work platform.
00:51 We focus on helping people navigate
00:53 caring for any type of loved one or even caring for themselves
00:56 with a dedicated social worker and a whole platform
00:59 of self-serve tools.
01:01 Thank you.
01:01 Ellen?
01:02 Yeah, so the average parent gets less than 10 minutes per year
01:06 with their kid's pediatrician.
01:07 But kids get sick 8 to 12 times per year.
01:10 There are 123 emergency room visits for every 100 infants.
01:15 And there's a massive need for additional care
01:18 from pediatrics.
01:19 At Summer Health, we offer text message-based access
01:22 to pediatricians.
01:23 We answer all inquiries in 15 minutes or less.
01:26 Think of it like your best friend
01:27 is a pediatrician who happens to be
01:28 able to answer your inquiries any time, day or night.
01:31 That's fascinating.
01:32 And before we get into exactly how all that works,
01:35 super curious that, given that the caregiving burdens
01:38 that you are both solving for are often invisible,
01:41 taken for granted, unpaid, undervalued economically,
01:45 how did you raise funding?
01:46 Tell us how you raised funding.
01:48 Ellen?
01:48 We've been very fortunate.
01:50 We have backing from some of the best and most successful minds
01:55 in Silicon Valley.
01:56 We've raised over $19 million from Sequoia Capital, Lux
02:00 Capital, and Seven Wire Ventures.
02:03 How did we raise funding?
02:04 I mean, we feel very fortunate to be surrounded
02:06 by people who very acutely feel the problems that we feel.
02:10 I'm a mother.
02:11 I have three young kids.
02:12 And I deal with this constantly.
02:14 Our investors are the same way.
02:16 And they really understand, identify, and value
02:18 the problem that we're solving.
02:20 So we feel very fortunate to be joined on this journey
02:22 by people who deeply understand and empathize
02:24 with the problem.
02:25 That makes sense.
02:26 Yeah.
02:28 I'd say it absolutely comes down to people understanding
02:30 what you're solving for.
02:32 We raised our Series A in the last six months.
02:34 And it really came down to having
02:35 investors that understood not just caregiving
02:40 at one end of the spectrum, but the whole end of the spectrum.
02:43 And so we really found those that
02:45 had personal experience with the problem
02:46 and understood, in talking to clients,
02:48 being really able to validate what
02:50 that meant for people's lives.
02:52 That's fascinating.
02:53 And investors feel like they have
02:54 to connect to the issues that you're solving for.
02:57 And it sounds like you found those investors who
02:59 do just that.
03:00 And by the way, before we go on, I
03:01 just want to remind everyone that this
03:03 is an active conversation.
03:04 There will be Q&A. So as we're talking,
03:06 please be thinking of your questions.
03:08 I'll be looking out into the room
03:10 to look for you to raise your hand.
03:12 So be thinking about your questions.
03:14 So let's go back to the problems that you are solving for.
03:17 Caregivers, especially those who are sandwiched
03:20 between parents and children and other family members,
03:23 and not to mention themselves, face many burdens
03:27 when navigating the care system.
03:29 Some of them might include lost working hours and income,
03:33 less personal time, difficulty balancing those demands,
03:37 financial stress, lost work productivity, burnout,
03:41 navigating difficult health situations,
03:44 not to mention the insurance system, knowledge gaps,
03:47 scheduling, paperwork.
03:49 There's so much to it, right?
03:51 How are your solutions, both of you,
03:52 helping solve for these kinds of challenges?
03:56 Yeah.
03:57 So I'd say we really serve as a complement to the medical care
03:59 system, right?
04:00 We're not the doctors or the nurses.
04:01 We're really the social workers.
04:02 And so you think about whether people actually
04:05 have an acute medical problem or whether they're navigating
04:08 broader types of care.
04:09 It's really about supporting people
04:11 in their community, in their home,
04:13 navigating the entirety of the system.
04:15 So not what's my treatment option,
04:17 but how am I going to pay for that care?
04:19 What's available to me?
04:20 Do I have my legal affairs in order for whatever
04:23 that type of care is?
04:24 And how does that work?
04:25 How does someone use the system to do that?
04:28 Use GRACE, specifically.
04:29 So people sign up for the experience.
04:32 They come in their match to a dedicated social worker.
04:36 Usually there's an initial intake call.
04:38 And as part of that, they're really conducting
04:40 motivational interviewing, a biopsychosocial assessment.
04:43 And from that, creating a personalized care plan.
04:45 And then being able to identify resources
04:48 that are most relevant to that individual family
04:50 in the community, understanding what it is that they actually
04:52 need set up.
04:53 And how do you navigate, but not just passing people off.
04:57 That's navigation 1.0.
04:58 That's dead.
04:59 The next wave is really, how do you take something
05:01 off someone's plate?
05:03 Caregiving is not a coaching problem.
05:05 Caregiving is a help me get it done problem.
05:07 This is a job I've never had.
05:09 It's new to so many people.
05:11 And you mentioned that you literally can text a provider
05:15 and get an answer in 15 minutes.
05:17 How are you seeing that start to transform
05:19 that whole process for parents?
05:21 Parents feel like they are supported in a way
05:24 that they don't necessarily feel in their children's health
05:27 and wellness journey.
05:29 It's primarily because health doesn't just
05:31 happen between 9 and 5.
05:32 And it doesn't just happen around the time
05:34 you have your child's well visit.
05:35 It happens when your kid is 2 and 3/4.
05:38 It happens when your kid is 7 and 1/2.
05:40 It's a very inconvenient time, I feel like, too.
05:42 Usually at 9 PM on a Sunday night,
05:44 which is what happens in my house.
05:47 So to be able to establish a longitudinal relationship
05:50 with a provider, what we actually do
05:51 is we assign you to a provider with whom you build trust
05:55 and you build a relationship.
05:58 One of my biggest qualms with most telehealth platforms
06:01 is you parachute in, you see somebody,
06:05 and you never see that person again.
06:06 So that person gives you advice.
06:08 You're not sure how much of that advice you can trust.
06:10 You're not sure how much of that advice
06:12 is authentic to what works for you, your child, your family.
06:16 That is very different from the kind of longitudinal care
06:18 that we give.
06:20 And we're able to do so because our modality of care
06:24 is what I like to call pseudosynchronous,
06:26 meaning it's not totally synchronous.
06:28 You're not FaceTiming with a provider.
06:32 We're able to increase the supply of provider hours
06:35 by making it this pseudosynchronous modality
06:37 of care.
06:38 When it's actually convenient for the parent.
06:40 That's right.
06:42 We offer it 24/7.
06:44 And if it's--
06:45 Your kid's sick in the middle of the night,
06:46 they can get up and text their--
06:47 Yeah, I mean, I had my middle child threw up at 3 AM
06:52 two weeks ago.
06:53 That's when it happens.
06:54 You know, had a prescription in 15 minutes in my hand.
06:57 It was amazing.
06:57 Wow, that's incredible.
06:58 I want to see-- just pause for a moment and see if we have
07:01 any burning questions in the audience.
07:03 Want to make sure we're recognizing
07:05 if you have a burning question.
07:05 I have a question right here.
07:07 So please identify yourself and your affiliation
07:09 and ask your question.
07:12 Hi there.
07:13 I'm Tim Leshen, I'm with the Association
07:14 of Schools and Programs of Public Health.
07:16 But I'm going to ask a more personal question.
07:18 My mother-in-law, who's in her 80s,
07:22 would be very, very skeptical of having a social worker
07:26 assigned to her just because who is this social worker?
07:31 Why aren't they a doctor?
07:33 Those kind of things.
07:34 Can you talk about how you overcome the skepticism
07:37 of the elderly population?
07:40 That's a good question.
07:41 People need to be comfortable, right?
07:42 To have confidence in the care.
07:44 Yeah, good question.
07:46 So in our model, we're not actually assigning
07:47 a social worker to your mother.
07:49 We're assigning a social worker to you
07:51 and helping you in navigating.
07:52 And you're welcome to bring your mother into the conversation
07:55 if you so wish.
07:56 Your social worker can work with you
07:58 on helping and coaching you on how to involve your mother,
08:02 how to navigate those complex conversations.
08:04 But it's really focused on how do you help the caregiver
08:06 through that process, right?
08:07 They're a key stakeholder in care.
08:10 And you're navigating those personal dynamics,
08:12 that sense of trust, that willingness
08:14 to do those actions that you need, that they need,
08:17 especially as they're getting older,
08:19 and not necessarily wanting to change.
08:22 Yeah, I think what's really interesting about both
08:23 of your solutions and platforms is that they're really
08:26 focused on the caregiver.
08:28 You're supporting the caregiver.
08:30 Like a doula is supporting a new mother, not the baby.
08:34 Raising a baby nurse is a doula supporting the mother.
08:37 And I really noticed that about both of your solutions.
08:39 It feels like you're there to actually help the caregiver,
08:42 whether it's the parent, the child, the adult child,
08:44 or whatever it is.
08:45 And that's where the support level is.
08:47 And that feels like a different part of the model.
08:49 That said, I'm curious to hear your thoughts
08:52 on the limitations of these kinds of platforms.
08:58 The doctor's not in the room.
08:59 They're not taking vital signs.
09:01 They're not looking at-- to your point about it's not
09:04 a telemedicine appointment.
09:05 They're not looking at whatever it is, the rash,
09:07 or listening to the cough, or they're not palpating.
09:10 They're relying on the caregiver to tell them the story.
09:14 Caregiver might be upset, or in some cases, even hysterical,
09:19 or not seeing the situation clearly.
09:22 How do you actually interact with the in-office provider?
09:28 Are you just supplementing?
09:29 Are you trying to replace?
09:30 And how do you try to solve for some of those limitations?
09:34 I don't believe that telehealth will completely eliminate
09:39 the need for in-person care.
09:40 I think that would be naive.
09:41 And so hybrid is obviously a very buzzy topic right now.
09:45 Where we do step in, though, where
09:47 I do think more can be done from home
09:49 is we've actually leaned into at-home diagnostics.
09:52 So for example, we have an ear infection device
09:55 that can help you detect if your child has an ear infection.
09:58 We mail that to your home.
09:59 And that's a very objective source.
10:02 Instead of subjectively saying, well, my daughter's
10:04 tugging at her ear and has a fever, that can't diagnose it.
10:08 I think with the advent of AI, we're actually also leaning
10:11 into tools that you can take a photo
10:12 of the back of your throat.
10:14 And it will diagnose if your child has strep throat.
10:16 Same with UTIs, which are all common conditions that can
10:19 actually be treated from home.
10:20 And so we are big believers that you can push more into the home
10:24 and you can do more from home.
10:25 But it will never fully replace the need for in-person care.
10:28 And then to that point, say, as a parent,
10:31 I'm texting with a provider on Summer Health.
10:35 And is there a situation where the provider would say,
10:37 actually, I really recommend that you go to the doctor?
10:39 Yeah, about 10% of the time, we do refer in person.
10:42 And that will either be to the emergency room
10:44 or your provider.
10:45 But when we do so, we try to hold your hand through it.
10:47 So we'll say, we recommend you go to the emergency department.
10:49 This is the ER that you should go to.
10:51 We'll make the expect call.
10:53 Or you need to go to your primary pediatrician.
10:56 Text us tomorrow when you're in the office.
10:58 And we'll be there to help support
10:59 you through that journey.
11:00 Wow, so there's an extra layer of support
11:03 for that appointment.
11:04 And do you have something similar?
11:05 How are you mitigating the limitations
11:07 of the digital platform?
11:08 Yeah, so I'd say we're not actually treating medically.
11:12 We're more the navigation layer.
11:14 I think about the virtual world.
11:17 The death of virtual care has really been overstated.
11:21 I think a lot of it comes down to,
11:22 how does that integrate between virtual and in-person?
11:26 For the type of support that we're doing,
11:29 that type of social care, that doesn't always
11:30 require being in someone's home and being able to see
11:33 the whites of their eyes.
11:34 It can vary depending on the nature of those needs.
11:38 But there are ways, for example, we
11:39 can even do that initial assessment
11:41 of the safety of the home environment
11:43 and be able to flag, hey, you might need an in-home safety
11:45 assessment.
11:46 Here's how we can go get that for you.
11:48 But our model is really about integrating
11:51 into the local community.
11:52 It's actually finding those resources
11:54 that are available to someone in that community
11:56 and getting them situated and making sure
11:59 that it's mitigating the risk factors that are there
12:01 from a social standpoint.
12:02 So we think about it as a complement to medical care
12:06 rather than either/or.
12:07 So for someone calling about their mother,
12:10 would you maybe do an assessment and recommend,
12:12 here's a physician or here's a list of physicians
12:15 that we recommend?
12:16 If there was a need for medical care.
12:18 There's a need.
12:19 Yeah.
12:21 And I would love to have help navigate this myself.
12:23 Do we have another question in the room?
12:25 Yes, we do over here.
12:26 And we're bringing a mic to you.
12:27 And if you just identify yourself and then
12:30 ask your question.
12:31 Thank you.
12:32 Hi, Alicia Vazano from Hopkins.
12:35 I just wonder, it looks like your platform is primarily
12:40 aimed at employers.
12:42 And how do consumers get to you?
12:45 And then vice versa, how did you choose
12:48 to directly work with consumers rather than the other?
12:53 Perfect.
12:53 Yeah, Julia, go ahead.
12:54 Yeah, so we've started with employers.
12:56 We'll ultimately go to the payer market.
12:59 And the start with employers was really based on--
13:02 we started with elder care.
13:03 And we looked across the different channels.
13:05 And I came from the payer world and had a sense
13:08 that at the time that we launched,
13:10 the market wasn't quite ready with the financial model
13:13 of taking that into health care to start.
13:17 But on the employer side, I mean,
13:19 now the Fed says care is the second greatest reason
13:21 why talent's leaving the workforce, right?
13:23 With the dearth of child care, the dearth of elder care,
13:26 the dearth of medical care.
13:28 Who do you think's doing that now?
13:29 It's us, right?
13:31 So those are people dropping out of the workforce.
13:34 Those are people with all the different types of challenges
13:36 that Holly spoke to.
13:38 So the way we approach that is every time
13:40 we're launching with an employer client,
13:43 we're doing a whole launch program
13:46 and a whole communications program
13:48 through the course of the year.
13:49 So we're a B2B2C type program.
13:52 And we set expectations low to start
13:54 because this is a new topic.
13:55 This is like fertility and mental health,
13:57 like five years ago, right?
13:59 Where people are still learning about the prevalence
14:02 and the burden in their population.
14:05 But it's honestly one of the easiest topics
14:07 to demonstrate ROI and to demonstrate satisfaction.
14:10 The second you get in there and people can actually
14:12 see what's going on and you make people comfortable
14:15 in talking about that to their fellow employees,
14:19 it catches on like wildfire.
14:20 People are not used to having help like this.
14:22 It's ultimately saving money, I'm sure,
14:24 for a lot of employers.
14:25 Ellen.
14:26 It's funny.
14:28 My answer is very similar to Julia's, which
14:29 is a little bit of personal DNA.
14:30 I cut my teeth at a direct-to-consumer health
14:33 care business.
14:34 And that was what I knew how to build.
14:35 So we also saw a great pull and a great need
14:39 from individuals who said, I would pay for this.
14:42 That being said, we have started to see more tug.
14:46 We do also sell through employers now
14:49 and have started to catch the attention of payers
14:51 as a result. I think it is probably
14:56 a generalizable principle that going directly to payers
14:59 can be challenging, especially if you are either
15:02 in an avant garde area of the medical system
15:06 or the modality of care or the way
15:09 you would want to get reimbursed is new and novel.
15:13 It makes sense to go first to those
15:16 who may be more willing to experiment
15:19 and then go to the plans.
15:20 But they are very forward-thinking.
15:23 And I've actually been very pleasantly surprised
15:25 by how embracing they are for these new technologies.
15:27 That's good to hear.
15:28 We have one more question in the audience.
15:29 But I just want to remind you to keep it tight,
15:31 because we have about three minutes to go.
15:33 Great, great platform and great session.
15:35 Quick question regarding summer health.
15:37 It's a very beautiful Sven diagram
15:39 of 15 minutes and longitudinal.
15:42 That's incredible.
15:43 My question is on the talent management side.
15:44 As a clinician, to say that I'd be on call 365
15:48 and have to be responsive for every 15 minutes
15:50 would be a pretty hard sell.
15:51 Can you tell us a little bit more
15:52 about that model and how you recruit and retain talent?
15:55 Yeah, I love that question, because we're
15:57 in a very fortunate position.
15:58 So we're staffed exclusively by pediatricians, all MDs, DOs.
16:04 Our clinical staffing model is we always have--
16:08 and we're live in all 50 states, so we're nationwide.
16:11 We always have somebody who is available to answer
16:14 your inquiry.
16:15 You are also assigned to a provider.
16:17 If you need urgent care, you may not
16:19 get that longitudinal provider.
16:22 But your assigned provider will follow up within 24 hours
16:25 to make sure that you're getting the care that you need.
16:28 So say, I heard your kid was sick.
16:30 How are they doing?
16:31 Exactly.
16:32 Or let me follow up, how's the fever?
16:34 How's little Timmy feeling today?
16:35 That sort of thing.
16:37 So you can have a longitudinal relationship
16:40 while also getting quick care.
16:41 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
16:44 Running a startup like both of yours
16:46 is obviously really hard.
16:48 What's a user story that has really
16:49 reminded you of why you do what you do and kept you going?
16:53 Oh, goodness.
16:55 There's infinite numbers of those.
16:56 I'm sure.
16:58 It's everything from the simple to the more complex.
17:01 I mean, to give you a complex scenario,
17:04 we had an employee who had a spouse diagnosed with cancer,
17:10 had to be induced early while pregnant,
17:13 had a baby in the NICU, had a toddler with special needs.
17:16 It's the same person having all of this.
17:18 Yeah, had three loved ones to care for, right?
17:21 So a spouse, two children, both with completely different
17:24 needs.
17:26 Most models would just say, here's
17:28 the phone numbers to call, right?
17:30 Yeah, right.
17:31 Good luck with that.
17:32 You think about what that person needs, right?
17:33 They've got three people to keep alive.
17:35 They need someone to help make it easy
17:37 and take it off their plate.
17:39 And you're there to make it easy.
17:40 So that's ultimate.
17:41 Yeah, I mean, I'll obfuscate names.
17:43 But you have Shannon, who lives in rural Texas,
17:45 has four young kids.
17:47 The two-year-old needs to go to the emergency room.
17:50 It's 2 in the morning.
17:52 Single mother, what's she going to do with her other three
17:54 kids?
17:55 So she texts with Summer Health.
17:57 She gets peace of mind and quick care.
17:59 And we can really take care of both her, her mental health,
18:02 and her family all at once.
18:04 Wow.
18:04 Final word, last 30 seconds.
18:06 Where is this headed?
18:08 What's the next way that you're going to grow?
18:11 We're starting to penetrate the Medicaid community.
18:13 And we're very excited about that.
18:15 We want to put Summer Health in the pocket
18:16 of every single American, whether they can
18:18 afford to pay for it or not.
18:19 Wow.
18:20 Where's Grace going?
18:21 We're going to the payer space.
18:22 Social care is the third leg of the stool that's coming next.
18:25 Government's changing payment models.
18:27 And we aim to be front and center.
18:29 Well, you heard it here first.
18:30 Thank you both so much.
18:31 Thank you.
18:32 [applause]
18:33 [music playing]
18:34 [music playing]
18:37 [BLANK_AUDIO]