Impact & Innovation

 When Hafeezah's son approached her with a mental health crisis, she struggled to find care for him. Formerly an executive in a large mental health company, she often got calls from Medicaid parents like herself, searching for pediatric mental health care. A mother of three, she quit her job and founded a digital health company focusing on pediatric mental health, especially for children of color. Today Backpack Healthcare offers a first of its kind certification program for pediatric mental health counseling, a network for certified counselors, and a gamification app. On National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day, Backpack announced that they've raised $9M in venture capital to expand their reach. Hafeezah discusses the surprises along the way, and how she plans to reach more people more effectively with humans at the forefront and AI in the background.

Social change is never achieved at the first attempt. The question is not whether you fail or succeed but to whom you pass the baton and how. In this episode of Impact and Innovation, SOM alumnae Song Kim shares her journey with KovaDx, a start-up working on a medical device that monitors red blood cell health for sickle cell and other blood diseases.

Before coming to SOM, Song worked as a human rights lawyer defending worker and immigrant rights. She joined SOM to obtain her MBA and explore new pathways for creating social change. Graduating into the pandemic in Spring 2020, Song was recruited to join the KovaDx team and seized the opportunity. When I caught up with her a year ago on the podcast, she was transitioning into the chief executive role. But, there were red flags, about how the team was working together. In the end, they were not able to see eye to eye, and the company shut down. In the process, Song asked questions like, how can I do right by our stakeholders, all the people who supported and invested in us along the way? What would it look like to fail successfully? We explore the different options she considered, and learn how she navigated the process of admitting failure and moving on to continue in the ongoing work.

Kaakpema Yelpaala (KP) is the new faculty director of InnovateHealth Yale, and a Senior Fellow and Lecturer at the Yale School of Public Health. In this episode of Impact & Innovation KP shares his journey working on social innovation with public health non-profits in Africa, and the launching of his digital health start-ups operating in several East African countries, followed by his most recent start-up in the U.S. serving immigrant patients and their providers. In our discussion, KP reflects on his roller coaster journey which navigated through the non-profit and for-profit worlds in Africa, comparing these two worlds, and also comparing digital health start-ups in Africa versus the U.S. Right now the roller coaster is taking him on a policy journey, as he strives to help create policies that foster investment and innovation for health equity in the U.S., especially by entrepreneurs of color.

Peter Hagan is the Digital Health Director at Commonwealth Care Alliance, and former team member at Iora Health. Iora was a start up that created a new model for value-based care, to improve health outcomes and lower costs. Ten years after launching, it was acquired by One Medical, a primary care provider, which was later acquired by Amazon. Peter initially started out as a patient at one of Iora's first pilot sites, and later became a health coach, playing a critical role in Iora's team-based care model. His third role before leaving Iora to pursue his MPH was to work on the backend of Iora's digital health products, which included a patient-friendly electronic health record system that allowed each patient and their care team to seamlessly coordinate care. In this episode, Pete and I discuss the challenge of shifting from the dominant fee-for-service care model in the U.S., to the value-based care model which focuses on improving people's health rather than profiting from their care needs. Rather than waiting and hoping for existing players to make these changes, could it be the new entrants into the field that disrupt and transform it?

Sheena Strawter-Anthony is the Director of Impact Investing Strategy at William Casper Graustein Memorial Fund here in New Haven. She shares their efforts to manage their endowment in a way that is in line with their mission. Doing so requires them to ask tough questions about where their money is going to generate wealth that they then invest in the community. Is it possible to manage wealth in a way that can also create positive social and environmental benefits? Who is participating and who is benefiting? These are some of the tough questions we discuss in this episode.

I reflect with this semester's teaching fellows, Lily Engbith and Victoria Bush, on how they apply social innovation principles in the for-profit world. Their roles at Connecticut Innovations (a state owned and run VC fund) and Inbox Health (a local medical billing startup) are driven by their values and vision for collective well-being. Business & society don't have to be two separate things. Business can be one of many tools, if applied with the mindset described in this episode, to help achieve societal well-being for all.

Ony Obiocha, Executive Director of CTNext, reflects on his team's work in building an innovation ecosystem for the state of Connecticut. It's about who you include and invest in, how they play together, and what kind of place you're creating for them to live and thrive in.

Patricia Melton, President of New Haven Promise, reflects on the various roles she has played in strengthening the education system. She discusses the interconnectedness of the health and education systems, and the importance of clarifying your value proposition as a social change maker.  

Erik Clemons returns to share his work as founding CEO of ConnCorp, a sister organization of ConnCAT which has acquired and is revitalizing commercial properties in underinvested neighborhoods in New Haven. Their ultimate goal is to catalyze and support a place-based impact investing ecosystem in the city.

Song Kim, co-founder and CEO of KovaDx, empowers patients with sickle cell disease and other rare blood disorders, while changing our perceptions of what it means to be a CEO and the many paths to entrepreneurship.