1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Bradley Harrison, Founder and Managing Partner at Scout Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What does Unite Us do?

Bradley Harrison: Unite Us uses the social determinants of health to provide optimization in the health system. They do that with two sets of customers. One set of customers is the Department of Health of Human Services at the State and City level. Currently, we have 41 states as customers. We have 26 State-wide engagements. In North Carolina, we have a relationship with the Department of Health and Human Services at the State level and we have presence in 140 counties.

We help connect all the things that play into healthcare. Suppose there is a woman that shows up at the emergency room with pneumonia every two to three months, you might find out that she’s not eating properly because she needs food assistance. She’s homeless so she needs housing assistance. She doesn’t have a job so she needs employment assistance. She also needs education assistance.

What the government is realizing is, they can lower the burden on the healthcare system by addressing that. Then you layer in the opioid epidemic, which is a huge crisis. That can be addressed by some of these social determinants of health. We have Health and Human Services as one of our main constituents.

On the other side are customers like Kaiser Permanente, Dignity Health, and Blue Cross Blue Shield. We use the same technology for optimization within the healthcare system. You trip and you sprain your ankle. I trip and I sprain my ankle. I go to my doctor and he says, “Go do PT for 12 weeks.” It costs the insurance $2,000 in PT. Your doctor says, “Let’s send you to a specialist. You go to an orthopedic.” He sends you for X-rays and MRI. At the end of those six weeks of test, he writes you the same script for 12 weeks of PT. You cost $80,000 on the health system and I cost $2,000.

They also try to predict outcomes by looking at different variables. Ultimately, it’s all about data. It’ll all ultimately come down to the actual providers. There’s also a lot of stuff related to care coordination. The whole platform is now digital instead of paper-based.

Sramana Mitra: Very interesting. When you work with identifying opportunities, what is actionable? What is the government doing with that data? Are they changing policies? Are they introducing programs? 

Bradley Harrison: You’re seeing a couple of things. You’re seeing governments trying to change policies and governments wanting to understand how to use technology and data to improve patient outcomes. We did some tests with the Department of Veteran Affairs using the technology from Unite Us. The outcomes of people who were processed through the platform were astronomically better than people who were processed by paper. It’s hard to argue with that data.

When you process things through paper, it might take 90 days from when somebody says they need help to getting help. If that person is having mental health issues, 90 days is too long. Especially at the State level, the government is trying to allocate resources to be more efficient. My partner Wes is more on the policy and political side of the house. It’s pretty simple – food, shelter, water. It’s not that complex.

Sramana Mitra: I live in Menlo Park. San Francisco has a large homeless problem. For years, the government has not been able to solve this problem. 

Bradley Harrison: Yes, we have the same thing in Austin.

This segment is part 3 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Bradley Harrison, Founder and Managing Partner at Scout Ventures
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