This post is part of my series: Wow! How? Health. My concept is to tell a story that makes a reader say, “Wow! How did they accomplish this great health innovation?” The answer is often related to concepts I explore in my book, Rebel Health. Please let me know what you think or if you have questions. Comments are open.
Emily Brown deeply understands that access to high-quality food keeps people healthy and saves the health care system money. Based on her own experience as a mother of children with special diets and who, for a time, relied on government support like WIC, SNAP, and Medicaid, she started a food pantry stocked with products that meet the needs of her community in Kansas City. But then her market research pointed her in a new direction: direct-to-door delivery.
In 2018, she and her team, who also have lived experience with food scarcity and special needs, ran a test of their distribution methods. They offered clients access to the traditional food pantry or vouchers that could be redeemed from grocery stores, online or offline. The results were striking: 80% of online vouchers were redeemed; only 10% of in-store vouchers were used. And in-person visits to the food pantry dropped.
Stigma holds some people back from visiting a food pantry or using a voucher in person. Even more important, Brown found, is the convenience of ordering what you need and having it delivered directly to your door. Many of her customers are already juggling responsibilities of work, child care, and/or time-consuming treatments like dialysis. Who wants to waste time in traffic or waiting in line, only to find out that the food you need is out of stock? And, she knew, her target population is tech savvy. They are ready to use online tools to make their lives easier.
The food pantry model is also limited by finances and geography. Grants and donations were not going to cover the costs of serving a widely-dispersed population of people who expressed a clear need and preference for food delivery.
Brown listened to her customers and pivoted to found Attane Health, a company that provides underserved patients and Medicaid members with the personalized food, nutrition support, and coaching they need to stay healthy.
While running the nonprofit, Brown and her team had used Google Forms to collect complex orders. Then she hired a political campaign company to create efficient delivery routes (using the same techniques used to map out door-knocking circuits during election season). Utilization jumped by 300%, which proved to funders that there is a viable market for the new direct-to-door service.
Brown is now CEO of Attane Health, which was chosen by Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield to conduct a Food is Medicine pilot in Kentucky, serving one hundred Medicaid members with diabetes. The Medicaid Innovation Collaborative (MIC) also selected Attane Health for their 2023 showcase of food insecurity and care navigation solutions and the MIC Consumer Panel ranked it the #1 food and nutrition platform. And the UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Kansas tapped Attane Health when they wanted to test food delivery as a way to improve maternal health outcomes.
Brown also has her eye on the policy landscape. Attane Health is a member of the National Produce Prescriptions Collaborative, and serve as subject matter experts in “medically tailored grocery” to the Coding4Food Project, which is working to define the Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) for billing and documentation related to food insecurity.
In the lexicon of my book, Rebel Health, Brown is a Solver. She saw a broken food system and decided to build a solution based on her lived experience as a caregiver. Her investors and industry partners are Champions, sharing funding, regulatory guidance, and contract navigation with a patient- and caregiver-led team of innovators.
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