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Saul Marquez:
Hey, everybody! Saul Marquez here and welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket. So glad that you tuned in for today’s episode because I have the outstanding Evans Rochaste on with us. He is a board-certified psychiatric nurse practitioner and the founder and CEO of ReKlame Health. ReKlame delivers affordable, high-quality, and culturally competent telepsychiatry and addiction services to BIPOC communities. So excited to have you here, Evans, welcome.
Evans Rochaste:
Thank you so much for having me. Love the podcast, love the diversity of speakers that have been on it, and looking forward to getting into it today.
Saul Marquez:
Hey, likewise, Evans. So glad that you’re here. One of the things I like to do is just dig into what makes leaders tick. So talk to me about you. What is it that inspires your work in healthcare?
Evans Rochaste:
I’m inspired in healthcare by my own journey. Me, personally was born and raised in inner-city Brooklyn, New York. My parents are from Caribbean, from Haiti. I grew up in a really underrepresented community, I was an athlete in college, so everywhere where I turned talking about mental health was often a foreign concept. Everything from stigma, the running, and going back and forth with being an athlete, there was never room to take space. So I went to school and became a nurse practitioner in psychiatry and got really interested about the intersection between social equity, affordability, stigma, how we’re approaching care for underrepresented populations, and combined with my journey when I was looking for care and some of the hurdles that I faced. So really that combined with the events of George Floyd’s murder, I’ve really been on this rocket launch, as you would say, to really look at how can we address the intersection between social equity, affordability, and accessibility in the mental healthcare system. My journey and what I’ve seen at society at large is what makes me fired up about some of what we can do to continue to better the system.
Saul Marquez:
Love that, Evans. Man, there’s such a huge need in this area, so I’m glad that you’re focused on it. As it relates to equity, inclusion, access, that’s something that we care about deeply here too. We recently did an episode on techquity. Are we designing equity into the technology that we’re putting into communities? And super valuable work that you’re up to, how are you and the business adding value to the healthcare ecosystem?
Evans Rochaste:
Yeah, so a couple of ways. Number one is, so, we have built a group of equity providers that are trained internally under our culturally competent guidelines who essentially are providing like robust clinical care to underrepresented communities. When we look at the data, we know that representation and equity is important for clinical outcomes. So for us, when we look at communities such as BIPOC patients who may be on Medicaid, we’re able to not only build the clinical solutions to help address some of the pain points, but do it with culturally competent providers and do it in a way that merges both clinical excellence and technology.
Saul Marquez:
Love that, Evans. And clinical competence, technology, just sensitivity to people’s culture, look, these things all matter, right? And who in front of you isn’t necessarily who you might think is in front of you, and understanding where people come from and what’s important to them, what they value, what’s not important, all these things make a difference in how care is delivered. And so those things really make you guys special, Evans, I definitely would have to say. And how would you say what you do has improved outcomes or made business better?
Evans Rochaste:
Yeah, a couple ways. We’ve seen the increase in the engagement and touchpoints. And one thing that I always like to say, especially being a clinician by training, is increase engagement, when we talk about healthcare, could be the difference between life and death. If we’re able to get an additional touchpoint with a patient, especially from groups that we have seen that the data have shown that engagement is historically lower, that increase engagement could lead to better health outcomes, reduction in hospitalizations, healthcare savings across hospitals, as well as longitudinal care and outcomes, if that makes sense. So everything from how we’re able to maintain a relationship with the patient, how we’re able to ascertain a better clinical outcome, as well as really be able to drive down costs is how we’ve been really operating within the ecosystem.
Saul Marquez:
Love that. Thanks for sharing that, and we definitely need more focus on these initiatives. We’ve got to be mindful about how we approach people as well as how we design systems to help communities. So as you, as the work that you do, embarks on different specialties, different subsections of care delivery, what are you most excited about?
Evans Rochaste:
Two things. One is, right now provider burnout is a major issue in the ecosystem, and providers are ultimately the people who are delivering the care. And we’ve seen how insufficiencies in the EMR system as well as lack of decision-making support as well as post-pandemic demands that have been placed on provider that has led to a lot of challenges, retention, it can affect clinical outcomes. One thing that we are really excited about is how the advances of technology could really be applied to mitigating provider burnout. So what do system design on a technology side look like so that providers are practicing top of license, providers are able to focus on that decision-making instead of I need to do this disability form, I need to toggle between 3 or 4 screens. So really excited about that, and the reason we’re excited about that because it ultimately leads to better clinical outcomes and more be focused on decision rather than the 18 things that need to do. Number two would be there is here and now over the last three years, we’ve been having more and more of a discussion around health equity and how to incorporate health equity as we’re building products, as we’re building technology, and what does that look like. It’s hard to not incorporate health equity when, for example, if we look at, if we, the size of New York City, 5.1 million people have Medicaid. So being able to incorporate health equity and look at how can we not only think about the face-to-face that is happening, but all of the other aspects of the wraparound care, and how can we really advocate for the needs of a patient who may not be from the traditional background? That combined with how we address the provider burnout is what I’m most excited about.
Saul Marquez:
That’s fantastic, Evans. I’m excited about that too. And is any element of what you guys do virtual care?
Evans Rochaste:
Yeah, we’re essentially a hybrid, so digital-first, person-second, the majority of our model is hybrid and we do have a brick-and-mortar location on the Upper East Side.
Saul Marquez:
Awesome, man. Great to hear. We spent a lot of time talking about, and folks, we’ll be releasing a ton of podcasts around techquity hybrid models of care. We did 30 podcasts at ViVE in Nashville, Tennessee. Phenomenal. And they really ring true to what Evans is sharing with us today. You got to meet people where they’re at, you got to be culturally mindful about how you deliver that care, and if you’re stuck in a brick-and-mortar situation and not considering ways to deliver care virtually, gosh, come on, like you gotta get with it. And so this is an opportunity, Evans, you guys are taking advantage of that. So excited for the work that you guys are doing and the value that you’re delivering to these communities that need it so much. So want to thank you so much for being with us. Where can people listening to this podcast find out more about you and find out more about your company?
Evans Rochaste:
Sure, a couple of ways. You can always check us out on our website at www.ReKlameHealth, so we spell ReKlame Health, R E K L A M E Health.com, or shoot me an email at Hello@ReKlameHealth.com, or just my first name and last name is easy to find me on LinkedIn. I always love to meet new people, network, help, provide resources to the ecosystem at large. Anyone who’s out there, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Saul Marquez:
Boom, there you have it, folks, Evans Rocheste for you. We’ll link up his LinkedIn profile as well as his company and ways to get in touch with him in the show notes. So no need to write anything down, just check out the notes and there’s your way to get in touch with him. Evans, thank you so much for the work that you do and for spending time with us here on the Rocket.
Evans Rochaste:
Yeah, thank you so much. Really appreciate the time we took out here, and looking forward to staying in touch.
Saul Marquez:
Likewise.
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