InsightsOut_Kat McDavitt: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Natanya Wachtel:
Brands that can connect with their audiences more viscerally and more authentically will always be successful. With the Insights Out podcast, you will get access to deep and detailed conversations with the heads of leading organizations to understand how they are making their customer relationships work best and how we can all become more aligned to deliver strong value exchanges and better realize the benefits. I’m your host, Dr. Natanya Wachtel. Welcome.
Natanya Wachtel:
Hello and welcome to another episode of Insights Out, a spotlight on modern solutions to put customer data to work, unearthing game-changing intelligence, predicting customer needs, and seamlessly connecting insights into measurable action everywhere your brand touches your customer. Today, we’re taking a little turn from the usual, because I have a very special guest who has not only championed for the rights of many, many people on many, many continents, and especially here in the US, and has a successful career in our industry, but we have really shifted our focus from thinking about customers to the, let’s say, paying patrons in the ecosystem to also thinking about, in healthcare, the people that we serve who need our help the most. So with that, I’d like to introduce Kat McDavitt. And if you would, can you just tell us a little bit about your background and what you’re working on today?
Kat McDavitt:
Sure, sure, so thank you again for having me on the show, Natanya, it’s an honor. So Kat McDavitt, I’m the chief strategy officer and founder of Innsena, which is a go-to-market consultancy for the digital health and health technology markets, and I’m also the CEO of Zorya Foundation, which is a nonprofit dedicated to helping women in the healthcare sector succeed, and we do that in a variety of different ways. Most of our work is in cash grants, we’re trust-based philanthropy, and we focus primarily on making sure women have the supports they need to continue working in their field in the healthcare sector, and that includes childcare grants, it includes helping them with cash grants to cover certain educational needs. It can be simply that they cannot pay their rent that month, and they’re a nurse, right? We make sure that they have those financial supports that can help them keep going in their careers, and with 80% of our healthcare workers being women in the United States, we need to make sure that we support this group of people, and they have what they need.
Natanya Wachtel:
Absolutely, and thank you so much, and your work is incredibly important and impactful. And I think it’s sort of the, COVID has exacerbated the needs as well as the spotlight, but it’s just starting to be understood. And I’m not sure if all of the folks who are either, on either side of the healthcare system, whether they’re a provider or a patient, fully understand the magnitude of this impact and how you’re getting involved here and what a difference you’re making. Can you talk to us a little bit about how this idea came to you to get involved?
Kat McDavitt:
Yeah, yeah, sure. So, you know, I’m not a clinician, Natanya, as you know. I mean, no one is going to die if I don’t walk up here at 9 a.m. and send a press release out before market open, like it’s fine. But when I had my children, my boys are eight and ten now, but when I had my children, I was like many women in the US that had no paid maternity leave. I wasn’t making very much money and for my two boys to go to daycare was pretty much my entire take-home salary. And you do the math there and you think, is this worth it? And I was fortunate that I was in a position where I could make that decision and I chose to keep going, but it was very difficult. I was fortunately at the time, working in an all pretty much all-women consultancy, so it was, women have babies, we were just used to it. And so I didn’t have that same experience that a lot of women have working in all-male or mostly male settings in the corporate environment where the mothers have to miss out on going to after-work social events, or there’s a late-night strategy session you just can’t do because you have kids. I didn’t have that, but even still it was incredibly difficult, and so I always told myself, if somehow I ended up in a position where I could have a nonprofit or support people, what would I do? And I said, I am going to pay for child care. I’m going to find a way to make it easier for women to have child care, because that’s one of the biggest barriers we have to advancing in our professional lives in general. Fast forward to when I was actually a corporate executive in the healthcare sector, working with a largely male leadership team and the entire company, basically, it was difficult, right? You could see that a lot of women didn’t have the same opportunities that they were missing out, and again, that wasn’t something that I’m thankful it wasn’t something that happened to me, but it was crazy to watch. And at the same time, we were going through the pandemic at this company, we worked a lot of hospitals and then a lot of healthcare providers, and what they were going through and the lack of support, the federal government did almost nothing to support mothers during the pandemic, especially if you’re a nurse and you’re taking care of COVID patients, you’re isolating from your children, right, just to watch that was ….
Natanya Wachtel:
Yeah, and that’s incredible. I want to stop you for just one moment just to recognize two things you said, but please don’t lose your story thread. Just because you said, you know, it wasn’t happening to me, but just it was hard to watch. And I think that’s an amazing message for a lot of people and a testament to you, and honestly, for me, also some of the work that I do with the nonprofit world as well in terms of, you know, working with minorities and things like that. So it’s just that, you know, you don’t have to be part of the problem, but you can always be part of the solution no matter who you are, and I think that’s what I’m hoping some listeners will take away from this, and it can be on a small scale or a large scale. And so the fact that you stopped, even though it wasn’t affecting you personally, and chose to make it your mission is not only a beautiful thing, but it’s something that I hope will inspire others to kind of look around in their universe and see maybe there’s something that they can do.
Kat McDavitt:
Yeah, well, thank you for saying that, yeah. And I do want to make sure that, I do love telling a good story about how hard I worked. Like, I love that, I will tell you how I walked uphill to school both ways, all that.
Natanya Wachtel:
… and it was snowing,
Kat McDavitt:
Oh, yeah, and there was, as my father would say, snow coming off my mustache that I don’t have, right? But yeah, but I also want to make sure that I’m not that person that said, it was really hard for me to get here, you should have to have that too. I want to make it so they get there faster than I did, right, and that I was a part of that. I really would like that to be part of my story, and I think we’re getting there. I mean, it’s slow but steady work, I think. But, yeah, you know, it was I’m not a clinician, right? I don’t really know how that feels, but these are people who are there for my family, right? These are people who are there for our friends and loved ones who are just not supported at all, and so it does affect me in that way. And I think the other thing that was really, that hit hard at that time, again, I’m working I still work entirely in the healthcare technology sector. Digital health depends on what venture fund you’re from to which one you say, but we profit off of clinicians, right? If clinicians don’t use our stuff, that’s, we don’t have a market, right?
Natanya Wachtel:
And that’s why this is Insights Out, because we’ve already, we’re hitting on essentially universal customer truths, right? So in the system, see a need, fill a need, and in the system, someone you think is your partner is your customer, and there’s an interdependence there that sometimes gets forgotten, especially if you’re on the policy side and quite frankly, even on the pharma side sometimes.
Kat McDavitt:
Yeah, no, no, I totally agree. And as you know, Natanya, I mean we’ve both been in the marketing field a bit here. There are many companies that will show up and write a nice blog about how they care about clinician burnout, right? They’re like, oh yeah.
Natanya Wachtel:
Or they have a little paragraph on the top of the email.
Kat McDavitt:
Right, our nursing …
Natanya Wachtel:
Our commitment is there.
Kat McDavitt:
Right? That’s totally here.
Natanya Wachtel:
Diversity check, women check, you know, like freedom of, check, and I wrote my pitch and we, maybe we put some kind of internal memo out because don’t forget we have that too, and maybe you got something with a sticker on it at your desk, so we did it.
Kat McDavitt:
Right, or we have to make sure that on our website we have racially and gender-diverse images.
Natanya Wachtel:
Pictures, right, exactly.
Kat McDavitt:
Right, but how many are actually doing something? And I think that you can only write so many of these blogs before you think, well, holy shit, right? So that was a part of it, too. You know, people say, well, why did you start with clinicians? You’re not a clinician. I was like, Well, I mean, to be very frank, I profited off of these people and I need to give back, right? These are people who take care of all of us.
Natanya Wachtel:
You wanted to say thank you. I get it.
Kat McDavitt:
Yeah, that, maybe one day we will expand, right? Maybe one day we will be beyond healthcare, but that seems like it will be a long road, so this is where we can make an impact right now.
Natanya Wachtel:
Well, thank you so much for that. Within the many, many spheres of your influence and activities you also recently shared with me, and that’s actually why I decided to shift this entire podcast to this, you recently shared with me something that the gods of the algorithms hadn’t shown me, even though I pretty much try and cyberstalk you because I’m a big fan, about some effort that you made with some government involvement and some real, like nitty-gritty change for the most-need folks. And I think there’s another big lesson in there for folks, but I’d also like you to talk about it twofold because I think it’s important, it’s incredible. I know you didn’t do it alone, and I think the fact that you brought together these diverse groups and parties that together could do this kind of lift, I hope it’s a model for others to look at, to effect change as well. So if you wouldn’t mind maybe talking.
Kat McDavitt:
I think, I mean, I have many passion projects. I think you’re talking about the recent grant that we won from the HHS Health Human Services.
Natanya Wachtel:
HSS, right.
Kat McDavitt:
It was the Racial Equity in Postpartum Care Challenge. We’re one of ten awardees. I am so passionate about this project. Back when I was working in the corporate field, we were actually selling a product for care coordination. One of the use cases we developed was for maternal health, right? How do you let certain providers know when a mother is having an emergency situation or she may be at risk, and how do you surround her with care? And I think the interesting thing about that program is, yes, I think it works. And there was, there were definitely examples in other markets where it absolutely worked. But if you look at it, if you peel it back, what made those programs work were engaged clinicians who really cared, right? And a lot of times it’s the ED social worker, right, the care manager from the Medicaid plan. It’s these people that just, I mean, we know they don’t get paid that much and they really care about … all.
Natanya Wachtel:
To me, an analog is in education, right? And teachers being on the front lines, being the provider of all kinds of services that are well beyond their scope using their own very limited funding to help support the classrooms and the children, sometimes with clothing and other things. So I see a lot of synergies across there in that exact way, absolutely.
Kat McDavitt:
I think that’s a great analog, right? So when HHS put out this challenge, we had a, we had our federal friend send us a note like, hey, you guys should apply, like see what you can do in Nebraska. And one of, this is a nice blend between my for-profit and non-profit lives, but my consultancy works with a health data utility located in Nebraska, and basically what that means is they are the health data infrastructure for the whole state. Many states have some of these, some are in development still, but this is a good one in Nebraska, it’s pretty well set up. So we teamed with them, the technology vendor who I used to work for when we were doing these programs, Collective Medical, which is now part of clinical care, and with some of my consultancy, and we put together a program. And so this is how we’re going to support these mothers in Nebraska, and we’re going to start in North Omaha, which is unfortunately one of those places that has a lot of racial disparities.
Natanya Wachtel:
Yeah, I was going to say, can you just break down a little bit, and you’re saying a lot really fast. Can you break down a little bit? I know I do the same thing, so this is the kettle.
Kat McDavitt:
I know, I’m like.
Natanya Wachtel:
Can you break down a little bit, just because for those who aren’t familiar, a little bit about that environment in Omaha? Because I think it’s special and it’s a microcosm for others, but just to explain that impact, so I think that’s important.
Kat McDavitt:
Yeah, absolutely. So I think, at least this was true of me, I live in Atlanta, so when I think of Nebraska, I think there are probably a lot of white people there, right? And so we were talking about selecting a site for this, Dr. Jamie Blanche, who is the CEO of Saint Health, she said, we need to focus on North Omaha. They have, it’s a really significant need. There is a lot of racial diversity and unfortunately, it’s an area where there’s been a lot of data that they can record because of their role, they can record and analyze, showing that black mothers have bad postpartum outcomes in this part of the country right here in Omaha.
Natanya Wachtel:
And I mean, we’ve seen it in the mainstream news. We talked about this in Texas, makes the headlines, but I actually hadn’t really known about this myself when we were talking about it, so I thought it might be good to kind of.
Kat McDavitt:
Yeah, no, absolutely, and I didn’t know either, right? We were thinking, where can we start? Where can we look? And the other interesting part of that is that Nebraska is an incredibly rural state. So Omaha, right, has decent access to care, but even as you move out, there’s, you can run into care deserts and that’s really, really hard, and it’s really difficult to coordinate and reach a lot of these patients. And oftentimes there’s medical mistrust, right? That’s a huge part of too.
Natanya Wachtel:
And the trade-offs for when there’s care disparity, wealth disparity, racial tension or divide, and the needs of the newborn. So like, and the needs of feeding your own self and paying your electric bills. So all those are compounded in that situation. I know that’s obvious, but I’m just kind of highlighting.
Kat McDavitt:
Absolutely, well, and that’s a great lead-in, so when, so we were awarded this grant. Yay! It’s very cool. So start to get everything in motion. This think health team was actually, they had great relationships with the community, it’s another reason some of these health data utilities are really awesome. They have great community connections, and as we know, every state is different, every community is different. What those community needs varies from county to county, sometimes within the same county, and they were in touch with a lot of really great nonprofits in the state and in that region that were trying to figure out ways to support these mothers. And so, it’s a pretty large coalition now, but we were trying to figure out, okay, we got the technology, that’s cool. We can look at the data, amazing. We can send alerts around to all these clinicians to let them know when there’s a problem, like when a mother has recently delivered, let’s get her postpartum care. But we can’t fix a lot of parts, we can’t fix everything with technology. So one of the really amazing partners in this effort is a nonprofit called I Be Black Girl, and they have teamed up with the Black Tulip Association to provide black doulas and black lactation consultants to these mothers to get them the care that they need, who understand their circumstances to alleviate some of that medical mistrust that we see in a lot of communities, and.
Natanya Wachtel:
Which is, you know, it’s not, it doesn’t come from nowhere, which is a whole other.
Kat McDavitt:
It doesn’t come from nowhere, it doesn’t come from this.
Natanya Wachtel:
It’s, there’s, it’s a legitimate rationale. We, look at my heart attack, am I right? We look at rates of response, it’s staggering and shameful, quite frankly, so it’s understandable.
Kat McDavitt:
No, absolutely, you’re absolutely correct, it makes a huge difference. And so we’re trying to address some of those challenges, right, to make sure that these mothers and their babies get the care that they need. And just as an example, in other parts of the country, there are certain nonprofits in various regions where, as an example, the mothers may not be able to afford diapers, right? If you can’t afford diapers, you can’t take your kid to daycare, right? You need all of these little things. And so there’s all kinds of reasons, you obviously need diapers, but one of the things that one of these nonprofits has done, and I will have to give you the name after this, because I’m blanking on it, is they provide free diapers. You show up there, you probably have all your other kids in tow because you aren’t able to afford child care for them, and while you’re there, they make sure you have the vaccinations your children need to go to daycare and school. They do all kinds of other assessments. They have clinicians on site and they’ve teamed with several …
Natanya Wachtel:
Yeah, there’s even, I was reading, subsequently, you know, things that sort of really get tossed by the wayside in terms of dental and eye and ear. You know, basically, you know, kids, we take, we just completely don’t think about, you know, kids who don’t get eye exams and can’t see, and then they think they’re slow readers, it’s that they can’t see what’s going on or can’t even see what’s in the tablet, if there is a tablet, you know, whether it’s the blackboard or a screen, or they don’t hear properly, so they think it’s a cognitive delay. So misdiagnosis about basic functioning in education and obviously thriving as well within that is all compounded in these situations.
Kat McDavitt:
Yeah, so that’s what we were chatting about before, right? Is, there’s all these big interventions that we can throw down, right? There’s all these big crazy things and they make a difference, but you’re missing some of the little pieces that make an even bigger difference in some cases.
Natanya Wachtel:
So on the way up into those, exactly.
Kat McDavitt:
Absolutely, right? There’s just so much that can be solved. And I’m excited about the growth and the social care segment of our market, and how do we give someone a referral to go to the food bank? How do we make sure that they get housing if they’ve been to an emergency department, and we find out from the social worker that they don’t have a place to go afterward? So I think there’s a huge gain in understanding that part of the market, and part of that is our reimbursement system, which kind of sucks sometimes, right? But I think, huge strides, but so, back to those little pieces, I love the diaper example, but in the North Omaha project, you know, we were speaking with all the different stakeholders, I Be Black Girl, they have they’ve done some amazing work in that market and we were speaking with them about, hey, could our foundation, could Zorya Foundation, give child care grants to your doulas so that they can continue supporting the community, too, because they likely are still just like everybody else running into the same problems that child care is difficult to access right now, especially it’s very expensive. So can we help them support these mothers and see how it affects this program if we make sure your clinicians, your caregivers are also taking care of? So we’re also doing that, we have committed to ten grants there and are hopefully finagling another one of our sponsors into making up the difference.
Natanya Wachtel:
Send them this episode.
Kat McDavitt:
Once they commit to audit it.
Natanya Wachtel:
You can be your hero, too. But really, I mean, this is no small feat that you’re pulling off here with these.
Kat McDavitt:
It’s a lot. It’s a lot of coordination, and I think just, and I wouldn’t even say it’s me, right? I mean, I care, I have big feelings about all this stuff, but I would say the team that has been assembled in Omaha, they are so proud of this work, like it’s the type of work that you’re going to pick up the phone at 3 a.m. and be excited about it, right, if it’s about this project. So props to that entire team, I think they’re doing big things.
Natanya Wachtel:
That’s incredible, I thank you so much. And I’d also like to ask you to make sure you leave me some links and things, because when we do air this, I want to put all that for those who would like to get involved in any number of initiatives you’re doing and also to learn from your story. I mean, I know it’s a little controversial to say, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, but I’m throwing that now to everyone in our position. I think there’s a lot of people who have defined success by their title or their income or their purchase acquisitions or what have you, and that’s fine and that’s good, but I think, you know, COVID has taught many of us to really pull back. And I say this for, let’s say, those who work out of a social or service provider-type role, right? And so what is it to effect change? There are people every single day who wake up in a day of uncertainty and fear about basic care, the basic Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, right, unmet. And we’re not going to be able to feed and clothe and shelter everyone tomorrow and make sure they have medical care, but if you help a few people with some of those basics, especially children and young mothers or older mothers, but let’s just say those who are most vulnerable, you literally can change the world. You change a few people’s lives who have so much more world ahead of them, and that’s a beautiful thing. And I hope this motivates others to look around them within their communities, within their organizations, within their friend and family networks and things. What can I do? And it might be something as simple as a monetary donation, great. Just make sure it’s an organization that actually, you know, puts that money to work.
Kat McDavitt:
Right, right, and you do have to do your research.
Natanya Wachtel:
Yeah, I was going to say so. So that, and there are other, maybe other ways, but if you would be able to, and I know this is a big question, so just break this down in a way that is comfortable for you on the spot, but if you would be able to give maybe some tips and advice for others, maybe in the industry that we work in, in healthcare, in policy, in marketing, in manufacturing, you know, folks in the C-suite to folks who are, you know, brand manager level, you know, it doesn’t, you don’t have to be moving the mountains. But can you maybe give some tips about how to get started or how to get involved for people like that?
Kat McDavitt:
Yeah, and I love what you’re saying. I think that, you know, I’m not a bajillionaire, I’ll start with that. I am not a bajillionaire. So there are bajillionaires out there who don’t really participate in this kind of work. And I did, even before now, I always was like, How can I help, right? And I think what people should know is that everything you do to amplify for a cause makes a difference. I think I’ve shared with you, Natanya that our average donation size with Zorya is somewhere between 25 and 50 bucks, right?
Natanya Wachtel:
That is great, that’s great. Thank you, this is what I mean. Like, let’s break it down.
Kat McDavitt:
And I wish I could, I think I may have written something about this at some point, or at least I ranted about it on Twitter but you have no idea how excited our team gets when someone sends us a $25 donation, right? Like, especially when it’s not when we’re doing one of our big social media fundraisers, oh my gosh, you know, it keeps you going, like every little bit helps. Sometimes we have people autofill in the $5 amount, right? Because it doesn’t go that low, and we’re still excited. Right? It’s less about the money and more about knowing that someone cares. And beyond finances, too, but I’m actually getting money, donations, I have to watch because, you know, I’m still a for-profit girl so I don’t, sometimes I don’t use the right words, like I talk about revenue, but I’ve had people reach out and say, Hey, Kat, I love what you’re doing, I cannot afford to give you anything. And I’m like, Amplify us, retweet us, like our posts, all of that stuff helps, right? That is social proof, and I don’t even know how to quantify the value of social proof because it is so incredible. So our discussion about PR and policy.
Natanya Wachtel:
Like you said, but I like what you brought up in terms of what it does for the movement expertly in terms of raising awareness, but also what it does for the volunteers on the inside, and I think that’s something people don’t really talk about. And so I think that was a really beautiful example, and that is exactly.
Kat McDavitt:
It’s so energizing, and we have one person on staff who’s paid, everyone else is volunteer. And yeah, like she’ll share, she’ll be like, Oh, someone just sent us a recurring $25 donation, right? Like, that’s so exciting for us because that means someone.
Natanya Wachtel:
You can feel like an island and it’s very uphill, and I understand that as well, bringing nonprofits up myself. So I thank you so much. There is, I mean, easily we could do 4 hours together as we find every time, but this was just incredible. And I’m really happy and excited that we kind of diverged from our original plan, and I hope that the listeners get a lot out of this because what you can see is so many opportunities to effect change and they’re all based on insights or truths within the population set. So I think it still plays, and you obviously leveraged a lot of your skills and business acumen and relationship skills and all of that, and they’re all transferable. So you can sort of use your powers for good and that good could be a good job doing well in your career, or it could be doing good for helping your community. So I thank you so much for talking with me and the listeners today about this and just thank you for everything that you’re doing.
Kat McDavitt:
Oh, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Natanya Wachtel:
Thank you for listening to Insights Out. We hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If you have a specific topic in mind and you want us to discuss, please reach out to us by visiting NewSolutionsNetwork.com. See you next time!
Sonix has many features that you’d love including transcribe multiple languages, automatic transcription software, secure transcription and file storage, enterprise-grade admin tools, and easily transcribe your Zoom meetings. Try Sonix for free today.
