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Improving NICU Outcomes
Episode

Ellen Stang, Founder and CEO at ProgenyHealth

Improving NICU Outcomes

Focusing the discussion of social determinants especially in the NICU population

Improving NICU Outcomes

Recommended Book:

The Power of Positive Thinking

Leadership: In Turbulent Times

Best Way to Contact Ellen:

info@progenyhealth.com

Mentioned Link

ProgenyHealth

Improving NICU Outcomes with Ellie Stang, Founder and CEO at ProgenyHealth transcript powered by Sonix—the best audio to text transcription service

Improving NICU Outcomes with Ellie Stang, Founder and CEO at ProgenyHealth was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best way to convert your audio to text in 2019.

Saul Marquez:
Welcome back to the podcast. Today we have the privilege of hosting Dr. Ellen Stang. She’s the founder and CEO of ProgenyHealth. Dr. Stang is a board certified pediatrician, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a recognized leader in improving care management and health outcomes for premature and medically complex newborns. Taking an entrepreneurial approach in an industry that has historically innovation averse, she founded Progeny Health in 2003 and built the business literally from the ground up. In today’s podcast, we’re going to chat about her thoughts and philosophies around helping define a good strategy using social determinants of health and technology to help these NICU niche. And so through the deployment of her company, she’s been able to realize incredible results. ProgenyHealth, comprehensive specialty focus, utilization management and case management solution is a rare example of the health care innovation that has delivered irrefutable value to infants and their families, providers and payers alike. To date, the company has managed over 60,000 new cases in over fourteen hundred hospitals in all 50 states. It’s proven and effective and we’re going to talk about the solution here today. But more importantly, how we take care of this community of patients. So without further ado, I want to open up the microphone to Ellie to spend some time with us. Welcome to the podcast.

Ellen Stang:
Thank you, Saul. Happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Saul Marquez:
Absolutely. Now, did I leave anything out in the intro that you wanted to fill in the blanks with?

Ellen Stang:
No, I think you you covered it all. So thank you so much for doing that.

Absolutely. So Dr. Stang, tell us the why what got you into health care to begin with?

Ellen Stang:
So, you know, I thought about that a lot. And, you know, at a very young age, around 14, I realized loved science, loved biology and started volunteering at a hospital as a candy striper. And that’s really what started my interests in health care and worked there, not only in the patient but in the emergency room. They actually allowed me down into the E.R. and I loved how you could help people during their greatest time of need and help heal them. And so that really started my interest at the age of 14 in health care. And something there just worked really hard as a student through college and med school to realize that.

Saul Marquez:
So you got into the health care profession. You served as as a frontline physician for many years and then you made the shift you got in the industry. Tell us a little bit more about that and why.

Ellen Stang:
Yeah. You know, it’s it’s it’s one of those stories. I trained in Philadelphia, did my residency at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children and had the opportunity upon graduation to help found a private practice with that was a dear friend of mine. And so we were in practice for six or seven years. Loved what I was doing in private practice, but had the opportunity to interview in a managed care plan. And so really loved what I was doing. I had no interest, they called three times and a friend said, let’s just go check it out. So long story short, I became very interested during that interview process and how you could affect the health of populations and so left after practice went into managed Medicaid. And in a very short period of time, I was there about five years. I saw a very broken system. So this is back in, you know, 2000 and was working in managed care and thought, you know what? I’m 40 years old. I see an opportunity to make a difference in a really high risk population at the time. Care coordination, care management didn’t exist. Social determinants were being addressed. And I saw that whole program so needed in the marketplace. And so I quit my job, sat in a basement and founded a company. And, you know, no money, no mentors, no nothing. The vision in my head of what could be and you know, here we are 16 years later with just incredibly talented people in the company helping me move the mission forward.

Saul Marquez:
That’s amazing. That’s amazing, Ellen. You know, you got to applaud your your courage for her for doing that and for seeing the the opportunity in that brokenness. And so, gosh, it’s been over a decade now. You guys are making some big, big traction here. If you had to summarize what the hot topic that needs to be front and center for the leaders listening to this podcast today, what would you say it is?

Ellen Stang:
So, you know, I think today and you know, over 16 years, health care has evolved, I think hospitals, providers, health plans are doing a better job at working together because managing patients takes a village and their needs during the inpatient setting are a lot. And we have incredible talent in this country. Certainly in the NICU managing patients to great health outcomes, but upon discharge, the setting that they’re discharged into matters, their ability to interact and connect with the health system is really important. And when there’s barriers in place, that ultimately affects health outcomes. And so, you know, I think the messages we all need to take a very holistic look at the patient. It’s not just their clinical diagnosis, it’s how does that diagnosis affect their life and outside of their medical teams, are they getting what they need to continue the good work clinical teams have done to keep them healthy, that they are able to maintain that in the outpatient setting? And so, you know, my big drive as a company is how do we take a comprehensive look at patients and give them what they need and help them access to the system so that they can lead their best life.

Saul Marquez:
I love it. Yeah. You know, I think it’s critical that we think about what what. Dr. Stang is highlighting here for us the social determinants and especially in the NICU population. I mean, I know I probably shouldn’t say, especially because every everybody matters. But look, at the end of the day, these kids can’t take care of themselves. So, you know, Ellie, I think it’s great that you’re hyper focusing this social determinants discussion to the NICU. That’s where it becomes actionable. And maybe you can dive into some of the the tech enabled things that you guys are doing to drive outcomes. A couple examples maybe.

Ellen Stang:
Oh, yeah, happy to do that. And so we have a platform in the company called Baby Tracks. And, you know, over 16 years you learn a lot. And we’ve taken a database with massive amounts of information and done regression models and built into our platform intelligence. So we’ve got today about 125 plus full time NICU clinicians and then another over 100 employees doing other various very important jobs in the company. We’ve got a very large I.T. team, but where we are today is we can now put clinical diagnoses and clinical attributes of the patient into our system and we know their risk of a readmission. And we know when to reach out in the course of a hospitalization, to be very proactive, working with the hospitals so that when the babies are clinically ready and ask the right questions, that the babies that the parents are educated, whatever needs in the home and supports are in place, so that when the baby’s ready to go home, they go home. And then there’s that safety net post discharge. But our platform has really allowed us to be very interactive with hospitals to know when to ask patients and families. And my question is how to educate them and then certainly to know upon discharge which patients are most likely to be readmitted and kind of double down on that education to the families and increase the supports so that those babies lead certainly a healthy first year of life and beyond. So it’s really knowing who to reach out to, who’s most at risk, when that ultimately improves the health outcomes and really adds tremendous value. We now just an example is when we provide case management as a company and we’ve always done this, the first things we asked families are about food, clothing, shelter and seeing if there’s any domestic risk in a family.

Saul Marquez:
Yes.

Ellen Stang:
And and if we find, for example, food insecurity, our case managers, while they have a parent on the phone are typing in their address, 1 1 1 mainstream Detroit, Detroit. And up in front of my case, manager Pops validated food pantries and resources in their neighborhood and we warm transfer them to that resource live while they’re on the phone to solve those problems. That’s how you solve problems to move people to better health outcomes. We’ve learned over time years ago we would hang the phone up, do some research and call them back. And sometimes you never connect with them again. So you really need to solve problems actively while you have people on the phone. And when you get those pillars of their life aligned, then you move them to well child checks, immunizations and education to drive even better health outcomes for the family. But if you have hungry children at a table, they’re not going to hear you about, well, child checks and immunizations because they have to solve what’s in front of them. And so that’s really where it takes a village. And there are tremendous resources in every community in this country willing and able to help people. We just have to connect those dots. So that’s really how technology helps us solve that.

Saul Marquez:
That’s incredible work. And I I just got goose bumps when you’re telling that story, Ellie and just I thought about it. I volunteered a couple months ago at a school as part of a volunteer project where it was in Tampa, Florida, and it was an urban neighborhood. And we were working with their food program. And they basically they telling us that they have a 90 percent graduation rate compared to 60 percent because they’re able to give these kids food once a week, like to take home a dry bag and a wet bag. And it’s just like, wow.

Ellen Stang:
You take it for granted. And, you know, when you look at the data, 1 in 8 Americans has food insecurity. And so you walk down your street like that and somebody is having a challenge. And so, you know, these things are solvable. And I think every small company like Progeny, if we all did our part, we solve this. This is very solvable. And there are lots of people focused on solving this issue. It’s critical. It’s critical to life. It’s critical to education. And it’s certainly critical to health outcomes. If you don’t have good nutrition, you can’t heal a body. And so it’s really just one of the ways that it takes a lot of us to approach supporting a family to lead to better health outcomes.

Saul Marquez:
Love it. So, Dr. Stang, tell us about an example of how you guys have created results by doing things differently.

Ellen Stang:
So, you know, great questions, Saul. And, you know, when I founded the company in 2003, as a doctor, there were adversarial relationships between health plans and hospitals. Managed care was you know well under way, but people weren’t working together as teams. And so what I saw is, you know, if you have conversations proactively with hospitals upfront. So so what we do today is we have a team of three. We’ve got neonatologist pediatricians, we’ve got NICU nurses talking to hospitals about care plans. And we have case managers talking to families about the baby education. And that puts discharge plan. And so we basically have a team of three working directly with hospitals. And so the system when I entered, it was very fragmented. And I would say adversarial. And our model is very collaborative. We are a majority of clinicians on this end. I’m a doctor, so I know the challenges and how stressful it is in a NICU environment to take care of really sick kids. So how do we reach out, understand care plans and make sure parents are educated so they can make decisions to remove any inefficiencies in the system quickly? And when babies are medically ready, is there equipment in the home? Health plans provide a lot of benefits. Breast pumps and other things. We help coordinate all of that. So when the hospitals say, you know what, the baby is ready to go the home and the families educated for that discharge and there’s no delays. And so the result of that is babies have a shorter length of stay in the hospital and because we have a safety net. So we have 24/7 dedicated case managers to families. So they have the same case manager from birth through the first year of life. This is not a call center. You’ll have the same person working with you the first year you develop a relationship. They get to know their case managers and they stay very engaged, enrolled in the program. We have very high levels of member satisfaction. But when you put those supports in place, post discharge. They will call us, ask questions and to meet their needs during that first year rather than running to an emergency room. The last thing you want, unless there is an emergency, is a baby who’s premature or medically complex coming into an emergency room if they don’t need to be and if they’re better off than their primary care doctor’s office, because emergency rooms are petri dishes of infection and these babies are at risk, they’re immunologically at risk. And certainly if there’s a medical emergency. Absolutely. But if there’s not. You want them in the environment of their primary care doctor who knows them well and will continue to make sure that they have what they need and shots, immunizations and other things that that they lead a healthy first year and beyond. So the results we’ve been able to produce are babies go home sooner. So there’s lower costs in the inpatient setting and readmission rates due to the hard work of our case managers with families have been reduced by up to 50 percent in that first year of life. But the model is really doing it the right way. Proactive conversations with doctors and nurses in the hospital and working very closely with families. And we interface with families while the baby’s in the hospital. So parents at their kind of greatest period of vulnerability are hearing from us. Look, we’ve got this. We’re going to work with you and we’re going to educate you so that that baby does well and help support you through a very difficult time. So it’s really wrapping supports around these families and working very collaboratively with hospital that drives our outcomes. And it’s the right way. It’s really working in collaboration.

Saul Marquez:
This is great. And so I was wondering when your support staff reaches out to the families. Is it via phone? Is it like a face time type of Skype interaction or is it in person? What does that look like?

Ellen Stang:
Yeah, great questions. So it’s all telephonic, but they can Skype.

Saul Marquez:
OK. They wanted to.

Ellen Stang:
Yes. And we actually have a mobile platform as well. So we’ve got a mobile app and it’s got care plans on it. And parents. Some people, they like it. They’ve got it. If not, they can talk to our case managers. It’s amazing. Most people choose the phone calls. They’ve got all those other opportunities, Skype and others and using the mobile platform. But people like to hear that warm voice and that friendly voice on the phone. And like I said, we’re available to them around the clock. But it is telephonic. And so we work. Hospitals have. Most hospitals have great teams, impatient and distracts planners. And so our case managers are working very closely with a lot of those teams in the hospital. So we’re coordinating together to make sure that soundly has what they need. But we have amazingly, when we reach families, health plans many times have challenges enrolling people in their care management programs. We’ve got when we when we catch people and we do it in the inpatient setting, we’re enrolling many times over 80 to 85 percent of families in our program, which is really high. When you look at the industry and you look at member satisfaction and we get the highest levels of member satisfaction. Part of that, I think is very talented people that know how to to talk to people where they are and who are highly seasoned clinicians. But you’re also meeting families out there at a very emotional period in their lives. And so we’re able to connect them and say, look, we’re provided on behalf of your health plan and we’re here to help you through this. And so so families need that support. It’s scary. You know, everybody wants a healthy child. And despite many parents doing everything right. Sometimes a baby can come too soon or medically complex. And it does take a village to bring them to a healthy outcome. And the hospitals and nurses do a fantastic job. We worked nationwide during a very stressful period of time in the life of the family.

Saul Marquez:
You know, I think making some great points and some great examples, Ellie, it sounds like you guys have come out a long way 16 years and obviously these things didn’t happen without any bumps in the road. I love if you could share with the listeners maybe a setback that you guys had and what you learned from that, that’s made you better.

Ellen Stang:
So, you know, gosh, I could I could go on endlessly about things probably didn’t do well. You know, I’m very aware of of you know what? I know what I don’t know. But as a company, you know, I could certainly point a couple of things out in the very beginnings of the business. I thought, you know, gosh, couldn’t we just have one person working with the hospitals and working with the families and that’s the same person. And there is so much work to be done from a utilization manager perspective, working with hospitals and from a case management perspective, working with families that really does take two people. And so we learned as we evolve that we called a case management specialist and it really need to be split into two jobs because they’re both incredibly busy. And to do them well, you can’t have people distracted. You need to focus on working with hospitals, full focus and working with families. And so we learned very early on. Those are two really unique, very important jobs that need full attention. And so split that out. I think one of the second things that we learned and I wish I would have learned this sooner is as we’ve grown as a company, you know, I was the person interfacing with health plans to who are customers to be the person selling and working with them. And we really learn. We hired our first salesperson only five or six years ago. That’s an incredibly talented professional with a unique skill set that helps move you along much faster than someone like me as an entrepreneur could do. So I wish we would have hired more salespeople sooner because they’re incredibly talented in helping us sign up more people to work with our services. So I would say that’s really the second thing. So those are probably two things we’ve learned along the way. And you know, you’re evolving as an organization. We always look at how can we do things better, stronger, faster and trying to stay ahead of the game in what we do and make sure that we’re always that we’ve got a quality product that’s doing our best work, working with doctors and nurses and certainly our best work with families. And so we are always in innovation mode here, and it’s something that will continue to evolve as a company. We never stop trying to make ourselves better.

Saul Marquez:
Love that. Yeah. And you know, the one example that you mentioned, Ellie, is when you have the the family on the phone and you’re telling them you’re not just telling them about these food pantries, you’re connecting them right away. I’m sure that’s a distinction that took months, maybe years to realize. It’s a small change that has led to much better results.

Ellen Stang:
Saul, it’s a huge change. And, you know, it’s interesting. And one thing I didn’t mention is years ago we began case management at NICU discharge. So we had teams working in the inpatient setting. And when the baby was discharged, our case managers would call the parents and say, hey, we’re here to help you with your case manager. And the family said, well, where were you? What do you mean where were you? I needed you when the baby was in the hospital and this big aha moment. You know what? You’re right. Where were we? And so probably eight years ago pivoted the model to say, you know what parents need us during that inpatient setting as an additional support. So that’s why we now reach out there in the hospital setting and then are helping to solve those social determinant problems as soon as we can. But, you know, those are the things you learn and you learn by listening to the voice of your customers, by listening to doctors and nurses and also listening to your families. So that helps us innovate. But but there’s logic you could go on about how you change as an organization, but you also learn as you add more and more talented people to the company and they bring their great ideas and ways that they did things and other places that just helps make you stronger.

Saul Marquez:
I love that. Yeah. And so as you as you look in the rearview mirror, what would you say is is the most proud experience you’ve had to date?

Ellen Stang:
You know, I thought about that a lot. And, you know, I don’t know if I could focus on one thing that makes me the most proud as a leader. I would say in general, I am so excited when I see people come to this company and we now hire people based on our core values. Are you selfless? We will always do the right thing for it. For an instant in their family. And we are focused on, you know, certainly passionately driven by a greater, greater cause, which is to improve the health and well-being of the next generation. And we want to do that. That’s our why one baby at a time and one family at a time. And so people that come to this company, we don’t hire if there’s not a passion in the belly for what we do and the majority of the time we get that right. And when people and when you look at our who were supporting and who we’re serving these medically fragile kids and these infants and their families, it’s it’s, in my mind pretty easy to get behind that. And it’s great to see people in this company focused on that to improve health outcomes and make sure that we’re all aligned. And so I would say my happiest moment as a leader is to sit in rooms and be called into meetings and see all these smart people with their great experience focusing on making a stronger as a company. And it’s just you know, I used to wear all these hats. Years ago, it was all me when you started as one and then you’re at two hundred and thirty strong. It’s great to see really talented people focusing their efforts on making us better. So we have better quality, better programs for people and that we do it right. We get it right. That really, really fuels my passion as we continue to move the company forward.

Saul Marquez:
Wow. That’s definitely something to be proud of. And if you think about, you know, that moment, Ellie, where you were sitting there and you made a decision in your basement, like, I’m going to do this, I’m going to affect populations like, you know, if you guys are guys and gals are listening to this right now, maybe you’re in that moment. And and take take take this courage from today’s interview with Ellie and take that leap, because it does take a village to get to care for patients, whether it be in the NICU or beyond. So thanks for that inspiration, Ali. And so tell us about what the most exciting project you’re working on today is.

Ellen Stang:
Yeah. So, you know, there are so much going on in the business now. And, you know, I think the things that get me most excited is is really working deeper with families again around social determinants and using technology to help solve problems. And, you know, the projects that we’re working on today that are exciting are moving it to some adjacencies. And so in working with with payers, we see that sometimes we’ll be talking to hospitals and understanding care plans and authorizing services. And then many times the hospital is not paid appropriately or there is a disconnect in a small percentage of time with their claims systems. And so we’re now getting to payment integrity or, hey, everything we talked and agree with the hospital. We make sure that when claims come in, that’s what’s paid so that they’re paid quickly and accurately and so that there’s not this you know, it’s inaccurate and kind of back and forth between hospitals and health plans. So we’ve now moved into a payment integrity model that’s rolled out this year and is gaining great traction to just get it right. And so that’s something that we’re evolving into as a company and also becoming much more involved in how do we make sure that all of our programs and services are focused on the consumer and the family. So it’s great to develop all the things that we’re doing as a business. But at the end of the day, when all these great ideas come in and are kind of pitched at some of the boardrooms in this company, I always come back and say, look, is this project is this program at the end of the day going to move this baby to a better health outcome and this family to a better health care? And if it’s not, then is this where we should be focusing our time? Because there’s so many great ideas out there, but we are here to make sure that we move premature and medically complex babies to a better health outcome. And so you always want to come back to the reason why you exist as a company. And I certainly love Saul, you know, as you said about people who might be out there listening to this, who have a great idea. It can be overwhelming to think about quitting a job and sitting in a basement, starting a company. But my feeling is there are so many problems out there that need to be solved. You need innovation and you need entrepreneurship to make that happen. And there are so many people out there trying to help entrepreneurs, many more than existed when I was founding the company. So lots of people out there willing to help. So if you believe you’ve got a great idea that can solve a problem with it, you’ll figure it out. You won’t get it right out of the gates. It’s hard. But if you know that what you have is solving a problem, it to me, it’s tenacity and personal perseverance that builds a business. It’s sometimes, you know, I’m sad when I talk to entrepreneurs and I find out a couple of years beyond that, they walked away from a great idea. You can overcome some of those hurdles and see 16 years later. Believe me, if you get beat up along the way, you do. And and there are some bad days or really hard days. But when you come back and think, why do we exist as a company and what are we doing here? There’s always a way to solve a problem. And we’ve been fortunate to have outstanding client. Customers that believe in our mission. It doesn’t take much for us to walk into a boardroom and you get buy in because people are like, wow, we don’t do this as well as we really want a company that this is all they focus on. And there’s there’s so much in customs, so many of our health plans want to do right by these babies. And this is a niche population to manage and but to not give up. It’s hard. And there are days that you like. Oh, my gosh, I don’t know if this is gonna make it. But when you stick with it, somehow you get there one step at a time and one day at a time. So it is worthwhile. It’s hard. But when you have great customers and you prove what you’re doing, it slowly falls into place over time. And here I am, I’m still standing 16 years later. There still is so much to be done.

Saul Marquez:
I love that, Ellie. And a great message for for all the listeners, you know, stick with it and don’t get distracted. Make sure that the idea that you decide to roll with, you’re fulfilling it. The the weapons of mass distraction will always be there. So make sure you stick with it. So. So I love the message here, Ellie, and getting close to the end of the podcast, what we have next is The Lightning Round, followed by a book you recommend to the listeners and then we’ll be done. You’re ready for it?

Ellen Stang:
I’m ready.

Saul Marquez:
All right. What’s the best way to improve health care outcomes?

Ellen Stang:
So. So I think today when I look at all these fantastic companies, payers, hospitals, doctors, nurses, focusing on the consumer and really how do we move, how do we make it easier for people to get what they need? Right place, right setting. But to really focus proactively and collaboratively on making the individuals interaction with the health care system easier. And I really think that’s the best way to improve health outcomes.

Saul Marquez:
Love it. What’s the biggest mistake or pitfall to avoid?

Ellen Stang:
So I think the biggest pitfall to avoid is if you especially as an entrepreneur, you go down a path and you’re not working out to be quick to pivot. You know, it’s like I said, we had one person doing two jobs and an hour staffer saying, hey, this isn’t working. So you got to listen to your team, not to really look at what’s going on and not be afraid to pivot your model. You might not get it right out of the gates. Listen to your customers. Listen to your employees. And don’t be afraid to pivot and move in a different direction. Because if you’re too hardheaded to say, no, this is what I built. This is the way it’s going to be. You’re never going to evolve as an organization.

Saul Marquez:
Love that. And how do you stay relevant as an organization despite constant change?

Ellen Stang:
So certainly for us, it’s again, listening to customers, listening to patients, listening to doctors and nurses. But for me, I have the privilege of working with a private equity firm of some strong partners who understand tech enabled health care services company. And they have that purview of the marketplace and where it’s moving and health care. And I have that additional voice to advise us and say, look, we have to make sure this part of the program is more robust. Should we be adding more and investing more in this particular area? So I think, you know, certainly the way to stay relevant is to make sure that your program is meeting the evolving needs of the marketplace. And you do that by listening to your customers, to families, to doctors and nurses and certainly to advisors that you have. And so, again, it’s really taking all those voices into make sure you’re moving in the right direction.

Saul Marquez:
Great message. And how about the one area that drives everything at ProgenyHealth?

Ellen Stang:
So I certainly think your employees that that’s your greatest strength. The talent that you have working every single day in the company is the strength of your business. And so we try and do all we can to empower employees, to recognize and to reward them and to make sure we continue to develop programs to mentor them to be their best self, to help them move along their career paths. So really, we are very focused every year on making sure that we are providing a great work environment for our employees because they’re our greatest asset.

Saul Marquez:
What’s your favorite book that you recommend to the listeners?

Ellen Stang:
So, two and I thought about this a lot when I was beginning the company. It’s hard it’s hard to sit in the basement and think of create something that doesn’t even exist. And so I read a book at the time. That’s an older book. And it’s called The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. The nuggets in that book of it literally takes a mustard seed of faith in what you’re doing and belief in what you’re doing to change to change an environment, a problem you’re trying to solve, to change the world ultimately. But for me, the nuggets of inspiration, that book really helped me to be of the company. So I found that very inspiration and I still have it at my nightstand today. And the second thing I read a recent book that I loved. It’s a historic book called Leadership in Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin. And she looks at four presidents and what they did during very significant times in the history of the night change United States in their leadership to change the outcomes of this country. And it’s a fascinating read. They talk about Lincoln, the two Roosevelts and Lyndon B Johnson. Fantastic read that shows you the skills of leadership during difficult times and how they were able to change, you know, whether it’s policies or other things in this country to move us forward. So fascinating read.

Saul Marquez:
Wow. Sounds like two great recommendations, folks. You know where to go for the shownotes and links to the books, a full transcript of our discussion. Go to outcomesrocket.health in the search bar type in progenyhealth and you’ll find it all there. Wow. This has been so interesting. I mean, social determinants of health takes a village using tech to improve outcomes. It’s such a great time with the elite. If you can just leave us with the closing thought and then the best place where the listeners could continue the conversation.

Ellen Stang:
Yeah. And you know, I think my closing thought would be and Saul, thank you so much for inviting me to be on your program. It’s it’s a privilege, really, to talk to you today. Thank you so much.

Saul Marquez:
Absolutely.

Ellen Stang:
I think I would leave your listeners with whether you’re on the hospital side, the payer side or your families. Certainly to be open to two innovative approaches to solving complex problems in health care. Sometimes if you are a health plan or a hospital, you’re going to have a young company come to you with a great idea. But they may not be to season. Give them a chance. I have an innovative companies coming to me at Progeny trying to give innovation a chance, and it works for the early adopters of the project program. I wouldn’t be here today. So my pitch is really there’s lots of entrepreneurship out there and innovation. And for companies that have the ability to contract with people, if they’ve got a great idea, give them a chance because they may be the change that the marketplace needs strive complex patients to better health outcomes.

Saul Marquez:
Great message. And if the listeners want to continue the conversation, where can they go visit you or visit your site or reach out to you?

Ellen Stang:
So certainly our Web site is is www.progenyhealth.com and there are links on there to connect into the company and to marketing and certainly and to me. There’s info@progenyhealth.com. So happy to do that. We certainly are on Twitter and have our handle @progenyhealth. So happy to connect with anybody interested in speaking with us.

Saul Marquez:
Love it. Ellie, really appreciate your message today and looking forward to staying in touch.

Ellen Stang:
Great. Saul, thank you so much. I really enjoyed the conversation today.

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