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How This Woman Is Helping To Bridge The Gap Between BIPOC Communities And Healthcare Communication

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As a Black Latina woman born and raised in the Bronx, New York, Ivelyse Andino grew up keenly aware of inherent disadvantages she faced, especially in healthcare. When her mother was diagnosed with cancer, Andino cites it as “the moment where I realized it didn’t matter how much money I made, it didn’t matter who I knew, it didn’t matter what I knew,” because she felt that historically unheard people faced a tough system. With a goal of shifting the paradigm and delivering practical solutions to marginalized communities, Andino used her creative skills, her knowledge in digital health technologies and her community contacts to construct a path toward this target. 

In 2016 she launched Radical Health to foster a trusting environment for people to share their thoughts, concerns and general ideas pertaining to the social, emotional and environmental facets of the healthcare system. It serves not as a space to diagnose or treat others, but as a channel to address topics such as seeking second opinions, ensuring patients know their rights and feel heard by their doctors, encouraging patients to stand up to their healthcare providers when faced with uncomfortable situations and more. She envisioned a tool “that’s focused on equity, that’s focused on communities, that really amplifies, equips and supports folks to have a better experience,” she said. 

Originally as in-person conversations inspired by indigenous circle practices, and in 2020 as a chat-based app, Andino’s objective is to tackle what she calls a systemic issue, where nearly 80 million adult Americans have limited health literacy—which can lead to poor health outcomes. Additionally, African Americans are more likely than whites to report lower levels of trust in healthcare providers, and Radical Health’s mission addresses that disparity. As a b2b2c company based in New York City, Radical Health has made an average of $150,000 per year while suffering a slight loss in 2020 as it scrambled to go digital. It’s currently contracted with a number of companies and organizations including American Medical Association, New York City Department of Education and Albert Einstein College of Medicine among others to offer services to employees or end users as part of their outreach, with plans to expand to non-corporate users next year. Andino, passionate about impacting the discourse on healthcare fluency, started work at her dining room table and refused to give up. 

Dr. Amrita Seehra, a family medicine physician at the Bronx Health Collective and a Radical Health board member views it as “supporting people to have agency in their healthcare.” Seehra helped review and approve common questions and responses during the app’s development and was involved during test runs to ensure AI and machine learning worked successfully. A physician on the board means a “medical lens is always present to help say, maybe we should frame that question differently,” she said. “We made sure to not have any questions or misleading responses that would diagnose,” she added. 

After college, Ivelyse Andino worked as a senior product manager at health tech startup Happtique, and then as a client engagement director for AppScript at IQVIA. “In those moments I was often the only woman; I was often the only person of color; I was the youngest, and more than that I was creating technology that really never would reach communities like mine,” Andino said. 

Andino had to start somewhere, so she connected with neighbors, teachers and doctors. “I invited everyone I could find on the streets,” she said.  If I met you and you said hello to me I would invite you over to talk about health, and what would the future of health looks like with a lens that would support community.”

Initially, raising funds to develop an app posed unexpected challenges. “I could not get funding to save my life,” Andino said, partly attributing this shortcoming to her Black and Latina background. When there were no funds in sight, they maintained in-person circles. “We got really scrappy and started going after corporate contracts and finding clients that could see the value in what we were providing around circles, especially with these conversations,” she said. To date they’ve had nearly 3,000 users participate in chats, according to Andino. 

The American Medical Association started working with Radical Health to complement its Health Equity Strategic Plan, which aims to embed equity and antiracism in its work. The purpose is “to engage our internal leadership who are working in the health innovation space to understand what it means to better reach marginalized communities, and how you practice equity and build community,” Chelsea Hanson, AMA’s Director of Health Equity and Innovation said. “If you are going to help someone’s health it’s not something we are doing to people; it’s how we can help.”

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