Innovative In-Home Healthcare Solutions Ryan Boulier, VP of Business Development at Sprinter Health

[00:00:02] Hey everybody, welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket AHIP 2024 Insight Series. Today I have the privilege of hosting the amazing Ryan Boulier. He is the VP of Business Development at Sprinter Health. Ryan, welcome.

[00:00:18] Thanks.

[00:00:18] It's a pleasure to have you here. We've done an episode with Sprinter Health in the past. We'll link that up in the show notes so you can listen.

[00:00:25] But today at the AHIP meeting, we're really focused around payer issues and ways to optimize opportunities to improve care, improve processes.

[00:00:36] And Ryan here is going to share what Sprinter Health is up to. But before we do that, Ryan, share a little bit about you.

[00:00:42] My name obviously is Ryan. I lead the business development side at Sprinter Health.

[00:00:47] And before this, I spent some time at Epic on their Alptation and Pop Health teams.

[00:00:53] And then a few years leading growth in the non-emergency medical transportation space.

[00:00:56] Very cool. Very cool. So your career has been in healthcare this whole time.

[00:01:01] From the start.

[00:01:01] Love it. Deep knowledge, deep expertise. And we're shifting to Sprinter Health now.

[00:01:07] So tell us a little bit about the company and what you guys do, where your focus is.

[00:01:11] Absolutely. So Sprinter Health is really focused on working with health plans to engage the hardest to reach populations across lines of business to improve engagement with preventive care.

[00:01:22] And so we do that with a unique clinical model where we provide in-home care, leveraging a fully employed workforce of folks that we call sprinters.

[00:01:32] And they're trained in a combination of phlebotomy, medical assistant and community health worker skills.

[00:01:37] And so we send them into the home to do a broad range of diagnostic services that close HEDIS gaps for our health plan partners.

[00:01:46] So everything from A1Cs and kidney health evaluations to blood pressure checks to diabetic eye exams and social needs screenings.

[00:01:54] We're able to right-size care down to just the specific needs of an individual member and provide that in the home at a low cost and high quality.

[00:02:04] That's huge, Ryan. And you just hit a lot of the buttons, right?

[00:02:09] Yeah.

[00:02:09] Those indications that plans are looking to really scale up on.

[00:02:13] At what point does a Sprinter teammate interact with a member or patient?

[00:02:19] That's a great question. So we own the process end-to-end.

[00:02:22] We work off of gap lists generated based on claims data for members without visits, members with diabetes that haven't had an A1C in the last year, members with an open eye exam gap, things like that.

[00:02:35] And we receive their basic demographic information, their attributed PCP.

[00:02:40] And first and foremost, we're acting as an extension of the existing provider network that these plans have.

[00:02:46] And so we're there to take that 40% of members not coming into a PCP, engage them directly with emails and text messages, direct mail, phone calls, modern consumer-based engagement methodologies that lead with the fact that these are convenient, at no cost, in-home, 20-minute visits that close important preventive care gaps and improve health.

[00:03:10] And that's what allows us to book more of these in-home visits than some of the more traditional methods.

[00:03:16] And from there, we own ordering any labs that are needed through a medical practice, managing any clinical escalations that come up in the home, all the way through to after the visit, navigating the patient back to their attributed PCP, getting them plugged into longitudinal primary care.

[00:03:32] And if they need a specialist, we can even place those imaging orders for breast cancer screening and help navigate to services like that.

[00:03:38] That's fantastic. Quite thorough. End-to-end opportunity to engage. I love the simplicity of the outreach, making it more consumer-based.

[00:03:48] And then taking a list of active gaps that you could action with the team at a low cost seems like a no-brainer to me.

[00:03:56] Yep. Especially with the HEDIS-STARS QRS alignment with health plans across lines of business. It makes for a straightforward ROI for the plan.

[00:04:06] Totally.

[00:04:06] And obviously, it's great for the patients.

[00:04:08] Amazing. So are you looking to boost your HEDIS measure scores, get better engagement? I think this is a great solution for you to consider.

[00:04:18] Ryan, we're here at AHIP and not everybody could make it. And part of what we're doing on this series is helping people that couldn't make it get some insights.

[00:04:27] So what's risen to the top for you as an insight, whether it be from a panel, discussions at your booth? I know you guys had a booth here. What's one thing that's risen to the top for you?

[00:04:36] Great question. Just this morning, there was a session on restoring trust in healthcare. And that's something that we see a lot in our business, specifically around the sprinters that we're sending into the home.

[00:04:48] Of course, we're seeing members who this is their only healthcare interaction in the year, let alone potentially the last few years. And a big part of the engagement and post-visit navigation we're able to do is based on the relationship established between the sprinter and the patient during that time in the home.

[00:05:05] And one of the benefits of our model is all of our sprinters are hired out of the communities they serve. And so we actually quite literally draw their service regions around their home address.

[00:05:15] Very cool.

[00:05:16] And so when they're in the home, they know the area, they speak the language, they might even go to the same pharmacy. And that goes a long way to building the trust and the relationship so that when we make recommendations or help them book that PCP visit or even select a PCP,

[00:05:32] we see a much higher follow-up and adherence rate after the visit, even beyond the services we're directly providing.

[00:05:38] That's fantastic. I love the very thoughtful approach, making it community-based. And it's like the local doctor that you might run in at the pizza shop or whatever.

[00:05:49] Exactly.

[00:05:49] Coffee shop. Yeah, that's pretty cool. And I can see how that increases engagement and buy-in. So kudos to you guys for such a thoughtful approach.

[00:05:56] Appreciate it.

[00:05:57] Okay, so shift. And by the way, folks, hopefully you're finding these engaging. These types of ideas happen through collaboration, discussion. And when you have a group of thought leaders at a conference like this at AHIP, guys like Ryan, we're transforming care with these types of solutions.

[00:06:15] As we wrap up our chat today, I'm looking for insights and calls to action, right? What call to action would you leave our viewers and listeners with as we wrap up today?

[00:06:27] Certainly. If you're in the quality world and looking to improve access and adherence to preventive care, our biggest emphasis point is start early in the year. Don't wait till we're June right now. Don't wait till summer.

[00:06:41] To start your quality program, start engaging members that are hard to reap, start in January, run it year-round. And we've seen a lot of lift in quality ratings as a result.

[00:06:51] That's awesome. Straightforward call to action. And now is the best time. So don't wait for January. Do it now.

[00:06:59] Exactly.

[00:07:00] Right? Like do it now. And next year, start in January. If people want to learn more, Ryan, and get in touch with you, where can they go?

[00:07:08] Certainly. SprinterHealth.com. More information on our model and a forum to reach out. We'd love to hear from you all.

[00:07:14] Love it. Well, Ryan, I want to thank you for being with us and everybody out there. Thanks for tuning in to the AHIP Insights. Stay tuned for more coming at you pretty soon. Ryan, thanks again.

[00:07:25] Thank you.