Laurie McGraw is speaking with Inspiring Woman Ellen DaSilva, CEO and Founder of Summer Health which aims to increase the supply of pediatric care to care for the 75M children in the United States who need healthcare. Laurie and Ellen spoke at the HLTH 2024 conference.
Ellen lives, eats and breathes Summer Health ever since she, someone with access and means – was UNABLE to get the care she needed for her child. Ellen quickly understood the magnitude of the problem – a decreasing supply of pediatricians to support the 75M kids in this country. A third of children who live in places without any access to a pediatrician. Nearly 40% of children who have chronic conditions. And then there’s the wait….days, weeks, months to get care for your child to a pediatrician.
It may be a classic supply and demand conundrum, but Ellen was clear – there must be a better way. And so…Summer Health. On demand, asynchronous, text first, and always on, always open.
Ellen is rapidly growing the company with many lessons learned from her work at other large enterprises. And, it may be hard to build a company, but Ellen is no stranger to this hard work. What’s new with this time around of Summer Health? The market is moving fast, perhaps faster than ever. She is also impressed with the caliber of talent she is able to bring to Summer Health – based on their mission and innovative approach to the problem.
Ellen closes this conversation with advice for other women entrepreneurs and CEOs which is doubling down on your conviction that the hard problems are worth solving. And while it may not feel like it today – the hard journey of innovation, leadership, and vision…. well, it is indeed worth it.
About Ellen:
Ellen is the Founder and CEO of Summer Health, a company with a mission to raise the healthiest generation of children. Summer Health offers message-based pediatric services within 15 minutes. Learn more at www.summerhealth.com.
Previously, Ellen served as the Head of Business Development at hims&hers, where she focused on strategic partnerships and business growth. She's also an active angel investor, serving as a Sequoia Scout for Seed and Series A consumer tech companies.
Ellen earned her MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School. While at HBS, she was a Partner at Rough Draft Ventures, General Catalyst’s pre-seed fund. Before business school, she managed a unit of the Business Operations team at Twitter, and prior to that, she worked at Barclays Capital.
Ellen co-authored "Pitching & Closing: Everything You Need To Know About Business Development, Partnerships, and Making Deals that Matter"—a guidebook for business development and revenue-generating partnerships at tech startups.
[00:00:00] This journey is long. It has many seasons. There are peaks and troughs for everyone, even the founders for whom the path is paved and it seems rosy. The quest continues, and so keep at it and keep going. I think you will not regret having tried extremely hard when you look back and reflect on the journey.
[00:00:30] This is Inspiring Women and we are at the Health Conference and I am speaking with Ellen DaSilva and she is the CEO and founder of Summer Health.
[00:00:40] I'm really excited to be speaking with you, Ellen, because last year at Health Conference I was interviewing one of your board members, Chelsea Clinton.
[00:00:49] You had just done a Series A. All she wanted to talk about was Summer Health. So now I have the opportunity to actually talk to you. Thank you for being on Inspiring Women.
[00:00:59] Thanks for having me, Laurie. It's a pleasure to be here.
[00:01:02] So just so everyone understands, so we're at the Health Conference. It's that buzzy, busy sort of like getting ready and Ellen and I just met.
[00:01:10] She's carrying like 18 drinks, 18 bags. She's barely juggling. She's on a conference call, but she still has time to do this podcast.
[00:01:19] So I think it's been a busy year for you. Has it been busy?
[00:01:22] It has. I think today has been an indication of that. It's about 830 in the morning and I've already had three calls and one in-person meeting.
[00:01:31] So it is a testament to the importance of the work that we're doing and I feel really honored to be able to do it every day.
[00:01:38] Ellen, I want to dive right into Summer Health. So you founded this company just a couple years ago.
[00:01:44] You've raised funds, which is hard to do in today's environment. Congratulations on that.
[00:01:52] Let's start with what is Summer Health?
[00:01:54] Yeah. So Summer Health is a longitudinal pediatric care delivery service.
[00:02:00] We deliver care all via text message. So asynchronous care. And we are big believers that asynchronous care is going to meaningfully increase the supply of pediatricians in this country.
[00:02:14] For those who are listening who may not know, 33% of kids in the country live in counties that don't have a primary pediatrician.
[00:02:21] And with each passing year, the number of pediatric residents entering medical school is decreasing.
[00:02:29] So we are on the precipice of facing a major shortage in pediatrics.
[00:02:33] Couple that with a rising incidence in chronic conditions.
[00:02:37] 40% of kids today under the age of 18 manage some kind of chronic condition daily at home.
[00:02:42] There is a great need for more pediatrics.
[00:02:45] And at Summer Health, we believe that by getting care for kids quickly and efficiently, we can increase the supply of pediatricians.
[00:02:53] Well, you know, when I was spending time as a leader at the American Medical Association, I am very familiar with the shortages of physicians and particularly in those key areas of primary care.
[00:03:07] So in terms of what you're doing at Summer Health, how are you squaring that circle?
[00:03:13] That is a very complex problem to solve for.
[00:03:16] It is. And we think about this quite a bit because we don't want to necessarily disrupt the medical home.
[00:03:21] But what we do is we offer care between physicians, all MDs and DOs on our platform, and caregivers of children ages 0 to 18 in 15 minutes or less any time day or night.
[00:03:35] What that means is that if your child is sick, you have an urgent question about something that you're experiencing with their development or anything else, we can get in front of you and answer your family's question quickly.
[00:03:50] In addition, we do 100% follow up on all of our visits, meaning that if we miss something, we have an opportunity to catch it the next day.
[00:03:57] What we can do from there is because we build a very meaningful relationship between family and physician, we can either pass that information back to your primary care physician and be an integrative source of care or in some cases serve as a functioning primary care doctor for your family.
[00:04:15] I would say that's not the primary use case today, but parents do build a tremendous amount of trust with us.
[00:04:21] We have an NPS of over 80.
[00:04:23] Parents come to us on average 2.8 times per month.
[00:04:26] So they really are starting to build up a trust layer with us that does not necessarily exist in the ecosystem today in primary pediatrics brick and mortar.
[00:04:35] Okay, so Ellen, I know, you know, first of all, as a founder, the founding story of summer health came from your own experience trying to find care for your two year old, you are a woman of means meaning you know how to access the care system.
[00:04:51] I mean, how bad is it that someone who understands health care understands business couldn't find care for your child?
[00:05:00] I am one of one of tens of millions of parents out there who does not have great access to care for my kids, even though, as you said, I live in the middle of New York City.
[00:05:12] And I have, I work in the industry and I have access to providers.
[00:05:17] It was astounding to me that it was going to take four hours for my primary care physician's office to call me back.
[00:05:24] There are 75 million kids in this country.
[00:05:26] And so if we let this situation linger, if it takes two months to get an appointment with a primary care doctor,
[00:05:34] if it takes two hours to be seen in an emergency room setting, plus only 14% of emergency rooms today are in the United States are actually equipped to handle peds specifically.
[00:05:46] We are in for a real problem in treating our kids effectively.
[00:05:50] Kids cannot be treated as many adults.
[00:05:52] So we know that we need special care for them.
[00:05:55] This is a massive problem.
[00:05:56] And the order of magnitude is only worsening, especially in the aftermath of COVID where kids have not necessarily been exposed to germs.
[00:06:04] And so things like RSV are far worse than they were five years ago.
[00:06:10] The incidence of vaccines, unfortunately, is also decreasing because there's more scrutiny around that and more narrative around that.
[00:06:16] And so we're seeing kids get sicker as a result of that.
[00:06:18] So there's a lot more in the ecosystem that needs to be dealt with today than even five years ago.
[00:06:24] Yeah.
[00:06:24] Which is why this is a problem that is mounting.
[00:06:26] And it's all the more so worse for people who live in areas that do not have primary care physicians, rural areas in this country, and people who don't necessarily have the means or the ability to take two hours off from work to go take their kid to the pediatrician.
[00:06:41] Well, that was another statistic that was just astounding to me in terms of the number of children that are being born to mothers on Medicaid.
[00:06:50] And so what that means is sort of in terms of the ability to just have access, which is the largest, I think, issue that you're trying to solve for, is only further compounded.
[00:07:01] So how do you make it easy?
[00:07:03] First of all, who buys summer health?
[00:07:07] Who has access to summer health?
[00:07:08] I believe that all 75 million kids in this country should have access to summer health.
[00:07:12] And that's why you had talked a little bit about our fundraise a few months ago.
[00:07:18] We have started to work with health plans just to really solve these access gaps, in particular Medicaid.
[00:07:24] As you mentioned, 51% of kids are born on a Medicaid plan and at any given time about 32%.
[00:07:30] That is such an astounding statistic to me.
[00:07:34] And I just want to put some, you know, sort of double click on that.
[00:07:37] What that means is, first of all, the kids are covered, which is fantastic.
[00:07:41] Second of all, though, I mean, you know, and Adamika Arthur, who was a guest on this podcast, who is, you know, health tech for Medicaid,
[00:07:51] she is all about trying to just improve accessibility.
[00:07:55] And that is a very, very hard job.
[00:07:57] And that is, you know, if you're not able to put a complication of, you know, trying to navigate for your children, I mean, that makes it more difficult.
[00:08:03] So, how are you helping? How are you helping them, Ellen?
[00:08:06] We have the privilege of being able to work with health plans around the country.
[00:08:10] We actually have a great partner who's based here in the state of Nevada, who is starting to proliferate access to summer health for their Medicaid population.
[00:08:20] We believe that just because you're born in a certain socioeconomic status or a certain geography in this country, it does not mean that you should have a denigrated access experience to care.
[00:08:31] Right on.
[00:08:32] Yeah. And with summer health, the way we do that is our radically simple platform.
[00:08:38] You don't need broadband internet.
[00:08:40] You don't need to set up a Zoom account.
[00:08:42] You don't even need to leave your desk at work.
[00:08:44] Or, many of these families have parents who work two or three jobs that are not sitting at desks and computers all day.
[00:08:52] Telehealth the way it exists today does not work for those families.
[00:08:55] And those children deserve better.
[00:08:56] So, what we do is everything is via text message.
[00:08:59] You send a message the way you might send a message to your mom who's taking care of your kids or your neighbor who's filling in in an afternoon to pick up your kid from school.
[00:09:09] In the same way, you don't need to disrupt your life to manage those childcare situations.
[00:09:14] You shouldn't have to disrupt your life to take care of your kids' health.
[00:09:17] Yeah. And I also think, listen, I think the tech space or tech first sort of platforms are a really strong point.
[00:09:24] And I don't think it's just people who are working multiple jobs.
[00:09:27] I think it's someone who is working one job, but they have to, they're going from a meeting, they have to start a chat,
[00:09:34] they have to go back to an urgent telephone call, and the chat's still there.
[00:09:38] I mean, I just think that's a really, really simple mechanism for really effective care and access.
[00:09:44] We agree. I mean, I could be testing the summer health right now, and we wouldn't know because it is as seamless as everything else in my life.
[00:09:52] And that's how medical care should be, especially for one of our most vulnerable populations.
[00:09:57] Yep. Okay. So Ellen, I wanted, this is Inspiring Women, so I want to talk about the inspiring you.
[00:10:02] And so you have done many things in your career in terms of building companies and understanding that whole thing,
[00:10:09] but you are a founder and CEO.
[00:10:11] You are building an important company doing something wonderful.
[00:10:16] What have you learned?
[00:10:18] Has it been easy? Has it been hard?
[00:10:21] Let's start with what has surprised you about what you're really excellent at.
[00:10:25] I have been blown away by the caliber of talent who has come to join Summer Health.
[00:10:30] I think it is a testament to the kinds of people I have been able to surround myself with in my career,
[00:10:37] my mentors, my peers, my managers in previous lives at Twitter and at HIMSS.
[00:10:44] We have the best people, the smartest minds, the most passionate and dedicated individuals from both tech and healthcare backgrounds dedicated to solving this problem.
[00:10:57] And it has been a very pleasant surprise to understand what a group of really talented individuals can accomplish in a short amount of time.
[00:11:04] And now, what's the challenge? So like, what is the thing that, again, you're not confused about it's hard to build a company.
[00:11:13] You've done this before in other places.
[00:11:15] But as CEO and founder, what has been surprising about that to you that's been maybe more difficult than perhaps you would have thought?
[00:11:25] I'm surprised at how quickly the market changes.
[00:11:27] I think in technology we know that to be true because the very nature of technology is that it should be iterating and moving quickly.
[00:11:35] And yet, in the last two or so years since we launched Summer Health, the pediatric market has grown tremendous.
[00:11:42] The interest in pediatrics has grown tremendously.
[00:11:45] The interest in asynchronous care has grown a lot.
[00:11:48] And watching the market adapt and shift accordingly, juxtapose that, and that's the technology space, juxtapose that with the healthcare space.
[00:11:59] It doesn't move as quickly.
[00:12:01] That's a tension that you have to navigate, especially as a healthcare founder that I think is incredibly interesting and perhaps I didn't appreciate before I was actually holding the reins of the ship.
[00:12:10] Yep. So one year ago you were here, you were launching. How far along have you come? Where will you be next year this time?
[00:12:19] Yeah. So we've had the privilege now of treating tens of thousands of families in all 50 states.
[00:12:24] Our platform is nationwide. We have pediatricians all over the country.
[00:12:27] We also now, in addition to selling our product directly to consumers for urgent care and primary care, have launched specialists.
[00:12:36] So we have access to lactation coaches, sleep consultants, dieticians, and child development behavior experts who are able to help parents navigate their journey in concert with the primary pediatrics.
[00:12:49] Finally, we also now work more with health plans.
[00:12:53] We are starting to do some work with health systems and even employers.
[00:12:57] So we have a very robust access to care on summer health, regardless of whether you're paying directly or via an intermediary.
[00:13:05] Ellen, you also have with summer health, you have an absolutely sort of like, you know, outstanding set of investors who are working with you.
[00:13:14] And I work with so many women CEOs and founders, and it's hard out there.
[00:13:20] It's hard to attract investment, the right partners in terms of who the investors are.
[00:13:26] So what was special that you think you did well to attract the caliber of investors that are backing summer health?
[00:13:37] I want to start by saying that we really are honored to be backed by the best minds in the industry and venture.
[00:13:45] I think it's a privilege to get to work with Alfred Lynn from Sequoia, Dita Shocker from Lux, Elissa Jaffe from Seven Wire, and Chelsea Clinton of Metro Dora.
[00:13:54] I couldn't have picked a better slate if I could try again.
[00:13:59] So I do feel very privileged.
[00:14:01] For me, it boils down to passion, commitment and dedication to what we're doing.
[00:14:06] I eat, sleep and breathe this problem.
[00:14:08] I ooze wanting to solve it.
[00:14:09] I will not sleep until we have been able to treat all 75 million children and we have built the biggest data bank of information about kids around the country so that we can help, again, manage their health and wellness.
[00:14:23] That, I think, fervor for wanting to solve that problem and ruthlessness and focus has helped me direct my conversations with individuals so that we can have a bi-directional understanding of what we're getting into on this journey together.
[00:14:36] So I would encourage anybody who is looking to seek investment to really spend time with investors, let their passion and their dedication shine through, and that will be reciprocated.
[00:14:46] Okay.
[00:14:47] I want to just one more probing question on that because, again, what I see with women CEOs and founders, I see the passion.
[00:14:55] I see the living, breathing, eating, drinking, you know, 24-7 their businesses.
[00:15:02] And yet, they are not all sort of like, you know, bringing on that slate.
[00:15:08] So if you think about maybe perhaps one of the conversations where it just went from another fantastic idea to clicking into a fundable business, can you think of something that worked well for you where you're like, I got it.
[00:15:25] Like, this is actually, I am going to attract this A slate of investors.
[00:15:31] Because that's, I think, some of the, there's a click missing for, again, so many other stellar women CEOs and founders.
[00:15:39] I think it depends on the kind of investment you're seeking.
[00:15:42] If you're looking for venture investment, you have to make sure that your company can achieve a venture scaled outcome.
[00:15:49] Yep.
[00:15:50] And so being very thoughtful and deliberate about, can I achieve the margin structure and the growth rate that I am looking for, or rather that investors are looking for in my business is going to be critical.
[00:16:03] And so you may end up spending time barking up the wrong tree if your kind of business is not investable with their investment profile.
[00:16:10] There are lots of different kinds of investors out there who have different kinds of capital, patient capital, you know, other kinds of investment horizons and profiles out there.
[00:16:20] So you have to make sure that those two things match.
[00:16:22] The thing for me that was a real aha moment was we always had a very strong business thesis on why we could ostensibly bring the cost of care asynchronously to very close to zero.
[00:16:33] And why we could still, and why we could have a very strong margin profile in our business.
[00:16:38] Being forthright about why technology was going to help us solve that problem.
[00:16:42] And why we were a technology company was very important.
[00:16:45] The last thing I'll mention is having a reciprocated passion for what you're doing in your investor base.
[00:16:52] I have the privilege of speaking with investors all the time, many of whom say, I use your product.
[00:16:57] Yep.
[00:16:58] I love it.
[00:16:59] I see its value.
[00:17:00] I give it as gifts to friends.
[00:17:02] They see its value.
[00:17:04] We spend time steeped in it.
[00:17:07] And I ask very frequently for feedback because I know that we have barely scratched the surface on what we can possibly achieve.
[00:17:13] Yep.
[00:17:14] Tens of thousands to 75 million is you've got some growth going on.
[00:17:18] We have some growth.
[00:17:19] No question.
[00:17:20] And so it's very important for us when we're thinking about working with investors that they share in that mission with us.
[00:17:27] And I think, again, the click of seeing them actually use the product and be passionate about the product changed it from an idea to an investable business.
[00:17:35] I think those are two excellent, you know, really strong pieces of advice, both the, not just the passion for the business, but in addition to that, the well thought through business thesis in terms of what makes it an investable business with technology turning into a scalable business.
[00:17:54] And then secondly, having those investors also share in your passion and getting them passionate.
[00:18:01] Those are really terrific.
[00:18:02] Ellen, as we close out on this inspiring women conversation, again, if you could just speak to other women CEOs and founders who are yearning for the type of success that you are making happen at Summer Health, what would you say to them?
[00:18:18] Keep going.
[00:18:20] Keep going.
[00:18:20] This journey is long.
[00:18:21] It has many seasons.
[00:18:23] There are peaks and troughs for everyone, even the ones who seem really, even the founders for whom the path is paved and it seems rosy.
[00:18:33] The quest continues.
[00:18:35] And so keep at it and keep going.
[00:18:38] I think you will not regret having tried extremely hard when you look back and reflect on the journey.
[00:18:44] And that is coming from a woman who has to carry all these bags and all these drinks and get on the next seven calls.
[00:18:52] This has been a great inspiring women conversation.
[00:18:54] I've been speaking with Ellen De Silva, CEO and founder of Summer Health.
[00:18:58] Ellen, thank you so much.
[00:19:00] This has been an episode of Inspiring Women with Lori McGraw.
[00:19:04] Please subscribe, rate and review.
[00:19:06] We are produced at Executive Podcast Solutions.
[00:19:09] More episodes can be found on inspiringwomen.show.
[00:19:13] I am Lori McGraw and thank you for listening.