Josh Golomb and Hazel Health

[00:00:00] Making Waves in Health Tech is a podcast about health, equity and innovation.

[00:00:06] We all want the best for our kids right?

[00:00:09] But what does that mean when we are facing a mental health crisis that exploded during the pandemic?

[00:00:15] School nurses can traditionally treat, scrape knees, small bumps and headaches.

[00:00:20] Today students increasingly need more serious medical care.

[00:00:25] In California, more than 284,000 youth deal with major depression.

[00:00:30] But 66% don't receive treatment.

[00:00:34] In this podcast we explore pressing problems in healthcare and how it's delivered

[00:00:39] and how innovative founders are tackling these problems with success.

[00:00:43] Making Waves in Health Tech is a limited series podcast that explores health care innovation

[00:00:48] through the lens of diverse entrepreneurs.

[00:00:53] Josh Goulam leads Hazel Health, which is a national leader in school-based telehealth.

[00:00:58] Hazel Health offers high quality care to every child.

[00:01:01] This helps students stay healthy so that they can learn and help them reach their full potential.

[00:01:06] One of the keys to their success is the company purposefully recruits linguistically

[00:01:11] and culturally diverse providers to make sure there are no barriers to care.

[00:01:15] And what's more, Hazel Health services come at no cost to students or their families.

[00:01:21] How do they do it? What is their business model?

[00:01:24] How do they make money doing mission-based work?

[00:01:27] I'm Janet Poachy and I'm Eelda Martinez from the California Healthcare Foundation.

[00:01:31] The Foundations Innovation Fund is a strategic investor in healthcare delivery startups.

[00:01:36] We are highlighting innovations that make healthcare accessible and affordable.

[00:01:40] Everyone is deserving of health, but not everyone has a fair chance at it.

[00:01:45] Get to know Josh to understand this health technique that is making a big impact on youth.

[00:01:51] Josh, welcome to the Making Waves Podcast.

[00:01:54] Now first things first, can you tell us a little bit about Hazel Health and your work?

[00:02:00] So at Hazel Health, we partner with schools to provide access to short-term physical

[00:02:05] and mental healthcare for K-12 students.

[00:02:08] And so that means is whether a student has sore throat or allergies

[00:02:13] or is feeling anxious or depressed, they can go to the school health office

[00:02:17] and get access to one of the amazing and very diverse group of Hazel providers

[00:02:21] trained to provide care virtually while kids are at school or at home.

[00:02:26] And for kids that need longer on to go in care, we'll get them there as well.

[00:02:30] A lot of our work is connecting them to a local provider for ongoing care.

[00:02:33] Today we're working across 14 states, about 3,000 schools, 160 school districts

[00:02:39] and that represents about 4 million kids of access to services via Hazel

[00:02:44] and I have to give a shout out.

[00:02:46] Also, I'm also a parent at the same time of my own three boys.

[00:02:49] So Gabriel, who's 18 and my twins Nico and Mateo, who are 16.

[00:02:55] So Hazel isn't your first startup.

[00:02:57] I know that you had a previous company where you would provide care for adults

[00:03:00] at their workplace making it easier to work and to get care, but something shifted for you.

[00:03:06] So can you tell me a bit about why you started working in schools?

[00:03:09] Gabriel, my oldest, if I go back in time 18 years when we were starting my first company

[00:03:14] when he was born, actually when he was about 18 months old,

[00:03:17] my wife and I found out that he was deaf.

[00:03:19] It turns out we both have a recessive gene for deafness

[00:03:22] and we didn't know about.

[00:03:23] We thought because we were raising a new bilingual that that's why it was delayed

[00:03:26] but we actually found out that he had this existing condition.

[00:03:29] And so it was right while I was working in healthcare building in models

[00:03:33] had this experience of trying to get Gabe everything that he needed

[00:03:37] and a very similar theme of this idea of...

[00:03:41] Every doctor we met was great, but it was so hard to get Gabe all the access to services that he need.

[00:03:47] And here we were, I work in healthcare.

[00:03:50] I have a lot of doctors who are friends now that I work with and collaborate with.

[00:03:54] We have good insurance.

[00:03:55] I speak English in the native language

[00:03:57] and it was still so hard to navigate everything that we needed

[00:04:00] and so many of the parents and families met along that journey

[00:04:04] did not have those same privileges.

[00:04:05] We're immigrant families, did not how to navigate the system,

[00:04:08] did not have insurance or unmedicated.

[00:04:10] So the big vision for us was what would it be like if we could give kids

[00:04:15] and their parents a great experience while they're school age

[00:04:18] where not only could we address whatever that need they would have right then and there

[00:04:23] but could also give them an experience of a healthcare system built around them

[00:04:27] with a provider that looked like them with the healthcare providers

[00:04:30] that could talk to them in their native language.

[00:04:32] Could be both solve that simple...

[00:04:34] Yeah, it might be a simplest pink guy, but also now bring them into the healthcare system

[00:04:38] perhaps in a way they didn't before.

[00:04:40] What we built then and what it looks like is saying

[00:04:42] look if schools are a place of so much trust for families

[00:04:45] and in a place where there's already transportation

[00:04:48] there's adults that care about them.

[00:04:50] If we could bring healthcare to write them in there

[00:04:52] we could make a very different experience.

[00:04:54] So on the medical side, it's literally in the school nurse's office

[00:04:58] typically they have one or their space where there's an iPad,

[00:05:01] a bunch of peripheral equipment and then if with appearance consent

[00:05:04] if a child is not feeling well at school

[00:05:07] they start a process either getting care at school or at home

[00:05:11] because we've learned that flexibility can be really key to making sure

[00:05:15] we close that gap.

[00:05:16] You talked earlier about how healthcare...

[00:05:19] How you bring healthcare into a system that students and family trust

[00:05:23] how has that process been for Hazel Health?

[00:05:27] What have been some of your challenges?

[00:05:29] It's both been an incredible opportunity and challenging at the same time.

[00:05:33] And so I'd say when we started Hazel, we started here in California

[00:05:37] where we all live and we had to learn really early on

[00:05:40] that a lot of the families you're working with,

[00:05:42] particularly a lot of our families were undocumented

[00:05:44] was a lot of the fear of the healthcare system.

[00:05:47] One of the rules that schools are often trying to navigate

[00:05:49] is bringing more and more services to kids

[00:05:51] but also recognizing where the fear may exist

[00:05:54] and the role that they can play.

[00:05:55] And so when we were launching Hazel,

[00:05:56] we began to get learned to get really good at being able to build that trust

[00:05:59] with families going, which means even though our virtual company

[00:06:03] really feeling like we're part of their community

[00:06:05] so whether that's coming to back to school nights,

[00:06:08] coming to during the summer events that they would have for kids and families

[00:06:12] so they would actually see providers and get to know us

[00:06:15] and so they viewed the technology as the way to get connected

[00:06:19] to a Hazel provider but not about telehealth itself.

[00:06:23] One of the stories that I always hold dear is

[00:06:26] I think about a year in, this is before the telehealth boom

[00:06:29] I've really taken off and most of the providers that came to Hazel

[00:06:32] on the medical side had been working in community clinics

[00:06:35] or doctor's offices they'd never really done virtual care before

[00:06:37] and there was a lot of questions like how do you build

[00:06:39] a really robust model virtually because they were used

[00:06:42] to being able to, you know, if a child lets them make pain

[00:06:44] touch them, their abdomen to sort of gauge for different things.

[00:06:49] One of the cases that happened early on I remember a child who came in

[00:06:53] this isn't the Central Valley California.

[00:06:55] A child whose parents were farm workers

[00:06:58] and they were seeing the child she'd had a bunch of headaches

[00:07:01] I'd already gone to the doctor like an urgent care clinic a few days before

[00:07:04] ends up coming in her clinic and actually seeing our provider named Carmen

[00:07:08] Carmen's doing all the different tests because I think the urgent care clinic

[00:07:11] I thought perhaps it was migraines but the child was really having struggle

[00:07:15] and so we had developed our own way to do sort of neurological assessment

[00:07:19] of your Carmen and the team at Build.Proc all say, well how would you do that?

[00:07:23] If you couldn't actually touch a child, you have to have them do a series

[00:07:26] of exercises virtually. We could watch them monitor them

[00:07:29] so she does this and it turns out that she's got reason for alarm.

[00:07:36] So she calls up parent they usually were trying to keep kids out of the emergency room

[00:07:40] and necessarily this time we actually we sent them

[00:07:42] we called ahead to give their emergency room guidance of a Carmen scene

[00:07:46] and it turns out that the child I'm going to surgery that night

[00:07:49] because she had a brain abscess.

[00:07:52] And so I actually didn't hear but this was like a Friday

[00:07:54] it was I was the next morning I was actually coaching my kids

[00:07:57] soccer game and the superintendent called me

[00:08:00] while I was there coaching and when you get a Saturday morning call from a superintendent

[00:08:04] you like stop whatever you're doing.

[00:08:06] So I was super timid about what can I do for you?

[00:08:09] He says to me is a Josh you know our work together we saved the child's life last night

[00:08:14] and I hadn't heard any of the stories so I got to hear from him

[00:08:16] and how appreciative that the parents were in particular

[00:08:19] because tried and gone to another healthcare because they'd already gone

[00:08:22] somewhere and told them everything was okay

[00:08:24] and so they were more feeling they shouldn't do more.

[00:08:26] I think some of the challenge is what we're finding is both this

[00:08:29] there's such a desire from the families you work with

[00:08:32] to be able to engage in the healthcare system

[00:08:34] but there's just there's also been a lot of history

[00:08:36] of not so wonderful experiences and say another just big challenge is

[00:08:40] we we sit between these two amazing systems that support kids

[00:08:44] so we work with both the public school system which tends to think about all

[00:08:48] kids and on the other end we work with health plans

[00:08:50] which again are working really hard to support kids but they tend to think about

[00:08:54] the world through their members and so we're trying to find a way to create

[00:08:57] something to bring these two systems together

[00:09:00] which when it works is sort of magical.

[00:09:14] I think it's really cool that you think about Hazel in a way

[00:09:17] where you're bringing you know different worlds together

[00:09:20] in terms of schools and then also the plans.

[00:09:24] I'm a first gen and you know sometimes when it comes to behavioral health

[00:09:28] it's very taboo you know for the parents that may still have a little bit of

[00:09:32] apprehensions towards behavioral health services like how do you educate them?

[00:09:37] This has actually been really interesting let's say the referral comes in

[00:09:41] from the school side so not a parent that hears about Hazel and wants

[00:09:44] services for their kid but a referral coming in from that school counselor

[00:09:48] maybe a teacher the first thing we're now doing is reaching out to them

[00:09:51] and saying hey listen there's someone from the school has identified

[00:09:54] the potential of your child might benefit and we're explaining that process

[00:09:57] to them and what it means and answering any other questions.

[00:10:00] I would say number one we I've been so incredibly pleasantly surprised

[00:10:05] that when you do that well when you reach out to family with a therapist

[00:10:10] that is culturally competent then again can speak to them in their native language

[00:10:14] and or is it from a background or an understanding of work with folks from different

[00:10:18] backgrounds that the actual level of engagement we get with families is pretty terrific

[00:10:22] and key to this is we're not calling them saying hey we see you know your son Mateo

[00:10:27] he's there's a problem or his behavior issue was upset with him it's say hey

[00:10:31] we're calling because Mateo's 10th grade teacher for chemistry who's been seeing

[00:10:36] him say severly has had concern and we've got this new service

[00:10:39] and so we wanted to share that with you more often than not we find that

[00:10:43] our parents that we talked to have been seeing something they might have

[00:10:47] been concerned about something they might have but they just haven't had the

[00:10:50] language or known where to start and so the vast majority of times folks once

[00:10:55] we get them on the phone engaging in consent and care and the feedback has been fantastic

[00:11:00] but and I should say and there are still real gaps and questions of being able to explain

[00:11:06] this to parents who have very different experiences of it growing up

[00:11:10] and what you know everything from how it played out in their childhood to getting old

[00:11:14] and and I think the key thing that we found is that is we have to go at their own speed

[00:11:19] there on pace but I will just say that I think that it's too often actually

[00:11:23] used as an excuse right now for why there isn't more equity and behavior

[00:11:27] health is because of stigma and again not that that's not true but I think

[00:11:31] we should not allow that to be a reason for us not to drive higher engagement

[00:11:35] across for all you know in our case all K-12 students all kids

[00:11:39] then people may think today.

[00:11:41] Recently you secured a partnership with the L.A. County Office of Education

[00:11:46] and congratulations. We are curious to hear how that came about.

[00:11:50] Typically the way that we worked at Hayes we started our partnerships usually happens

[00:11:54] at a school district level and so we're typically meeting engaging

[00:11:58] with the superintendent or school board or school district leadership that are trying

[00:12:02] to tackle student health in some big way and that's right now behavior health is definitely

[00:12:06] the kind of that feels most urgent thing that a lot of them are trying to tackle

[00:12:10] for which is what we're doing in L.A. County.

[00:12:12] What's been different in California is the governor's office has been

[00:12:16] incredibly innovative to try to put a lot of resources and dollars to support

[00:12:20] youth mental behavior health. One of the programs specifically

[00:12:24] was to get school districts and health plans to collaborate more effectively

[00:12:28] together getting the chance to do something that feels like it's tied

[00:12:32] to the community that I knew and grew up in has been really

[00:12:36] special to me. The majority of students in L.A. County

[00:12:40] are Latino. How has that presented

[00:12:44] challenges? We know that COVID for example had a tremendous impact on Latino families.

[00:12:50] What are some of the challenges that you're seeing?

[00:12:54] One of the things we're particularly proud of is our incredible

[00:12:56] provider group and how diverse they are and so we have

[00:13:00] gosh I think well over 200 clinicians today

[00:13:04] more than half of them identify as people of color

[00:13:08] and they get second language fluently and while Spanish is by far the largest I think there's

[00:13:12] more than 15 languages that they speak today. I think first and foremost

[00:13:16] has been making sure that we can build out a clinical and a broader hazel team

[00:13:20] that reflects the communities that we serve. Far and away

[00:13:24] the largest group of students that we serve today in hazel from

[00:13:28] how they identify demographically is Hispanic Latino students.

[00:13:38] One of the questions we ask

[00:13:42] a family's when they enroll is who's your primary care physician

[00:13:46] and California if your student has Medicaid insurance, medical

[00:13:50] you're typically assigned a primary care physician. I was a bit shocked that almost

[00:13:54] half of the families that were enrolling would say they did not have a primary care

[00:13:58] physician at the time. Doesn't mean they weren't assigned when does it mean that their

[00:14:02] health plan might not have thought they were but if you're a parent and you don't think you have a primary care

[00:14:06] then you don't have a primary care physician. Some of it were families that were worried about

[00:14:10] you know even if they were documented there's just so much fear at the time

[00:14:14] there were a lot of folks that that just didn't trust going into the health care system the same way they were in the schools.

[00:14:18] One of the things that we found was really important those

[00:14:22] social years on medical side was for the a child who we might might be in the office again

[00:14:26] for something as simple as that pink eye example where our provider would treat whatever was needed to be able to get that child healthy

[00:14:32] but then if we saw they did not have a primary care physician we had built into our service to

[00:14:36] see that up and to be able to then refer them into a local

[00:14:40] PCP if they didn't have one. We're very proud of the idea of how do we make sure that we're not just

[00:14:44] solving that immediate need but we really want them to have a local

[00:14:48] community-based provider and if we could help increase that would be incredibly important.

[00:14:56] It's been interesting to see the differences in terms of why kids are referred and I should

[00:15:00] stress that there is a we look at the data from whoever the referring is of what are the reasons that they give

[00:15:06] and then later to be able to say okay what are our providers actually assess

[00:15:10] you do see interesting deltas and some of them uncomfortable including things like boys

[00:15:14] particularly black or brown boys are much more likely to be referred in with the terms being around things like

[00:15:20] anger and fighting and the same on the flip side often seeing girls being referred

[00:15:26] in for things like withdrawal or anxiety and as our providers actually work through those issues with our kids.

[00:15:32] We're seeing particularly for a lot of our boys students that things that have been identified is

[00:15:36] behavior issues maybe tied to suspensions are actually there's underlying

[00:15:40] mental behavior health needs or maybe at first childhood experiences that these things that aren't

[00:15:44] being addressed that are playing out a different way.

[00:15:46] In terms of general depression anxiety those things were not

[00:15:50] we're seeing some differences across communities across geographies but a lot of the things that

[00:15:54] our kids are going through are actually very similar now the language and the best way to connect with kids

[00:15:58] and particularly their parents who may not have the language around it can vary quite a bit

[00:16:02] but the overall outcome we're seeing is not too dissimilar.

[00:16:06] One of the really innovative things is how hazel health gets paid

[00:16:10] I know you're leveraging school and state dollars can you tell us more about that?

[00:16:14] Well we think most schools should have more school counselors

[00:16:18] they typically aren't set up to be able to hire therapists at the scale that they need to

[00:16:22] it's just not their core competency. We're able to say look for a price

[00:16:26] it's actually far less than you trying to tackle that thing yourself

[00:16:30] we can make sure that every single one of your schools has a connection,

[00:16:34] virtual connection to our providers and can dramatically increase capacity for you

[00:16:38] in a way that's affordable.

[00:16:40] The idea is in the beginning that school district is paying some amount

[00:16:44] but a lot of the growth of the services we add later are paid for by the health care system

[00:16:48] and over time with the school district is essentially paying for the kids who are uninsured

[00:16:52] or don't have a benefit

[00:16:54] or there's a set of services that aren't reimbursable today

[00:16:58] so they're sort of making sure that nobody falls through the crack

[00:17:00] and they're excited though that we're getting their students access

[00:17:04] but growing in a way that they don't have to be the one to bear the burden.

[00:17:08] I don't know if you remember this Josh

[00:17:12] but I ran into you at a conference

[00:17:16] and while I was connecting you to a colleague of mine

[00:17:20] instead of plugging your own company

[00:17:22] you raved about great work being done by other digital health entrepreneurs

[00:17:26] I just thought it was really cool of you to lift up other founders.

[00:17:28] Now if you're speaking to others just starting out

[00:17:32] what advice would you offer?

[00:17:34] Hazel's the third company I've been able to help start and lead

[00:17:38] and I feel just so blessed to have had that chance

[00:17:42] and I've made far more mistakes than gotten things right

[00:17:44] but luckily in balance we've also had great teams.

[00:17:46] I've got a lot of things

[00:17:48] I think particularly focus especially with the work that you

[00:17:52] great work you guys do at CHCF is this idea of can we start the model

[00:17:56] for a lot of these new innovations and I'm thinking of the social entrepreneurs here

[00:18:00] where the core day one is building something based around equity

[00:18:04] One of the biggest challenges often in healthcare is that historically

[00:18:08] innovation would typically start with we with folks

[00:18:10] who are building something for people that might be able to pay out of pocket

[00:18:14] or pay for you get a great contract with a commercial health plan

[00:18:18] that pays a really high rate and folks build their models around that.

[00:18:20] What happens it might get going quickly but then it's

[00:18:24] rebuild your cost structure, you build orient everything around that population

[00:18:28] and then years later when folks

[00:18:30] and never know is often says the beginning and they really mean it

[00:18:32] that they want to be able to build something to serve everyone

[00:18:34] fast forward a few years and you're looking at the rates that you would get from Medicaid

[00:18:38] you have built in things that if you really want to drive equity

[00:18:40] are real costs that have to be involved of how do you build up

[00:18:42] being able to be multilingual? How do you make sure your providers have cultural

[00:18:46] competence? These things are very important but they're not

[00:18:50] things so not just something you put out of the slide. The advice I give

[00:18:54] there's always these two things that are just truth that you have to balance

[00:18:58] One is stay true to your mission and then the other is like

[00:19:02] actually having a product market fit model that will work

[00:19:04] and I think it's easy to get too far down one or the other

[00:19:08] and I think there's even a part where I was so mission oriented

[00:19:12] something to be lost a little bit of like we stop

[00:19:14] our job is to make sure that especially to leadership is to make sure

[00:19:18] the business model supports the mission and so that's on me and my team to do that

[00:19:22] and you have to do those two things together to make the model work.

[00:19:26] I appreciate you sharing that because balancing

[00:19:30] also generating revenue some may say that there's some trade-offs

[00:19:34] but I think what I love about Hazel and what I love about you as an entrepreneur

[00:19:38] is that you figure out a way to find that balance. Every time that I've heard you talk

[00:19:42] about Hazel and the work that you do, you always show

[00:19:46] passion. There's a lot of passion that comes through

[00:19:50] you really believe in the work that you're doing and so my question for you

[00:19:54] is what excites you about the work that you do? Gosh, simple switch to describe

[00:19:58] it feels far like more of a calling than a job and

[00:20:02] I feel incredibly lucky to be able to do that. It comes from this amazing family

[00:20:06] we grew up in Southern California and I mix my

[00:20:09] dads inside the families in East Copa, my mom's family, the family I grew up with

[00:20:12] my grandmother and grandfather immigrated here from

[00:20:16] Sacatecas in the early 1940s. They're undocumented, they didn't speak the language

[00:20:20] but 13 children only in 49 of whom survived

[00:20:24] and my grandfather, right? When I used to say, when he was my age, right? When he was

[00:20:28] like two years younger than I am now,

[00:20:30] ended up passing away from a heart attack partly from lack of healthcare access

[00:20:34] leaving my grandmother to raise

[00:20:36] nine kids in the two-bedroom apartment in the San Fernando Valley on her own

[00:20:40] and the story and I feel like so much of the journey from my

[00:20:44] 34 or so first cousins, like this incredibly big family that I'll get to see over

[00:20:49] Christmas time. I've been like, I've both gotten so many gifts from that family

[00:20:53] of both sides. I've driven my empathy and thoughtfulness

[00:20:59] since the community, most of the bad stuff is my fault, almost a good

[00:21:03] stuff. At the same time

[00:21:05] I also saw so much our family, so many of the people I love and cared about

[00:21:11] impacted by different things that we talked about at first childhood events

[00:21:15] whether it was issues around family members with alcoholism or substance abuse

[00:21:19] or other types of abuse. I saw both the beauty of family but also

[00:21:23] the challenges particularly when growing up

[00:21:27] without the same access to means and money and healthcare and services

[00:21:31] and so for me, the calling has always been

[00:21:35] a way that I can build off all the gifts but give back in some way

[00:21:39] that has meaning that if my grandmother was still alive today would be really proud

[00:21:43] of and in honor of what she's done for me and so that's

[00:21:47] the core of the personal reason is that my

[00:21:51] I see my kids and I know how I felt with

[00:21:55] Gabe. I know when Gabe is going through all that stuff with hearing loss

[00:21:59] as a parent, I don't think I'd ever felt

[00:22:03] helpless and hopeless and this idea that I'm not the best

[00:22:07] patient myself but I'll do anything for my kids. That's true for all parents

[00:22:11] and so many of the families and parents we meet along the way. It's not just even the fact that they're getting

[00:22:15] that whatever the immediate need solved but the fact that they could talk to a doctor

[00:22:19] or a mental health professional that can help answer their questions

[00:22:23] and help them feel like they're doing what they need to do as parents

[00:22:27] help tackle their fears. Like that to me is like worth more than

[00:22:31] anything in the world to feel like we're making a small

[00:22:35] difference there and so I'm lucky enough that I get to hear stories like this

[00:22:39] every day.

[00:22:43] There's nothing that feels more special than feeling what you do day-to-day

[00:22:49] matters for people. Spending time in schools you're just

[00:22:53] floored with just how much they care about our kids. I've had to learn a lot of grace even when there's a

[00:22:59] specific thing I might be frustrated with with one my kids teachers just recognize like how

[00:23:03] important of a role they're playing and supporting our kids and they are isn't perfect as

[00:23:07] rest of us but my gosh they're doing things and playing a role where

[00:23:11] other parts of our system are falling down they're stepping in.

[00:23:15] And even when it comes to I'll say school board meetings have attended a ton of

[00:23:18] school board meetings in my life and those don't always make you feel warm and fuzzy

[00:23:21] because you can just hear all the arguing and it feels like two sides

[00:23:25] but this issue of youth health and particularly youth mental behavioral

[00:23:29] is it is so nonpartisan we are finding folks

[00:23:33] all sides the aisle wanting to come together to solve this and in a time where there is so much conflict I actually think

[00:23:39] this is one of the few places that folks across the country are all working because we

[00:23:43] all care so much about our kids and so my hope is that this can actually be

[00:23:47] one of the places whereas as a country becomes stronger too we all just want to see our kids healthy and thrive.

[00:23:53] Thank you for joining us today it was a pleasure getting to know you and learning about

[00:23:59] hazel health and all the fantastic work you are doing to help our youth

[00:24:03] thank you. Thank you both so much it's just I feel so privileged and thankful to get to work

[00:24:09] alongside you in California Healthcare Foundation so we're very appreciative

[00:24:13] and I thank you for the time. Thank you Josh.

[00:24:19] It's remarkable to be Janet that this company surrounded so many big

[00:24:23] challenges like not having insurance, mental health digmas

[00:24:27] and language barriers and they created easy to access opportunities for better health

[00:24:33] for real. You know as an LA native it's amazing to see the work that hazel health is doing

[00:24:39] because you know personally for me it's not something that I've experienced

[00:24:43] as a kid the discussions around mental health are so taboo

[00:24:47] but at a school wide level there's a normal seat to it that I think is really important.

[00:24:52] I look back now and think what a gift it would be to make sure mental health is addressed earlier

[00:24:58] rather than later. I think one of the things that really gets at me is that

[00:25:02] we see so many headlines about the exploding mental health crisis among youth

[00:25:08] and there are several startups out there that are trying to address this issue

[00:25:12] and those startups need to be discovered because we're so used to seeing companies

[00:25:17] that build their core business and they're not centered around equity and impact

[00:25:23] they're mostly focused on generating revenue.

[00:25:27] But the thing is hazel health designed a business around health equity

[00:25:31] and resources followed. So I want you all to marinate with that a little bit

[00:25:35] this can be done.

[00:25:39] There are still so many people who do not have a fair and just chance at health care

[00:25:45] In future episodes we'll talk more about how tech-enabled services are being developed

[00:25:49] to address pressing problems in health care especially in Medicaid.

[00:25:53] To our listeners I hope this podcast inspires you to build purpose into your work.

[00:25:59] Please subscribe and follow us on social. We'd love to connect.

[00:26:03] And Ilda thank you thank you so much. I always enjoy our conversations.

[00:26:07] Iwaal menthe same to you Janet these are important conversations to have

[00:26:11] and I look forward to our next episodes.

[00:26:15] Making waves in health tech is brought to you by California Health Care Foundation's innovation fund.

[00:26:19] It is created and hosted by Ilda Martinez and Janet Bawachi.

[00:26:23] Today's program was produced by Zosia Warpayah and Grace Norman of Mission Boone.

[00:26:27] Audioengineering by Zosia Warpayah, music composed and performed by Cameron Kinghorn.

[00:26:33] The California Health Care Foundation helps Californians with low incomes

[00:26:37] get the health care they need. Learn more at CHCF.org.