Uncategorized Archives - Health Equity Innovation Challenge

Engaging the Clinicians of Tomorrow Improves Patient Outcomes Today

Written by Abby Cagle on August 29, 2024. Posted in Uncategorized. Leave a Comment

It’s a serious problem in the healthcare industry: Healthcare organizations struggle to recruit and retain enough staff to effectively serve their patients. Meanwhile, eager young clinical students are struggling to get experience in their field – but the overburdened providers have no bandwidth to manage more interns. Enter Grapefruit Health, a new company that is recruiting, training, onboarding, and managing clinical student workers, providing healthcare organizations with the resources to do what they otherwise cannot. This includes critical patient follow-up, particularly with low-income...

“Makes Yo’ Tastebuds Sang”: Potato-Based Food Business Aims to Fight Food Insecurity

Written by Abby Cagle on August 29, 2024. Posted in Uncategorized. Leave a Comment

After losing her executive job during the pandemic, Cynthia Hayes embarked on a long journey of soul searching and prayer to figure out her next step. After a few job offers didn’t pan out, she took a leap of faith and launched an idea that had lingered in the back of her mind for more than a decade: a food business centered on baked potatoes. Restaurants with loaded baked potatoes as a main course are common in Detroit where she grew up, but Hayes’ target audience is anything but ordinary. Rather than running a restaurant, her vision is a delivery-only enterprise getting this fresh, nutrient-rich...

Therapist/Entrepreneur Finds Way to Solve Shortage of Counselors

Written by Abby Cagle on August 9, 2024. Posted in Uncategorized. Leave a Comment

Therapist and entrepreneur Jessica Bruno, LMFT, knows that matching counselors with clients is a struggle. While more people than ever are facing mental health issues, the waiting lists are long at counseling practices. Even those clients with insurance can be left on their own to struggle for weeks and even months while they wait for an appointment. Those without insurance and traditionally underserved populations often go untreated. At the same time, potential therapists — young people with a calling to help those struggling with mental health issues –encounter a number of hurdles entering...

2024 Health Equity Innovation Challenge Winners

Written by Brian Perry on August 6, 2024. Posted in Uncategorized. Leave a Comment

Announcing the Winners of the Health Equity Innovation Challenge Concord, NC – August 2, 2024 — The Health Equity Innovation Challenge winners were announced by the Flywheel Foundation. The cohort is underway under the leadership of our title sponsor Atrium Health – Greater Charlotte North Area and other collaborating organizations. The Challenge is in its second year and received over 80 applications. Twenty companies were advanced to the semifinalist round by a screening committee including sponsors and community organizations focused on the challenge priorities, which include leading...

Business Finds Innovative Tech Solution for Home Health Care

Written by Brian Perry on November 28, 2023. Posted in Uncategorized. 2 Comments

Neal Shah has experienced firsthand the stormy world of caring for family members with health crises. He couldn’t stop thinking that there must be a better way to help people with home care. Much of the home care he found was expensive, inconvenient, and of uneven quality. It was difficult to find quality help for services such as companionship, cooking meals, and doing light housework. “Not to offend anyone,” Shah says, “but the home care industry is really broken.” So the former Wall Street hedge-fund manager made an abrupt career change by founding CareYaya, an online registry that offers...

Health Equity Innovation Challenge Winners Showcase Progress and Vision at Cabarrus Center Pitch Round Robin

Written by Brian Perry on September 21, 2023. Posted in Uncategorized. Leave a Comment

Winners of the inaugural Health Equity Innovation Challenge are halfway through their accelerator and recently spent the day in Concord, NC at the Cabarrus Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship participating in a rapid-fire pitch round robin. The Challenge, sponsored by Atrium Health and administered by the Flywheel Foundation, is a business idea competition for scalable and investable solutions to problems that lead to or create significant healthcare outcome disparities. Founders Pictured: Kwamane Liddell (Nutrible), Lamont Savage (F.E.L.K. Afterschool), Bentzion Groner (ZABS Place),...