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February 20, 2024

Xchange Story

Spotlight On: Kwamane Liddell, JD, MHA, Co-founder ThriveLink (formerly Nutrible)

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By Susan Schulz

Overview

As an ER nurse, Kwamane Liddell, JD, MHA, BSN, encountered many low-income families whose language barriers kept them from taking advantage of nutritious food assistance programs. He realized AI could help these families successfully access not only nutrition but also medicine, housing, and even health insurance.

Cure: Tell us about how you first noticed the problem that your company is trying to solve.

Kwamane Liddell: While I was an ER nurse, I saw so many families who had heart attacks, strokes and uncontrolled diabetes. These patients needed medical care in the moment but to avoid having to come back to the ER, they needed to be able to access healthy food in their everyday lives. I knew so many programs existed that could provide healthy food, so I put together an Excel file with food resources and food bank information on it. I would offer it to patients when they were ready to leave the hospital so they could find those resources. 

Cure: That sounds like a great idea

Liddell: Yes, but it didn’t really work. My a-ha moment, if you will, was when we cared for a patient — I’ll call her Mrs. Johnson. She came into the ER with uncontrolled blood pressure. She was there with her daughter, and I was able to spend time with her. I gave her that great list of resources and I felt really good about it. But about two months later, I happened to walk through our emergency department and Mrs. Johnson was there again with her daughter, and this time she’d had a stroke. I asked whether any of those programs helped her, and she told me there were barriers just to complete all the applications to get into those programs. She never actually accessed them. This is a very common story — 54 percent of adults in the US struggle from literacy barriers that prohibit them from being able to access these programs.

Cure: How does ThriveLink overcome this gap and help people access the programs that exist to help them?

Liddell: With ThriveLink, we're can mirror the role that I took as a nurse. Some of the questions on the applications for these programs are, frankly, just too complex. When I would see a complicated question, I would ask it in shorter sentences so that patients could answer, and I would complete the application. I would love to have done that for everyone, but obviously that would have been impossible. For ThriveLink, we built voice-activated AI social workers where the patient doesn’t have to navigate through these complex applications. 

Cure: Where did you first test out your solution?

Liddell: We started in Oakland, where we served one of the largest unhealthy populations in America. It’s very diverse — there are so many languages. In these areas, resources provide healthier food and produce, and supplemental commodity programs will deliver groceries for free. But seniors and patients qualify don't always know about the programs or how to get into them. With ThriveLink, we're able to bridge the gap. We created a front-end platform that's engaging and easy for patients to filter through resources or programs and find the ones the qualify for. The voice-activated AI social worker asks questions that are on the applications and submits the applications for them.    

Cure: That’s amazing. What are the applications beyond healthy food for this technology?

Liddell: We found that even though we could give patients all the food resources they needed, they still needed housing, transportation and health insurance. So we evolved into ThriveLink, and now our AI social worker can enroll families into health insurance, utility assistance programs, and even housing vouchers. 

Cure: Do you have any stories of people who have benefitted from ThriveLink?

Liddell: Yes! I'm happy I get to tell a different story than what happened to Mrs. Johnson. I'm going to call this other patient Mrs. Williams. She went to see her doctor, and she had clinical needs, of course, that were addressed, but we nurses learned she had social needs as well. Specifically, she couldn't afford to pay her utilities, and they would be turned off. Mrs. Williams used our platform to find a program that existed in her community, and she was able to enroll very easily from her couch. A week later she got a text message that the county had paid her $519 utility bill. This story shows the power of this platform.  

Cure: There’s so many people your technology could help. If you were to be one of our Cure Xchange Challenge winners, what would that mean to you?

Liddell: For me, Cure would give us an incredible opportunity to partner with organizations to measure how this can change lives for families. ThriveLink is the first time any of this has ever existed. If a mom didn't have the resources she needed, but now can suddenly pay her bills and provide healthy food for her and her children, what does that mean for her? What does it mean for health insurance companies when they can offer health insurance to every person — millions of people? How does that impact the total cost of care? How does that impact the system as a whole? We’re really excited about this opportunity.

Cure: What would it mean to be part of the New York bio community?

Liddell: The New York bio community is really important to us. It’s the second largest market for patients who need our resources, and there are incredible organizations throughout New York who serve low-income communities with diverse backgrounds. For our platform to be used in New York would be incredible to our growth, and we'd be able to impact even more people. Last year, more than 1 million New Yorkers lost coverage before federal health officials intervened. This year, New York Medicaid recipients will face those same barriers, and we can assist health plans simplify the process for millions.

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