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Harlem-based City Health Works is making community health workers an integral part of the health system. Founder Manmeet Kaur’s theory is that patients with long-term chronic conditions, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, are not getting the education they need to stay healthy—and keep costs down. For various reasons, doctors are failing to get […]

Harlem-based City Health Works is making community health workers an integral part of the health system.

Founder Manmeet Kaur’s theory is that patients with long-term chronic conditions, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, are not getting the education they need to stay healthy—and keep costs down. For various reasons, doctors are failing to get the message across.

The company, which is paid by insurers, brings education to patients where they are: at home or at a coffee shop. It uses trained health coaches, not doctors or nurses, from the same communities as patients to conduct one-on-one sessions. A registered dietitian or nurse supervises the coaches.

“Most of these patients have had these conditions for years and it’s the first time they’re understanding what that blood pressure indicator really means,” Kaur said.

During a human rights fellowship in South Africa, Kaur was inspired by the nongovernmental organization Mamelani Projects, which trains community members to educate others on chronic conditions.

She worked on bringing that idea to New York City at Columbia Business School, which she treated as a sort of incubator, using class assignments to hone her plans. Supportive professors connected her to potential investors, and after graduating in 2012, she raised $200,000 while pregnant with her first child. But after five years, Kaur realized the nonprofit model was a hindrance to her plans to grow City Health Works to scale, so she began converting her company to a for-profit venture and pitching early-stage investors.

Since officially launching in 2013, City Health Works has raised more than $6 million from the Helmsley Charitable Trust; the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation; Robin Hood, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; and Mount Sinai, and earned $2 million in revenue from health system partnerships. It now has 10 health coaches, in Harlem and Schenectady, and an average of 50 people per coach a year graduate from the coaching program.

“We’re doing a layer of primary care that should be done by medicine, but it’s not,” Kaur said. “Education takes time that insurers don’t reimburse for.”

– www.crainsnewyork.com