aunched officially in January 2020 with seed funding from the Anchor Point Foundation and additional funding from the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority and the Mat-Su Health Foundation, Health TIE is an Alaska-based healthcare innovation hub to catalyze solutions through business startups, pilot projects, and bringing changemakers together.
It is important to address Alaska’s high healthcare costs due to the impact they have on Alaska’s economic future. Over the last few decades, economists and consultants have produced a multitude of reports analyzing Alaska’s high healthcare costs, which can be distilled into a simple explanation: Alaska’s large geography and small population make it hard to achieve economies of scale. Comparisons between states show Alaska ranks at the very top for healthcare costs: an average of $9.76 billion annually, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Unfortunately, high healthcare costs have real consequences resulting in missed economic opportunities for Alaskans as well as the overall economy. Concerns about healthcare keep potential entrepreneurs trapped at their day jobs, prevent established businesses from expanding, and discourage startup companies from relocating.
Finding solutions isn’t easy or straightforward. Healthcare is a tangled web of practices, insurance policies, federal and state regulations, and Byzantine administrative practices, all of which can also increase costs and defy easy solutions. Health TIE’s premise is straightforward: support and work with the best healthcare changemakers so Alaskans can benefit from their ingenuity, care, and services while also attracting a pipeline of healthcare innovators so Alaskans can be the first to access new approaches and technical innovations.
Decreasing budgets and workforce challenges have reduced critical services for some of Alaska’s most vulnerable Alaskans. To bring new ideas and continue services, Health TIE focuses on four primary sectors: senior care, behavioral health, substance use disorders, and intellectual and developmental/physical disabilities.
Along with working with Alaska-based innovators, Health TIE works with startup companies beyond Alaska’s borders through incubators, startup communities, and angel investors. Harnessing founders’ energy and leading-edge expertise introduces new options for care. Outside startups bring high levels of expertise and scalable ideas ready to add creative, positive disruption and quickly widen care access. Working collaboratively with Alaskan partners, the founders are eager to better understand Alaska’s challenging healthcare environment while assisting health and social service providers to re-envision care delivery. Alaska’s distinctiveness—rugged, difficult, and remote—makes the state a valuable testing ground and helps companies leverage Outside interest and investment.
Working with changemakers and startup healthcare companies allows for new solutions that are implemented quickly and bypass long meetings and solutions-by-committee that often grind down attempted changes. New ideas are experimentally introduced, vetted proactively, and quickly discarded if they aren’t working. Through filtering and supporting new healthcare startups, Health TIE introduces new methods and new technologies that have the potential to dramatically increase access to care and pull forward systemic changes.
To illustrate Health TIE’s mission and goal, following is a sample of Health TIE pilot projects.
With funding from the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority, an OpiAID pilot project is under development with the High Utilizer Mat-Su program, funded through the Mat-Su Health Foundation and Dr. Sarah Spencer in Ninilchik, as well as several other Alaska MAT programs.
For the past ten years, UAA psychologist Dulin has been working to get a solution into the hands of Alaskans. Through his research, Dulin developed Step Away, a clinically validated alcohol moderation app that helps users reduce or eliminate problem drinking. Step Away has been shown to be as effective as many counseling programs and—because it allows users to personalize their experience by creating customized goals, support systems, and rewards—it helps to empower them and keep them engaged.
Along with connecting Dulin and Step Away to Recover Alaska, a statewide alcohol education and advocacy initiative, Health TIE is working with Dulin to integrate Step Away into established treatment programs. Using Step Away allows increased communication and options that extend beyond the clinical environment and into people’s everyday lives.
As the conditions progress, Alzheimer’s and dementia affect individuals’ abilities to process information and communicate. Caregivers and family members can use the videos to reduce isolation and draw those with Alzheimer’s or dementia into conversation or to soothe or distract someone who may be experiencing a difficult day. Through therapeutic video tools, Zinnia TV supports individuals and their caregivers with programming that engages viewers without being overwhelming. Specially developed videos guide viewers through daily activities like eating, bathing, and dressing. They can also help reconnect to past interests like cars, babies, nature, or pets.