Join us for a conversation with Dr. Kameron Matthews, Chief Health Officer of Cityblock Health and co-founder of Tour for Diversity in Medicine. Discover how her groundbreaking work combines health equity, technology, and community-based care to transform healthcare delivery for underserved populations while building pathways for the next generation of diverse healthcare leaders.
Kameron Matthews, MD, JD, Chief Health Officer Cityblock Health
Megan Antonelli, Chief Executive Officer, HealthIMPACT Live
Welcome 0:01 Welcome to Digital Health talks. Each week we meet with healthcare leaders making an immeasurable difference in equity, access and quality. Hear about what tech is worth investing in and what isn't. As we focus on the innovations that deliver. Join Megan Antonelli, Janae sharp and Shahid Shah for a weekly no BS, deep dive on what's really making an impact in healthcare.
Megan Antonelli 0:29 Hi everyone. Welcome to Digital Health talks. This is Megan Antonelli, and today we have the privilege of speaking with Dr Cameron Matthews, Chief Health Officer at city block health, a change maker in healthcare. Dr Matthews brings an extraordinary perspective as a physician, attorney and Health Equity champion, from her co founding tour for diversity and medicine to transforming care delivery at city block health, she's dedicated her career to making healthcare more equitable and accessible. Today, we'll explore her journey and insights on combining technology, community based care and mentorship to create lasting change in healthcare. Hi, Dr Matthews, how are you? Hi, good. Megan, how are you good? And today we also have Janae here. Hi, Janae. Hi, great. Janae here, yes. Janae, as you all know, is also the founder of the sharp index, and one of the reasons we reached out to Dr Matthews is because she was an award winner this this year, Janae, why don't you tell us about the award and the selection and the nomination?
Janae Sharp 1:31 Yeah, absolutely. Every year we have awards for people who are doing great things, for physician, mental health and for healthcare well being. And Dr Matthews was nominated several times. One was by Dr J Bott, and she won. We have over 200 judges. They vote, they also vet people and look at look at their work. And she won our advocacy award this year. And so I was thrilled to meet you and to learn more about your work, because she is the Chief Health Officer of city block health, super educated, and also the co founder of tour for diversity. So I'd love it if you could introduce some of that journey to our audience, like tell us about where your passion comes from.
Kameron Matthews 2:17 Of course, first of all, did I thank you. Thank you for the acknowledgement the award. I mean, this is and thank you to Jay. Actually, let me make sure I say that for the nomination, I am really quite honored. And I think it's a recognition of exactly that my journey. And I can say I've, I've had a good a good ride like that so far, and I look forward to adding even more to the journey. To be honest, let's see. I am a proud family physician so very much dedicated to primary care, and always have been. And I started my practice right out of residency, actually, in correctional medicine. I don't know if you knew this, but I was at Cook County jail on the west side of Chicago with a huge interest in understanding the patients that were housed there. There was an Well, there still is an obvious, quite inequitable population. There, as far as those who are arrested and jailed in Cook County Jail, 99% of which Black and Latino faced with significant health concerns. And so I really, as a newbie doc, was was quite excited to learn how to help them. I of course, did not touch on any of their legal issues. I had already finished my law degree at that point as well, too. I didn't do anything, but I at least was exposed to significant criminal justice issues, mental health issues, substance use and how it is criminalized, as opposed to consider it a public health concern, and then just overall advocacy for patients in a system in which, and I don't mean just the correctional system, our larger system in which we are legally discriminating against this population, you're allowed to deny them housing and education and employment, we do background checks, as if that is a sufficient way to really screen someone's capability. And so it was difficult for me emotionally to learn their experiences, but I got so much out of it. It was, it was an incredibly enriching experience. From there, I went to several federally qualified health centers, so community health centers where I really got more into operations as well as managed care. It was amazing to learn the communities, to learn my leadership style in managing our clinics, and to just gain a lot of operational experience. And then I transitioned to the Veterans Health Administration. So I'm based in Washington, DC. I moved here and joined the central office, as we call in vaco. And I originally was part of the managed care office, but then moved into the position of Chief Medical Officer my last year there and at the VA learned a significant amount about the importance of the patient experience, the veteran experience, how much that needs to be valued, how much their trust is an inherent part to our ability to help them, how important it is to have a really integrated and functional health system, as opposed to the piecemeal and siloed effort that we see around healthcare. And so I took a lot of that experience, a lot of that knowledge, and I'm applying it day to day while at city block, I joined city block now three years ago as Chief Health Officer, and it's amazing to be a part of transformation. It's amazing to think about the primary care chassis that we know our healthcare system is not in any way prioritizing, and to build a system for our members who either are on Medicaid or dually eligible for Medicaid and Medicare, and really build a model around their needs, around the ecosystem in which they find themselves, how we address their social needs, as well as their physical health, their behavioral health, all really assuring that their experience, their satisfaction and their trust is is is prioritized. So it's amazing to be able to have first worked in all these environments, but to take my knowledge from environment to environment, and then now really seek out even new and innovative solutions, although it may not always be the fancy technology innovation that people are looking for, but really being innovative By really bringing about those solutions for a population that needs it the most. So that's my journey. Wow, that
Megan Antonelli 7:05 is an amazing journey. I mean, in that the, you know, correctional medicine to the VA, you know, I mean, they all function as really independent systems. And then city block with a focus on Medicare, Medicaid population, you've really covered all three about
Kameron Matthews 7:24 the safety net. I've never wanted to practice in a, you know, a beautifully, you know, protected environment. I got into medicine to help those who are most in need. So thankfully, I've had that opportunity.
Megan Antonelli 7:40 Now, a lot of our audience is familiar with city block health, but tell us, you know, as you were looking at that to go, to go to city block, what was it about the mission and the vision that really drew you there? Yeah,
Kameron Matthews 7:52 it was when, when I when I learned about it initially, and then when I eventually joined a couple years later, it really has turned into the dream opportunity. We offer advanced primary care services, really integrating all that I've described again for the the beneficiaries of these critical safety net government programs in a value based model. So we have really changed our care delivery by right sizing our care teams, by thinking about the whole patient, and not just the individual silos of care again, that they can get in one clinic versus another. But how do we actually address the whole health of that individual who's working with us and who's giving their trust to us to take care of them. So we're doing this on a primary care chassis. Again, I'm a family doc, so I really believe that primary care is a solution that we need to adopt, most importantly, for long term outcomes, I think we are very focused on short term ROI appropriately, so that's what's necessary in the business model, but when we're talking health outcomes, we need to focus on prevention. We need to focus on chronic disease prevention, lifestyle medicine, and approaching a patient to improve their health, not just their health care. And we're able to do that in city block because we have a different business model, because we're doing this in a full risk capitated financial model, we're able to really build solutions tailored to the people that we serve, as opposed to a very encounter based approach that that other primary care practices have. And we're able to do this by designing a model that fits the communities that we're in. We have community health partners, we have a large care team that wraps around the patient, wraps around the other providers that may be in their ecosystem to make sure we're coordinating all of that care, because we have to take we're taking full risk. It's not just about what's happening within our walls, but it's happening the entire experience for that patient. So of course, we have the. Have a focus on their social needs. Of course, we have to think about how they're receiving services either equitably or inequitably in other parts of the healthcare ecosystem, and so it's really an honor to be able to do this again for our community that needs it the most, but in a space that is inherently transformational.
Janae Sharp 10:20 Yeah, that reminds me a lot of like the VA whole person care.
Kameron Matthews 10:24 100% of that was that you I actually was, I did not lead it, but was very much part of the initial pilot opportunity in which in all 18 of our regions in the VA, we rolled out the whole health model. And I actually was a reviewer on the whole health report coming out of the National Academy of Medicine. So I am very much personally invested in in promoting the concepts of whole health, as opposed to our traditional medical model, where, really it's prioritization based on the physician need or the medical system need, as opposed to, let's prioritize what our patients, the people that we're serving, what their goals are, and then move forward together in a
Janae Sharp 11:06 partnership, right? I think once you have that perspective, it just really can transform, yeah, the way you see
Kameron Matthews 11:14 exactly it's, I really believe it's what primary care is supposed to be. Unfortunately, the larger kind of financial system in which we find ourselves, this fee for service model doesn't allow us that opportunity, because, again, we're very encounter based. We're very transactional. Primary care as a service is not a transactional service. It's about continuity. It's about relationships. So measuring the number of visits goes against, actually, the the purpose of primary care,
Megan Antonelli 11:45 right? Yeah, in terms of the populations that city block health serves, has there been, you know, I think that maybe going back, there's kind of these assumptions that, you know, they're traditionally more difficult to serve, or it's harder to get that continuity right, that to take the risk, and that was the hesitation for a lot of the Medicaid managed care plans, things like that. What do you think is, what's different about city blocks approach? It has allowed that to actually work and take shape?
Kameron Matthews 12:13 Yeah, I think we, we took to heart that healthcare is local first and foremost. So our care teams, in every way, are hired from, you know, live, play, pray in the communities in which our patients are found. They, they perhaps have kids that go to school together. They, they understand really, what our members need in order to achieve their their optimized health, and they can serve as an advocate in that space better than someone you know, not as knowledgeable. So first and foremost, our teams are important. Second, we take trust and engagement by that team and by an even broader team than traditionally, maybe just staffed by the clinicians. We take earning the trust of our patients as a priority, and it's not just an assumption that, oh, I'm the physician, so therefore you will trust me. You believe that I know what's best for you. No, that is absolutely not the case. And so we, we really in every way, seek to earn trust, seek to engage with them, seek to satisfy their needs, to prioritize their goals in an effort to form a relationship again, not just to meet some metric or to complete an encounter, right? And get paid. I think we have tailored our model to understand the larger ecosystem, not just the community, but like the medical ecosystem in which our patients are found, right? So what I mean by that is we've designed our model to wrap around not just the patient and help them navigate and coordinate their care, but also wrap around. Sometimes them they have a primary care provider in the community. We're not always the assigned primary care provider. Sometimes we offer wraparound services to assist that PCP. I have been that PCP for many years, and I understand that it may not be the intent I want to in every way, meet every need of my patients. Sometimes I just don't have that capability. I don't have the resources in my clinics. I can't meet all their needs in 15 minutes. It's just a difficult space to be in, particularly in these communities, I could never find Psychiatry and Behavioral Health to get my patients into never Right exactly. So we built that into our primary care practice, where we're able to take care of even serious mental illness, psychosis, substance use in our practice as part of our primary care team, we've built a special program around people. People who are pregnant, and how we're actually helping them navigate through their prenatal care and address their additional needs and and hopefully change the outcomes, not just for themselves, but also for their child. And then lastly, I think we in being data driven and tech enabled in every way, we're trying to find the efficiencies to address their needs, as far as access to care, right? So we're not in any way trying to come into a community, and honestly, this is what a lot of practices fear that we're coming into, you know, a neighborhood and poaching their providers. That is not the goal. We recognize that we need to come in and supplement the ecosystem. There's already an established, uh, set of practices there. They have a medical neighborhood, primary care, uh, sorry, Patient Center, medical home, all of these different tools within primary care that have been established for years. We're just there to fill in the gap. So we're not going to come in and poach. So we're going to offer those wraparound services. We are going to be multi modal. So a lot of times when we're addressing access, a lot of new tech companies love to tout virtual first. I actually think that's quite difficult when we're talking about these communities where you need to earn trust. You are less likely to do that on screen. They are, in every way, open to virtual care. But this is about more than just providing the immediate service. This is about developing a relationship, and that's not as easily done on screen so we are in the home, we are providing virtual services, and we have hubs in which they can come see us. Should there perhaps not be the privacy in their home for a virtual visit or the like? We believe the virtual care we offer is a response to social needs. Sometimes they don't have PTO to take leave from jobs, sometimes they aren't able to find childcare to be able to exit the home and come in and sometimes spend hours in transportation, right? Because a lot of times they don't have access there either. So by being multimodal, we're meeting the members where they are. We're meeting their needs. So we, along with just unbelievably dedicated staff, we've really designed this model around where we see the gaps in care and where we think the inequities can then be addressed once we actually get into the clinical needs notice a lot of what I described is really more about how we're offering our services and earning the ability to treat our members, then you get into the actual medical decision making and the like, and we've got brilliant team members who are doing that every day.
Janae Sharp 17:49 Yeah, I like that, that you have the you're using the data, I bet, support even better care and to show like, what's available. You know, if you have to drive 20 minutes every time we go to a doctor, that's not going to work for some people. I also like the approach that you're making the care available, and it kind of relates to your bigger work with your tour for diversity in medicine, like when people trust their providers, when it's from their area, they have better outcomes. They're more likely to go things are just better. And that's not a problem always that can be tackled from the current medical education system that we have
Kameron Matthews 18:33 absolutely agree that was why we founded the Torah now, oh, when's the last time I did the math? 12 years ago. You know, as a nonprofit, we just recognized that we needed to reach more students if we were going to diversify the face of medicine, we needed to reach students that were at those colleges and institutions around the country that weren't getting the advising and the opportunity to think about a path to medicine, and so I take a group of docs and now dentists and pharmacists to campuses around the country, and of course, now we offer virtual webinars and programs to try to motivate students, give them the information, but really help them on their path to joining Our workforce, because you're exactly right our current medical education, unfortunately, and the larger health system, which it feeds is not addressing the needs of our communities in a comprehensive way. And one solution, it is not in any way, the panacea, but one solution is if you hire the workforce that understands the patients that they're serving. They are more likely to have one first, they're more likely to treat those patients in the first place, right? But second, they're also more likely to achieve positive outcomes, whether it's adherence to treatment, actual diagnosis. Um. Um, research in the right on, on the right topics and the like. So we've had fun with the tour. It's been a labor of love, a lot of lot of long nights and long travel around the country. But it's been worthwhile. So it's it's parallel in city black, we attempt, in every way, to really make sure that our workforce represents not more than represents is from, again, the communities that our patients are in. Yeah,
Janae Sharp 20:27 I think that's so important. Yeah,
Megan Antonelli 20:29 it's so in terms of, like, building the trust and building the relationship, and making healthcare something that people even just want to engage in, you know, and that it you have to be part of the community. And while technology can enable that, because technology can take away maybe some of the things that couldn't be done before that have to be done, the financial, you know, the administrative burdens and allow the clinicians to actually focus on building those relationships and building that trust. I
Kameron Matthews 20:58 often describe it, and this isn't I did not come up with this at all. I heard it on some podcast, maybe yours, you know, like technology and AI should just let us humans do the human things, right? And so much of the relationship, definitely in primary care, is about connection and relationship again. So I am, I look forward to finding new technologies using AI and the like to do the administrative minutia, the increasing amount of data that we're expected to comb through and to understand so that we can, you know, stay up to date with evidence based medicine. Sure, technology can help with that, but at the crux of it, the relationship that I have with my patients that we build within city black that is where the actual outcomes are coming from, and the technology is a tool to help us be human and connect with our members.
Janae Sharp 21:51 Yeah, it can also help you overcome some of your biases, instead of reinforcing them like it might learn that from their data sets, but if you already know about it, you can overcome it. I do want to talk about a controversial post that you may Okay, okay. I want to start with a little bit of immigration. The bottom, lowest income quintile in the US. About 5% of physicians come from that. So when we're talking about leadership when we're talking about diversity, we also need to be talking about poverty and and the actual finances of going to medical school. The average physician ends medical school with $236,000 in debt, I think it is. And you posted about the potential unintended consequences of tuition free medical school. Also, we lived in Pennsylvania. They have a huge it's impossible, almost to find primary care physicians who want to work in rural Pennsylvania. So tuition is a big stressor, and it's one of the things that we talk about a little bit like, what if it actually was a level playing field, like you actually, you know, you could actually call home and you had someone who was able to pay for your medical school, but, but you shared a little bit about how that system works, including, like, tuition reimbursement helping rural populations. Let's talk about that a little bit. Yeah,
Kameron Matthews 23:22 no, it was an interesting article. It wasn't all again, I don't want to. I was
Megan Antonelli 23:26 okay. I'm like,
Janae Sharp 23:27 Hey, let's politely, let's do it.
Kameron Matthews 23:30 Exactly No, I love absorbing all of the data and the conversation around this topic in particular. I mean, trust me, when, when those couple of medical schools went tuition free due to some very large and generous donors. I was so excited. But the article that I was referencing on that one post and was just highlighting others, was that, yet again, we have this tendency, don't we, to think that just a single solution is going to be sufficient. If we just wipe tuition, that that's going to be enough? I you know, I think what this recognizes is that tuition alone is not the only barrier, that in order to level the playing field, you also have to have support for students in the environment that is overwhelmingly difficult for all students, but particularly so for perhaps those students that are coming from less I'll say mature educational systems that do not have the mentoring, that do not have the mentoring, not only to get in, but then the support once they're there, the ability to then make decisions around their career is unfortunately limited as well too. I think what going tuition free does. Is, Will one unfortunately, allow those students that were able to pay for it to benefit as equally? So it's, it's not necessarily, it's, it's kind of rising the tide across the board, as opposed to addressing those students that need it the most when you go completely tuition free. But it's also not giving a more comprehensive set of solutions to make sure not just that those students get in and are loan free, but that they succeed and graduate. And I think that's what that article highlighted for me. Tuition is not the only barrier.
Janae Sharp 25:39 That's really what that's supported. It's like, if you put people in a horribly stressful situation, that's like, expected to be stressful. The people who have tons of support and don't need to work, they might be able to handle it better, or people with no mental illness, like sometimes people have a hard time once they reach medical school and realize some of those underlying issues, because the structure is gone. And I'd love to not just talk about that, because, like, in my mind, it's like, yeah, let's make it so it's financially easy, and other things too, like, and get you that outside support. It's like, if you didn't have a family life is not is going to be a lot harder for you, right? So what are solutions that work? Like, tell me some stories of like, or programs like, maybe it could give us three things that actually work. Beyond that, let's, let's take, take money out of the equation, even though that's impossible. But like, kind
Kameron Matthews 26:35 of do, hands down the support that I received as a medical student, and trust me, I come from upper middle class. My father is a physician, so I am not one of the students that I argue need support. I say that all the time, especially on the tour. I don't want them knowing my story, because I'm not as motivating. But you know the support
Janae Sharp 27:01 everything to unpack here.
Kameron Matthews 27:04 But even with all of the support that I came with and the encouragement and the motivation that I had getting into medical school, it was incredibly difficult even there and a lot of that, because I felt awfully isolated by, you know, not looking like a lot of the students that surrounded me, not feeling as if I had mentors that I could go to, or I could express express concern or frustration or the like. And the support system that I found was actually in a student organization where we actually had mentoring established. So the fourth year students mentored me as a first year student. And that needs to be formalized in every way. It needs to be encouraged and it needs to honestly be resourced so that the older students aren't in any way feeling as if they're being taxed, you know, called the minority tax of, you know, constantly being expected to house the diversity element of the school right. That, in and of itself, was a huge source of support for me. I think there needs to be broader exposure beyond and this is, I think an issue for for my colleagues in particularly family medicine, but primary care as a whole, I think there needs to be broader exposure to opportunities of where students can be successful in their careers, beyond just the exposure that they're getting in the academic medical centers. Because they're often not choosing primary care. They're often not exposed to these opportunities where maybe they can still feel the passion of the reason why they chose medicine. They're just getting exposed to hospital based care. That's really what academic training is about. And I think, you know, maintaining that mission based focus beyond research. And you know, the promotion of university name, I think is, is helpful as well. And you said three, and I'm trying to think of a third, but mentoring, in and of itself, is so critical, I'd probably say even more, mentoring, mentoring, mentoring, mentoring,
Janae Sharp 29:23 up, those relationships really matters. Yeah and good, yeah. I like supporting students. Also in our work, we found that when people are experiencing like mental health hardship and they have that barrier, providing mentorship for others is a way for them, thank you, to be more willing to engage, but also they end up reaping the benefits, yes, of the support. So it was kind of a way for it's kind of been a way for us to get around some of that stigma, where you might not want to show up to a program, but you. You could show up for someone else to the program, like as a supporter. And you know, obviously we have a lot of work to do to overcome those barriers and to make it okay to be human. You know, even even with you sharing your story like we need to make it okay for people to realize that you might be helping them because it's the right thing to do
Kameron Matthews 30:20 Thank you. Yes, but until
Janae Sharp 30:23 we get there, let's make it available. And what's I really think the power of our connection is huge.
Kameron Matthews 30:30 Yeah, I agree. I agree. I think there. I think along with the transformation of the healthcare system, we need transformation of medical education, point blank, period, right? Yeah,
Megan Antonelli 30:42 you know. And I think, I mean, even the the, I think what struck me about the post originally was actually about, you know, the incentives that are in place for folks when they get their tuition not waived, but paid for, you know, the, what's the word I'm looking for,
Janae Sharp 31:02 um, reimbursement, which one isn't? Because different?
Megan Antonelli 31:05 Loan Forgiveness, because they're practicing in healthcare deserts. And here again, is, it's a, that's another band aid, you know? It's a band aid solution to, you know? What really needs is, is, why don't, you know, why don't people want to practice medicine in these deserts,
Kameron Matthews 31:21 right? Exactly, right. I'm
Megan Antonelli 31:24 not just financial. You know that it's not financial that they don't want to participate, you know, to practice there. You know, it's quite and it can be quite rewarding to practice there, but what are the reasons? And so, you know, I think healthcare in general has a, has a history of, you know, a band aid solution, or trying to plug the hole over here and then creating, you know, other problems. And I think with equity, it's certainly an area where, you know, with access, as well as bringing up people through the medical system, you know, education wise, that we just continue to do it. As you look, look at your career, which is, I'm just blown away, but the by having worked in all those places, you know, and then you apply that to city block health, where do you see kind of that those success stories, you know? I mean, are there things that you've built on, that you've learned from the correctional side, or from the VA that you now take to this Yeah,
Kameron Matthews 32:25 oh my goodness, yes. So what I am really excited about our care model and what we offer to our patients is exactly those learnings. And the biggest one that I brag about all the time, and hopefully you'll see an article in the near future, was really the way that we are using an additional critical member of our care team, which is our clinical pharmacists. So in the VA we use pharmacists, have for decades, to help manage chronic disease, a fair amount of chronic disease, diabetes, hypertension, congestive heart failure. These are all managed by medication pharmacists are trained to manage and maximize and work with patients to really make sure that they are being managed well and treated. And yet, there's this outside of kind of academia in the VA, there's there's typically we think of pharmacists as just dispensing medications in your community, neighborhood pharmacy. So for us, we've built Clinical Pharmacy into our model. All of our care teams have a clinical pharmacist who have panels of patients and are helping manage the care. And it is working beautifully. We and again, nothing new that we've created. The VA has been doing this for a decade. So I think again, part of the innovation that we continue to seek out is what is working out there? Where is there evidence? And how do you apply it again to this patient population that may not be receiving these services otherwise? And again, our behavior health program, our pregnancy program, we have several care pathways that we're developing. It's about empowering our patients, it's about educating them, and it's about getting them the right care team to help them manage their goals, first and foremost, on top of their disease. But yeah, I'll use that as an example, because I was just so proud. And I have this amazing head pharmacist, Danielle Joseph, who was so excited when I was coming from the VA. She's like, do you think we could do this here at city block? I said, Oh, we better, really. Well, yeah.
Megan Antonelli 34:53 So yeah. And again, it goes back to that. I mean, the, you know, the players in the community and where you can. Build that trust, and where you have that touch point and you know, and even to the sort of the idea of tuition free medical school, that while physician shortage is a problem, the shortage of people just even going into healthcare at any degree is a problem right now, you know? I mean, you know, we all grew up in a time, or at least, you know, some of us. Did you know you're young,
Janae Sharp 35:23 you're you are too. I'm young, but I have a lot of kids.
Megan Antonelli 35:27 Everybody, you know, it was like, we're going to be doctors and lawyers. You were both, you know. And now you know, kids want to be influencers, and you know, whatever else it is, but you know what
Kameron Matthews 35:42 they figured out, did you see the trends during the pandemic, though? And there were a couple of articles about it. I did ask about that, that a good number of students applications increased into public health school as well as medicine during the pandemic, because they saw what was happening in their community, and they were motivated, and they're very mission focused. That is who we need going into medicine. I don't want the people who go into medicine just because they're generations before them did. I want the people who are there to genuinely help their communities so those students that are coming, I can't wait for that, that generation of docs and public health practitioners and dentists and others to hit, hit the streets, because they're going to be amazing.
Megan Antonelli 36:26 Yeah, no, and that's, I mean, certainly a silver lining of the pandemic was the focus on, you know, the importance of health care, health in general, and and certainly the health care worker so amazing when you look at, you know, the group that you serve through the program, like, you know, what is your sort of advice to them as they approach this very you know, often challenging career, and they the students
Kameron Matthews 36:53 I really want them to, first and foremost, just feel motivated to achieve their goals on their own timeline. And I say those two things, specifically. One, there's so many students that I've met, even as a freshman in college, who were already told no, you should consider another field. Basically, you're not good enough. So what we try to do on the tour is to motivate them, not just say you can do it, but to actually share the stories of docs that I work with, that I've met over the years that were told, you know, go look somewhere else. You're not good enough. Your grades aren't strong enough everything. But they are successful, and they are helping their communities. So we one first, want them to acknowledge that they can do it, and that perhaps that person that told them no doesn't know them well enough is definitely not serving as a gatekeeper to their future goals number one, but then number two, that they can carve out their own path, right? So maybe they feel as motivated, you know, they're ready to go. They're not listening to the detractors at all. But they don't have to choose a path like I did, or like my friends did or my colleagues did, that they can figure out their own angle, their own path in the healthcare maybe they want to do some advocacy work and get a law degree like me. Maybe they want to do dentistry, but do something more public health, or go into correctional medicine and everything we need all of the above. So I want them to feel positive, but then to not feel scared that maybe what they do hasn't been done yet, and we need them to help us find those solutions, so to be creative. So I encourage them. I motivate them to keep moving forward, but I encourage them to explore.
Janae Sharp 38:50 Yeah, I love that. I'd also love as we're running out of time, what are you looking forward to? Like what excites you most about the future of medicine, of health equity? As you've shared a lot of things that are great. Like, tell us, like,
Kameron Matthews 39:07 Yeah, I think I'm most excited. I think there is an up swelling, swelling around primary care. I'm part of a lot of larger conversations, whether it's with the National Academy of Medicine, or this new partnership we have between Rock Health and the American Academy of Family Physicians, where we are discussing the importance of primary care, the importance of primary care and digital health, the importance of primary care as it's connected to Public Health. I think that that is really beginning to catch a fire, and I think the system will soon recognize that the way that we've proceeded in this very tertiary system is is basically the definition of a sanity. We keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Yeah, so I'm excited for the future of primary care, and I think in providing primary care to everyone, and that's a whole different conversation, how you does a different thing, but in providing primary care, we can actually address equity, because we can talk prevention, we can talk empowerment, chronic disease management, and we can hopefully prevent disease and prolong life and preserve health in a very different way than we are doing now. So primary care, to me, is a tool to achieve equity.
Megan Antonelli 40:36 When I think about that, I mean, I think that's true, and I think that it's obviously it's so important in the sort of foundations of prevention and moving from a sick care system to an actual healthcare system. But when I see also a lot of kind of these point solutions, or even point providers, right? I mean, you have organizations like hims and hers and Ro And and, you know, all great organizations, right? All great and amazing and serving needs that are that are unmet. But when I started thinking about healthcare, and I think about the whole person health, I also think about a medical home, and in some ways, those you know, solutions are getting us access to specialty care that we can't have or that we don't currently have, but on the other hand, putting our health in very different places that then makes it more hard to integrate. Or how do you look at that and sort of approach that you know, either just personally or we
Kameron Matthews 41:39 need the acute response to need. So I don't, I don't deny at all the importance of those services. I've referred patients. I've used some of those services itself, right? So I acknowledge the importance of the point solution. But if the creators, the founders, just at an operational level, aren't thinking about how to integrate that information, that medical decision making, the engagement that they have with the patient, into the primary care world, then we're losing the potential that has clearly been gained because that patient obviously proactively sought out those services, right? So in my mind, I think there's still some additional steps that need to be taken to make sure that it's not just about the B to C solution, but B to C to PCP. I don't know, I just right. It's almost
Megan Antonelli 42:36 like, it's like a reverse triage, right? It's like, you have, you know, it's like, how do you bring it back in to the main point of care, or something? But, yeah, no, I think it's interesting to think about. Well, we know, Janae and I, we talk about good things in healthcare. Some months it's very hard. Some months it's easier. But we always like to ask our guests, you know, what are some good you know, what's a good thing. What's a good thing in healthcare?
Kameron Matthews 43:03 I love the top five good things, huh? So you
Megan Antonelli 43:07 don't have to come up with five. We won't do that, not not this month, at least.
Kameron Matthews 43:14 I think we and you guys have actually had a couple of episodes around this. I think it is a very good thing that we are finally talking about women's health beyond just pregnancy. I think that we as women have a slew of experiences, whether personal or medical, that the medical world is just not prepared for how to address, how to even assess, and I am ecstatic that there's more conversation around shoot, even my para perimenopausal symptoms that I'm having, like, how do we deal with this? You know, we can have these conversations now. Yes, there's still a hell of a lot of gap there, but I am, I think it's a really good thing that we're having this open discussion and that there's more and more solutions coming forward. It needs to be coordinated, it needs to be integrated into primary care, all of that, but it takes this larger conversation, more at a public level. You know, medicine is it suffers from inertia. It takes a while for us to change, as we even talked about with medical education, so we will start to move in that direction. But just the fact that we're talking about the women's experience across their full life spectrum, and not just putting it off as well, you're just getting older and deal with it, I think that's a very good thing.
Megan Antonelli 44:34 Yeah, I agree 100% from many reasons. And yeah, and I think, in fact, we don't. We this month, we had the conversation around, you know, aging and women's health. And, you know, I think in the sick care system, where we just focus on these acute, you know, periods of in that are hospitalized, that are associated with the code, you know, and then that focus on women's health. And the continuum of it is definitely a good thing. So thank you, and thank you for the work that you do and for your you know, throughout your entire career, but I really appreciate you coming on the show and talking with us. What's a good way for people to reach you? Are you on LinkedIn? What's I
Kameron Matthews 45:17 am definitely on LinkedIn. Please easily found, if you, if you search for me, Cameron with a K and yeah, we can, we can definitely be in touch. I'm always eager to learn about new solutions and how to partner, whether it's city block or elsewhere. So yeah, Thanks for, thanks for sharing my story. Well,
Megan Antonelli 45:40 thank you. Well. Thank you so much. Dr Matthews and I really enjoyed speaking with you. Look forward to talking to you soon. Thank you to our audience for joining us on digital health talks, and we This is Megan Antonelli signing off.
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