M-RCBG Senior Fellow-Led Study Group: Alexandra Schweitzer
Alleviating the Social Drivers of Health During the COVID-19 Crisis: Lessons from Leading SDOH Partnerships
Wednesday, June 17, 4:00-5:00 PM (Eastern time)
Register for the Webinar HERE
The COVID-19 crisis underscores the urgency of strategic, well-targeted programs to address food insecurity, housing instability, and loneliness. These and other “social determinants of health” (SDOH) are well known to exacerbate chronic conditions and increase unnecessary utilization of emergency rooms and inpatient care.
Since the onset of the pandemic, food insecurity has skyrocketed. Housing instability is likely to grow as unemployment persists and eviction moratoriums expire. Social distancing may exacerbate social isolation. As a result, a secondary effect of the coronavirus crisis may be preventable declines in health, particularly among lower-income populations.
Many health care organizations are well positioned to rise to these challenges through their programs and community-based partnerships to address SDOH. In this webinar, leaders at the forefront of SDOH innovation will outline how they are reshaping their programs as they transition through COVID-19 response, recovery, and eventual rebuilding.
Moderator:
- Alexandra Schweitzer, Senior Fellow, Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government, Harvard Kennedy School
Panelists:
- Caraline Coats, Vice President, Bold Goal & Population Health Strategy
- Andrew Renda, MD, Associate Vice President, Population Health, Humana
- Katherine Keir, Hawai’i State Director of Clinical Redesign, UnitedHealthcare
- Alexandra De Kesel Lofthus, Director of Health Care Partnerships, Second Harvest Heartland
Alexandra Schweitzer is expert at leading complex new ventures and transformation initiatives from strategy through successful execution. She combines entrepreneurial passion and drive with the ability to navigate through large organizations and alliances, balancing mission and business discipline. Her systems perspective is grounded in deep senior leadership experience as a P&L owner, a product portfolio manager, a client services executive, and the head of departments and teams with multi-million-dollar budgets. Her health care sector experience spans payers, providers, state government, and specialized analytics and managed care organizations. Population health strategist and builder: Alexandra has built and led value-based integrated systems of care, including tools to address social determinants of health, in innovative accountable care and provider-payer organizations, including: i) A “partnership model” Medicaid ACO under the new Massachusetts delivery system reform program; ii) Iora Health, a venture capital-backed startup nationally known for its relationship-driven, technology-enabled care model, predominantly for Medicare Advantage members; and iii) The Tufts Health Plan Senior Care Options (SCO) program for dual eligible seniors, which she built and ran. Practical strategic planner: As a business leader, a consultant, and a hands-on not-for-profit board member, Alexandra has led the development of numerous mission-critical strategic plans. She emphasizes broad input from stakeholders, alignment of mission and financial goals, and a strong focus on execution to achieve results. Innovative board leader: Alexandra is the Board President of Goddard House, an assisted living residence in Brookline, MA, where she is driving a major organizational transformation to develop innovative programs serving isolated seniors in the Greater Boston community. As a LeadingAge board member, she initiated and led a cross-sector workgroup to promote tightly-integrated programs using affordable senior housing as a platform for health. She was the Board Vice Chair of the Visiting Nurse Association of Boston and led their strategic planning committee. Alexandra has a Master’s in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a B.A. in English and American Literature from Brandeis University. A lifelong learner, she has completed an executive MBA at Columbia University and certificates in strategic selling, large account management, and project management. Her research project as a senior fellow is entitled, Addressing Social Determinants of Health: Why Some Initiatives Thrive and Others Don’t. Her faculty sponsor is Dutch Leonard, George F. Baker, Jr. Professor of Public Management at Harvard Kennedy School, and Eliot I. Snider and Family Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Email: aschweitzer@hks.harvard.edu