At PI, we seek to partner with companies that we believe have uncommon potential. Our evergreen established capital base allows us to invest over long-time horizons and act as a sounding board for entrepreneurs, helping them tap into growth opportunities. We deploy capital using a synergistic crossover strategy, leveraging our understanding of public markets and operational benchmarks to the benefit of our partner companies through their evolution.
Today, we are excited to announce a new partnership with Taylor Justice and Dan Brillman, along with the rest of the Unite Us team. We are inspired by Unite Us’ mission to broaden the access to social care across communities. We view social determinants of health as a key area of innovation to drive significant improvements in overall healthcare parameters and are thrilled to partner with Unite Us in this journey!
Social determinants of health are becoming an increasingly important driver for better patient outcomes
Our healthcare system has made incredible progress in the recent decades providing scalable solutions to conditions previously considered untreatable. However, we have also repeatedly come across points of failure created from an overburdened system and inequitable access to basic needs. A common thread we have seen across many innovations in healthcare delivery has been to replicate in house some aspects of social care to improve clinical outcomes and patient experience.
An increasing amount of literature indicates that social determinants of health (SDoH) have a significant impact on people’s health and quality of life. Data indicates that the US spends significantly more on healthcare than other developed countries but spends relatively lower on social services, impacting overall quality of outcomes despite the higher healthcare spend. Studies show that as much as 40–50% of a person’s health status is influenced by SDoH factors.
Given the rising healthcare costs, SDoH is becoming an area of focus for policy makers, healthcare providers and payors. There have been steps by CMS towards this direction, encouraging initiatives to address SDoH factors[1] to improve beneficiary health outcomes. Going forward, we anticipate that strengthening and improving access to social services will be one of the key pillars to improving overall health outcomes in the US.
Unite Us is at the forefront of SDoH innovations
Throughout our diligence process, we were impressed with the feedback from key stakeholders and the variety of issues Unite Us was addressing. The company’s platform fills a key gap within healthcare delivery, for all stakeholders of the social care ecosystem, including providers, payors, governments and community based organizations. Providers immensely value the ability to close the loop with patients under their care, once they move outside the healthcare system. Within this closed loop system, providers can create more holistic care plans to improve patient outcomes and experience. For payors, the platform enables them to offer more than just healthcare services, improving member experience and quality of life for their most underserved and vulnerable member groups. Beyond the care coordination networks, Unite Us is creating a platform which facilitates two-way communication between all stakeholders within a community, which provides value to all participants and especially to state and local governments working to address health disparities in their populations. With the shift to value-based care models, all stakeholders view Unite Us as a critical partner for execution of their core services.
Unite Us is the market leader in this segment, significantly ahead of peers both in terms of reach and the breadth of products and services on offer. The progress made by the company over the last 2–3 years is incredible, further bolstered through recent acquisitions of NowPow and Carrot Health. Taylor, Dan and the rest of the Unite Us team have built what we view as the “operating system” for social care delivery which can be used for a highly scalable portfolio of services across many stakeholders. Throughout this period of exponential growth and while dealing with a diverse set of customers, the company has been able to deliver high quality experience for its customers, based on the feedback we received from several large players within the healthcare system.
Even with the developments over the last 2–3 years, we believe we are only at the start of the changes in the SDoH space. As the market leader, we expect Unite Us to drive a lot of the innovation in this space. We are thankful to Taylor, Dan and the entire Unite Us team for patiently engaging with us through the process. We are excited to begin what we hope will be a long and fruitful partnership!
[1] https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cms-issues-new-roadmap-states-address-social-determinants-health-improve-outcomes-lower-costs