Combining action and resources for building healthier communities

Local healthcare leaders shared insights and drove cross-sector collaboration over a wide range of subtopics, such as behavioral health and cost of care at Building Healthier Communities, an event sponsored by Healthix at the Museum of Jewish Heritage on Tuesday. 

Following welcoming refreshments provided by Clear, moderator Alexa Mikhail set the tone of the conference with opening remarks that emphasized action with access. Mikhail, senior health and longevity reporter at SHE Media’s Flow Space, also thanked attendees and sponsors on behalf of Todd Rogow, president and chief executive at Healthix. 

CBS News’ Cindy Hsu shared her own mental health journey as the first keynote speaker, offering personal advice and tackling misconceptions around suicide. 

“Research shows that talking about suicide does not put the idea in people’s heads, [it] does not increase the chance of someone attempting. In fact, it may reduce the chances and the person often feels relieved to be able to talk about it openly,” she said at the event, presented by City & State.  Hsu encouraged attendees to look out for those around them who may need support and, if they themselves were the person in need, to not fear asking for help. 

Prefacing the subject of the first panel discussion, Assembly Member Sam Pirozzolo of Staten Island offered insight on how legislators are responding (or can respond) to the city’s efforts to combat substance abuse. 

Having lobbied for his district to receive $12 million in state funding to better disseminate resources to his constituents, Pirozzolo stressed the importance of data-backed action plans that answer the question, “How will this money be spent?” 

The first panel, moderated by Joseph Conte, executive director at the Staten Island Performing Provider System, featured Michael LaRocca, founder and CEO at Ready Computing: Pamela Mattel, CEO at Coordinated Behavioral Care: John R. Cohen, president and chief executive at Talkspace; Eva Wong, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health; and Joshua Rubin, vice president at Health Management Associates. 

Questions discussed AI and the public’s increasing reliance on models that aren’t capable of human-centered nuance, as well as how organizations can leverage partnerships to connect people to resources. 

“[AI] is the biggest threat to mental health today,” said Cohen, who emphasized greater clinical oversight over AI models to address public safety, particularly for youth. 

Rubin advocated for unlearning harmful divisions between substance abuse, mental health, behavioral health and physical health. “Our systems are created to provide care to people, but not for people. It boils down to thinking about outcomes,” he said.

Mattel shared this notion, praising the city for adding services, but asserting that “more services does not equal better care and coherence,” emphasizing data’s role in the implementation of programs, but noted that data cannot exist in a silo. 

Panelists did highlight innovative work being done now to address discrepancies in care and bridge gaps. “Our goal is to open up channels of communication between clinical care and social care providers,” said LaRocca, referring to the possibility of clinicians now being able to “prescribe” social services to patients who need it, as they would medicine. 

At the city level, Wong shared that she and the mayor’s office are “investing in scalable, community-based strategies that strengthen early mental health supports and help prevent crisis before it starts.” 

“Community mental health isn’t just about relocating where care happens – it’s about redefining what care looks like, how it’s made accessible, and who is equipped to deliver it,” she added.

The following panel, moderated by Vanessa Pino Lockel, executive director at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk Co., featured Isaac P. Dapkins, chief medical officer at Family Health Centers at NYU Langone; Wendy Wilcox, chief women’s health officer at NYC Health + Hospitals; Shawnee Benton Gibson, chief executive officer at Spirit of a Woman, LLC; and Patricia O. Loftman, member of the NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene's Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee.

“What is maternal mortality to you?” asked Lockel, prompting panelists to share their testimonials and offer solutions to curb the problem. 

“Maternal mortality is an indication of the health of a community,” said Loftman, succinctly summarizing the panel’s overall sentiment and noting that mortality is a policy choice that can be rectified.

Loftman and Gibson raised several important, under-addressed questions to the audience, seeking the root cause of disparities in care for pregnant women. They both challenged attendees to address what could be their own personal implicit biases or patterns that may keep them from engaging with patients justly. 

On the topic of data and how raw information translates to better care, Dapkins stressed not losing the human side of trying to improve outcomes while using data. “What story are you going to tell with the data?” he said. 

Wilcox expanded on this idea further.

“It’s really [about] being strategic,” she told attendees, referring to effective data collection and getting a good read of communities you serve. “[Many communities are] not in resource-rich environments, [so with the data we have, we are] able to then put resources [in] the communities that can most use [them].” 

Following lunch, sponsored by Intrepid Ascent, John D’Angelo, Northwell Health’s incoming chief executive officer, continued the conference as a second keynote speaker. 

The Bronx native and longtime Long Island resident spoke of his long journey through the ranks at Northwell, as well as issues and respective solutions for New York’s largest health system in the near future. 

“If we truly want to create greater access and have a real impact on outcomes, we must take action now,” D’Angelo said, touching on everything from hospitals’ increasing financial strains to an aging New York to the role of community support in sustaining healthy communities. 

A third panel addressed cost of care and ways industry leaders are getting creative in attempts to ease financial distress on New Yorkers in need.

The panel featured Allison Sesso, president and chief executive at Undue Medical Debt; Avital Havusha, vice president for programs at New York Health Foundation; Eliza Ng, chief medical officer at CAIPA IPA & MSO; Paul Nagle, executive director at Stonewall Community Development Corporation; Errol Pierre, chief growth officer at Healthfirst, and was moderated by Michael Costa, senior vice president at EmblemHealth. 

Nagle shared work that his organization was doing to advance social mobility among Millennial and Gen X LGBTQ individuals who lack paths to equity and ownership. By training them to become home aids for senior LGBTQ homeowners who require safe, non-discriminatory care and, additionally, have assets with no beneficiaries to pass them onto, both crises are mitigated. 

Additionally, Sesso explained how her company Undue buys patient medical debt in the same fashion as for-profit companies, “but we take donated dollars and relieve all of the debts for the individuals,” amounting to $22 billion wiped for roughly 14 million people. 

Though there is progress on trying to alleviate rising costs, panelists unanimously raised concern over the Trump administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” that has taken sweeping aim at funding and heightened pressure on medical debt holders in particular, reducing the public’s likelihood to seek care, even if necessary. 

Before one final panel, addressing housing’s relation to chronic conditions, New York City Council Member Gale Brewer shared how her team has dealt with housing and mental health issues in her district. In telling several stories of her constituents that she’s helped, she pointed out financial strain as a major symptom of unstable housing and, in turn, mental struggles. “Half of households in New York City are rent-burdened, paying more than 30% of their household income,” she said. 

The last panel featured Virginia Shubert, senior advisor at Housing Works; Laurie Lanphear, executive director at NY Health Home Coalition; Jeremy L. Kaplan, executive director at Encore Community Services; Van Yu, chief medical officer at the Center for Urban Community Services at Janian Medical Care and was moderated by Allan Clear, director at the AIDS Institute of the state Department of Health. 

Kaplan, arriving to his current role having worked mostly with younger people, said,  “The first thing that struck me was how unaware I was as a New Yorker about the scope and profound need of older adults in New York City,” going on to discuss the reality for many New Yorkers of “aging in the shadows” and pointing out that people over 65 are the fastest growing demographic in both the city and state. 

Lanphear and Shubert highlighted the intersectional need for stable and accessible housing as it relates to a number of different living experiences throughout the state. Lanphear noted, for example, homeless individuals in rural environments face significant barriers that individuals in urban environments do not, such as lack of transportation, lack of surfaces (and in turn, places to rest), and more often that not, lack of resources as a whole. Shubert emphasized the need for stable housing for people living with HIV, as there can be a correlation among people living with the disease, substance abuse, and rent burden.

Though, Lanphear said, federal cuts put several programs and resources at risk, “I think that’s where we have a unique opportunity … to come together in partnership and do things differently than we have in the past to ensure that these folks are getting the services they need.”

Yu closed the panel, stressing trust as a means of connecting with at-risk populations, particularly homeless individuals with substance abuse struggles who may be averse to accepting help initially. 

“The relationship is the treatment. Nothing good happens unless the person offering the care has a relationship with the person who might accept the service.”

Other presenters at the event were InterSystems, ready Computing, verato, CLEAR, healthfirst, Intrepid Ascent, Northwell Health, AHEAD, Garfunkel Wild, HSG, IMA, JakcsonLewis, NetApp, PKF O’Connor Davies, PrestivePEO and New York State Public Health Association.