Dr. Jackleen Samuel was taken back by the unsettling truth of how money influenced healthcare, often neglecting patient well-being. Witnessing her father’s frequent and prolonged hospital visits, she recognized the pressing need to foster equity and access to care. She envisioned utilizing technology to bring healthcare directly to the patients’ homes and communities, sparing patients from inconvenient and often unnecessary hospital trips.
“By leveraging technology and addressing social determinants of health and patient behavior, I believed interventions at home could lead to healthier patients and prevent hospitalizations,” the health-tech CEO of Dallas-based Resilient Healthcare stated. “We become their support, empowering patients to take control of their health and treating them right at home when things don’t go as planned.”
Driven by this vision, she and her team recognized that a robust technology platform, coupled with comprehensive clinician education and a multidisciplinary approach, held the key to accomplishing their transformative goal. She founded Resilient Healthcare in 2018 and announced Taxi Health, the pioneering Care Anywhere Platform, in 2023. “By connecting patients with providers while efficiently managing clinician dispatching and virtual healthcare, we’ve been able to witness remarkable patient outcomes and reduce costs!”
This success story below is being shared with permission from the patient:
Like many patients with peripheral neuropathy, Archie Coleman was in pain. A lot of pain.
“This went on for nine months, as I went from doctor to doctor,” said the 69-year-old Coleman, who lives in Houston. “Finally, I changed my primary doctor, and my new doctor put me in the hospital – for four days. It was very stressful.”
Once her health was stabilized, she was released from the hospital. But the instructions from the doctor about what to do next were a blur. “This was a confusing time,” said Coleman.
It only got worse when she stopped by her pharmacy to pick up her medication. Overwhelmed with the instructions from the pharmacist, the dispirited Coleman returned home. She then started taking too little of her prescribed medication and, predictably, the pain returned. “I could not navigate the medications,” said the mother of three, and grandmother of seven.
Coleman returned to her old way of treating the pain, smoking two pack of cigarettes a day.
Coleman was referred to Resilient Healthcare through her insurance company.
Unfortunately, Coleman’s story is far too common, noted Alysa Newman, RN, and the VP of Nursing for Resilient Healthcare.
“The fact that Coleman had gone back to smoking is one of the little things our nurses would catch when we extend the care to the home,” said Newman. “Doctors wouldn’t see it because he or she doesn’t spend time in the patients’ home environment.”
Coleman has always felt like her pain was overlooked. “I am half black and feel I was treated differently by the healthcare system due to my ethnicity. When I grew up, doctors were Gods. For a long time, I thought it was me, but when I got older and started talking about it, I realized it wasn’t. We are overlooked. I didn’t know how big of an impact them not seeming to care had on me. I have never been empowered until this program.”
When asked why she never asked questions about her care, she responded, “We don’t have the vocabulary in our culture. We don’t know what questions to ask to take care of ourselves. We weren’t raised to. We were taught that the doctors know it and we don’t question.”
“My pain was overlooked for years. Years. I was asking for pain meds. They thought I was drug seeking. Tamika (Nurse Practitioner with Resilient Healthcare) made one phone call and I got pain meds. No one listened to me until this program.”
Newman’s enthusiasm is palpable.
“No one has ever done this before. We’re taking on patients, who are chronically going back and forth to the hospital,” she said. “We’re investigating why they aren’t taking care of their health. What we are finding is that it is not because they don’t want to get healthier. The system is failing them.”
Coleman said the change has been “amazing.”
“Every day, I have either gotten a call or a visit,” she said. “If it is a call, they ask me about my vital signs, as they monitor them remotely. Or I will ask them about a medication I am taking because I am unsure how often to take the pills.”
Cheryl Gantt an RN who is part of Newman’s team at Resilient and Coleman’s virtual caregiver, elaborated on Coleman’s comment. “It’s like, ‘Hey, this is what this means, and this is the medicine that goes along with that, and this is why you should take this.’ It’s just teaching them step by step about how to manage their own health”.
“When you see that light bulb go off for them, it’s powerful. They’re like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know I even had that’ or ‘I didn’t even know that this could cause X, Y, and Z.’ By the end of their time with us in our program, they’ve got it. They understand what they’re supposed to do and how they’re supposed to do it. The relationship with their doctors is a lot better. For example, I have one patient that we graduated from the program, and I spoke with him two days ago and he is driving himself wherever he wants to go, he couldn’t do that before. People are getting their independence back, which is just what it’s all about.”
Coleman can taste that independence.
“I couldn’t even walk before,” she said. “While I still have a little pain, I can walk now. They’ve convinced me to stop smoking, well almost. I am down to one cigarette a day. I’m not done, either. I want to be able bicycle 20 miles a day.”
“We’re just scratching the surface with this program,” Cheryl said, then elaborated on the “Taxi Health System” that Resilient Healthcare has created.
“We use it with our nurses, our physical therapists, our social workers, our nurse practitioners, our office staff and so on. It’s all streamlined”.
“I can send a link to a patient and do video chat with the patient, and their vital signs, my notes, and everything that I need is right there. That technology and other applications have been a huge game changer for me, as well as patients like Coleman.”
