40 – Addressing Addiction with Nzinga Harrison, MD

Marcus: [00:00:00] Welcome to Health Further and our new guest expert series, Dr. Nzingha Harrison, who is co founder at Eleanor Health and recent. Author published author, uh, of, of an amazing book called unaddiction. Uh, and my good friend who, uh, she and I met in the Aspen health innovators fellowship. So, and Zingo, welcome to the show.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Thank you, Marcus. Good to be here. Good to see you, Vic also.

Marcus: Yeah. Good to see you. Um, so, so, and Zingo, let’s, let’s just start with a, with a quick, uh, bit of background for our listeners on, uh, on who you are, you know, professionally. I think if they go follow you, which we absolutely will. Uh, ensure that they will after listening to this episode, they’ll get to learn a lot more about you personally, but just frame up who you are professionally because we’re going to dig into the topic of addiction, something that Vic and I’ve had a growing interest [00:01:00] in, uh, but definitely feel like we are not that well educated on.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Yeah. So you’re in, um, good company with most people who have a lot to learn about addiction. Um, so super excited to be here to do that with you this morning. A little bit on me. So I’m a physician, double board certified in psychiatry and addiction medicine. I’ve been practicing both for over 20 years. So before kind of the public became super interested in the opioid overdose crisis, been taking care of folks, um, and their support system and loved ones who’ve been struggling with.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: all addictions. Opioids included alcohol, tobacco, um, methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, et cetera. And so, um, my specialties being psychiatry and addiction medicine, I consider myself a physician activist entrepreneur. And so you, Mention that I’m co founder of Eleanor Health. We co founded the company in May 2019 with the goal to transform, [00:02:00] excuse me, how addictions care is delivered as well as how it is paid for.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: So we do value based care and population health management for individuals with substance use disorder. And in whole person model. Um, and then from an activist perspective, like you said, if your folks ultimately follow me on social media, I’m on all of the platforms. I really think it’s important to use our voices to push forward all of those industries that touch us.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: So I was raised by. Two activists. My father was commander of the black Panther militia. When I was growing up, my mother was a public school teacher. Um, and so that’s my approach to life more important than anything. I’m a mother to two boys, 17 and 18, one in college, one going next year. Um, and married to my husband, Joel, who is the rock that holds down the craziness that is in Zinga Harrison.

Marcus: And Zinga, that was a great rundown, uh, on your background and, and why you’re on the show today. Um, it’s January [00:03:00] 2024. I think that people are becoming more and more aware of, uh, the breadth of, of addiction in society. I’ll say for, for us here in Nashville, it really sort of hit home for us. Uh, probably five years ago when our mayor, uh, at the time, Megan Barry lost her son while she was in office.

Marcus: Um, her son, Max Barry, uh, passed away from, from an overdose while he was in college. And I think, you know, that was just one of those things where I think everyone realized it can happen to anyone, right? Yeah. Um, it’s not just the people you may be driving by on the street or things like that. Like it can happen to anyone and for better or worse, those kinds of things, I think, bring issues like this into people’s awareness, um, in a way that it doesn’t, if they don’t have.

Marcus: You know, touch somebody who they, who they know. And there’s also been a lot of documentaries now that, that have come out. There’ve been a lot of shows, um, euphoria, you know, um, on, on, on HBO max. And so this [00:04:00] topic is now entering the mainstream through a variety of different, um, you know, storytelling mechanisms, you know, what would you say?

Marcus: is, um, in your view as, as a physician, as an expert, uh, what would you say is, is the, the level of understanding that the general public has around this? Um, is it, is it sufficient? Is it approaching sufficiency or is it truly like we have no idea what’s actually going on?

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Yeah, truly no idea. And so even as we start to think about the increasing idea that folks have as a result of the opioid overdose epidemic, which has been devastating, we’re recreating the same mistake.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: So I really loved what you said, which is, um, it can happen to anyone that has actually been affected by the opioid epidemic. Been a very, um, dense stigma and strategy, [00:05:00] honestly, to protect ourselves from the pain of addiction is to think that it’s happening to everyone else. When in reality, 46 percent of Americans know someone who has or has struggled with an addiction.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: That’s one out of two. That’s everybody. That’s every single one of us in this room. And so, yes, it can happen to anyone. I loved what you said, which was this concept that addiction is the person who has lost their house, lost their family, living in the street, begging money, trying to wash your windshield.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: You know, that is the most severest form of the illness. So I always equate this to like cancer. You can think of that as like stage four metastatic. end of life disease. We also have addiction that is mild, moderate and severe. And that’s the 46 percent of people we know. That’s the person when you’re like, I know if they come to this party, they’re going to get smashed.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: I know if we go on vacation, we might have [00:06:00] a risk. you know, because we can do drugs recreationally, but it gets a little bit out of control for this person. And so the mistake we’re recreating with the opioid overdose crisis is again, focusing only on the opioid when that is actually among the smallest number of deaths that we see.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: And they’re devastating because your person is here today. They’re gone tomorrow. That’s why it hits us in the heart. And that’s why it’s been able to bring along the compassion, which has been very important. But I’ll just drop you some statistics. Before, before I drop these sad statistics, I’ll drop the most important statistic, which is that 75 percent of people with addiction recover.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: The majority of Americans think that addiction is not treatable. The same is true in healthcare, that stigma. So 75 percent of people with addictions recover. That’s in a system that sucks. So imagine, [00:07:00] imagine, right? Drug use is a choice, okay? 22 percent of people use illicit drugs in the last year. That does not count alcohol or cigarettes.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Or in those states where marijuana is legal. That does not count that. That’s one in five. So the idea that everybody else is using drugs, everybody is using drugs. That’s one in five. When we look at who had an addiction last year, this is to your point, Marcus, about it not just being the person with the stage four metastatic illness.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Sixteen percent of people in the last year met criteria for a substance use disorder. That’s one in six. But we’re not talking about it that way. We’re talking about it as if it’s some small group of everybody else, when it is every single one of us. Right. And of those one in six, 94 percent did not get connected to any care or support of any kind.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Those are devastating [00:08:00] statistics. And so when we think about what do we know, and you mentioned earlier on that I just, my book just came out, it’s called Unaddiction, which is a word I made up, right? Undo. unlearn what we think we know, undo the stigma that’s killing people, uncover the conversations that we need to have.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: So thank you for having this conversation. We know that you can’t just only treat opioid use disorder, but as healthcare investors, you will hear so many companies trying to do that. We know that you cannot only treat substance use disorders. So we’ll treat opioid use disorder. We’ll treat the other substances that come in also.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: That is great. That is a step in the right direction. As health care investors, you will hear that you, we know you have to treat the co occurring mental health conditions. 80 percent of people have another mental health condition. And for your listeners, substance use disorders or mental health conditions, I will fight [00:09:00] you if you say otherwise, right?

Nzinga Harrison, MD: All originating in the brain. We know your childhood traumas, increase your risk for substance use disorder. We know your physical health conditions can increase your risk for substance use disorder. We know the medications that you are prescribed can increase your risk for substance use disorders. We know 40 to 60 percent of your risk for developing an addiction was coded in your DNA the day you were born.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: And so until we have health solutions, that are addressing all of those factors, we will continue to get the dismal outcomes that we’re getting. Sorry. I don’t even know what question you asked me, but That

Vic: was great

Nzinga Harrison, MD: As

Vic: we talked about, uh previously i’ve been trying to read your stuff I haven’t finished the book yet, but listen to the podcast and one of the examples you gave that really struck home for me is uh, comparing [00:10:00] substance abuse to asthma You And sort of pointing out that asthma has causes that are linked to genetics.

Vic: It has environmental, it has psychological aspects, and it has biological aspects.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: That’s right. And

Vic: so if we’re going to treat asthma, we need to Of course, you can’t change your genes, but we should address everything else. And that includes medicines, but it also includes looking at your environment and trying to, like, take away things that are gonna aggravate that.

Vic: And that substance abuse is the exact same. It has the same profile of, There’s a, as you just mentioned, there’s a genetic aspect to it, but there’s also a psychological and environmental and biologic aspect. And instead of kind of blaming the victim, the person that is in this situation, We should try to help them.

Vic: So I, I want you just to sort of correct me where I made mistakes and talk [00:11:00] through that, that evolution maybe of our healthcare system to move from, um, treatment for, I mean, I’ve, I’ve had various addictions and things and I’m in counseling and a group, men’s group, all kinds of stuff. I’m better now. Uh, but it’s, it’s a work in progress forever, right?

Vic: And I think that’s part of my journey. I think, what is the process where a healthcare system can sort of get, uh, more comfortable treating everyone with whatever they need help with? It might be a traditional, uh, health, uh, indication, it might be a behavioral health indication, and try to remove that stigma and just kind of get everything, get all the resources brought to bear.

Vic: How do you think about that journey that we’re on?

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Yeah, so you said, um, correct you where you went wrong. You did great. You did great, but I’m going to pull out just a couple of opportunities for improvement. Yes. [00:12:00] Substance abuse, please, everybody, strike it from your language. Abuse is a crime, and that is one of the unintentional ways that we drive the stigma.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: And this is not your fault, Vic. Literally, you got that from medical terminology. We used to diagnose substance abuse. We now diagnose substance use disorder, because we’re trying, one, to be medically appropriate and not stigmatize. Our patients, but our patients experience like the most amount of, um, stigma inside the medical establishment to congratulations on being on the recovery journey.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: That is amazing. Thank you for saying it out loud on this podcast because everybody thinks being on a recovery journey is like incompatible. With being like a high powered health care investor and the two are actually incredibly compatible. You hit the nail on the head, [00:13:00] biological, psychological, environmental.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: This has to do with all chronic medical conditions. And so like the foundational belief that I need for people to understand that mental health care is traditional health care is for every chronic health condition. If you are not addressing. The biological, psychological and environmental aspects when you have a condition that is relapsing and remitting, so falling a little bit into medical language there.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: What that means is, um, during a time you have the symptoms of an illness, you get diagnosed. We execute. Hopefully, a biological, psychological, environmental set of interventions. Your symptoms go away, you are in remission. Right? So in the substance use disorder world, remission and recovery kind of get used interchangeably, but it just means you don’t have the symptoms of your illness.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: So your blood pressure can be [00:14:00] in remission. Your asthma can be in remission. Your cancer can be in remission. When the symptoms come back, that is a relapse. Right. And people don’t relapse illnesses, relapse. So if you have a substance use disorder, we execute a beautiful bio psycho environmental plan. Your symptoms go in remission, and then the symptoms of that substance use disorder come back.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: That is a relapse. You can think of it like having a flat tire. Yes, you can stop using drugs, that’s only one of the nails in the tire. Psychologically, you didn’t take the nail out. environmentally. You didn’t take the nail out. So why does the tire keep getting flat even though you keep putting air in it?

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Because there are still nails. So what we have to think about from a healthcare perspective, and this has been a learning journey. So diabetes, it used to just be take insulin. [00:15:00] Now it’s take insulin, reduce your stress, exercise, get a nutritionist. All of this has become standard of care. Those are bio, psycho, environmental.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Interventions, right? Those are taking the nails out of the diabetes tire. And so how do we apply what we already know about chronic health conditions to the chronic health condition of addiction?

Marcus: So using Vic’s question and statement as a segue, you know, something that’s that’s interesting that that he and I have never explicitly talked about this, but I think we probably agree that it’s true.

Marcus: So, so in Zynga, um, Vic and I basically stopped drinking at the same time, right? Yeah. Like, like basically at the same time. And I think what’s, what’s really interesting is like, we just kind of came to that decision. Um, and you know, we’re, we’re, This is our 10th year in, in like full time business together.

Marcus: Prior to that, [00:16:00] we were like working nights and weekends for five, six years together, right? So, you know, it’s like, we actually don’t hang out on the weekends or anything like that. I love you, but I see

Vic: enough of you.

Marcus: You get enough of

Nzinga Harrison, MD: each other during the week.

Marcus: Exactly, exactly. Like, like, you know, this is, this is, uh, you know, kind of, this is my work partner and we’ve been at this for a long time.

Marcus: But just thinking about sort of the, the environmental peace. We both, like, had different approaches to how we handled therapy and all that other kind of stuff, but I do think that when we both sort of made that decision, it was probably, you know, incredibly beneficial for each one of us that, like, there wasn’t this, like, fissure in what one was trying to do, where the other one was like, Uh, you know, whatever.

Marcus: No, I’m, I’m, you know what I mean? Like, like there was, there was, there was a level of alignment there that, that provided environmental support. I’ll just speak for myself. I just kind of took for granted, you know, like I was just like, [00:17:00] I never really thought about how the fact that you stopped at the same time as, as me was like, incredibly supportive to just my day in and day out environment.

Marcus: You know, just because we spend so much time together. So, I say all that to say, like, When we were all in, in, uh, Philadelphia and, and, and, and we, we ended up, uh, going out into the field and Vic and I’ve already talked about this on the podcast when we went out into, into Kensington and the surrounding areas, you know, and then we debriefed later on.

Marcus: One of the things that I remember being so, uh, so, so impacted by was community, right? The, the, the fact that, you know, as you said, people focus on, you know, People who are dealing with a disorder of addiction, um, as sort of, they’re abusing something. There’s sort of a moral [00:18:00] judgment on them. And then, you know, that they’re all sort of together, uh, gathering in this sort of moral, you know, quandary that they’re in and they need to kind of get themselves together.

Marcus: And, um, it was, it was really. Amazing to watch the care on display that, that people in that community had for each other. And so I’m wondering from the Eleanor health perspective, because I believe you guys like came out of, um, uh, you guys get like town hall ventures and oxygem and all, all that kind of stuff.

Marcus: Right. Yeah. So, so you’ve got a pretty strong Medicaid focus. I would imagine. Is that, is that correct? We serve, yeah, we serve across all three lines of business. Okay. Can you talk a little bit about what you have learned? And what your views are on how to address the environmental aspect in communities where they are, you know, socioeconomically [00:19:00] disadvantaged or, you know, just don’t have as many resources, right?

Marcus: You know, because I think I think for us, this was like one of those things where. We have a lot, we have a lot of big and I have a lot of resources, right? So when we decided we wanted to make that change, okay, you know, I got into therapy, he got into a men’s group, blah, blah, blah. We did all these things, but then that, that community support that just was there, it was like implicit was, was super beneficial.

Marcus: And, and our, our shared identities went from guys who worked hard and drank to guys who work hard and don’t drink. And like, just having that shared identity, I think was, was, it was probably

Vic: something about, uh, Role models and peer pressure being the same side of this of one coin really like I don’t know You probably know more about that.

Vic: So I’ll be quiet and let you sort of describe it But that’s what was really helpful for me. Like, okay, someone else I respect and as a role model for me is also on this journey And there’s strength in that kind of, and you, I mean, we see it all the time in TV shows and in [00:20:00] literature that peer pressure can be sort of defined and set in the other way, but it can be for good too.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Yeah, I love that. And I actually spent a lot of time on this in Unaddiction because at our very basic neurobiological constitution, we are pack animals. And we need a PAC, right? That PAC is based in acceptance for who you are just because that is who you are. And so what I love Marcus and Vic about what you both said, one of the ways we get so tripped up is like, this person is an addict.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: There’s also a whole section on things we’re going to stop saying. First one was substance abuse. And second, it’s like calling people addicts because. The illness is not the only thing about you or the most important thing about you. And so Marcus, you even did it naturally just now. You were like, we went from being two guys who work hard and drink hard to two guys who work hard and don’t drink.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: [00:21:00] You see how drink hard and don’t drink came second because that’s not the central focus of who you conceptualize yourself to be. And so even when we were in Kensington with folks struggling from stage four metastatic severity of substance use disorders, that does not undermine the human element. And healing that is compassion and community.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: And the opposite of compassion, community, and connection is illness. So like, that is the fastest way to make people sicker. And so to get to your question, Marcus, which is funny because I know I’ll be like, talk, talk, talk. And you’re like, did she hear the question? Yes. About how to address. Adjust the environment of people that have fewer resources.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Compassion and connection are actually free. And I think what we’ve learned at Eleanor Health, it’s, we have great NPS scores, and it’s a, it’s a bit of an indictment when your Google [00:22:00] reviews say they treated me like a human. I felt like people really cared. I know I can count on them. Right? Because that’s not what their health care experience has been.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: The substance, the traditional substance use disorder health care experience. One, you have to stand up and say the substance is the cause of all of my problems and it’s the only thing that matters and I’m going to quit completely or else you’re not worthy of treatment. Two, you have to let somebody tell you what to do and you don’t have any say because you can’t make good decisions or you wouldn’t be in this position anyway.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Three, when you have symptoms of your illness, whether that’s anger, depression, anxiety, continued substance use, you get kicked out of care and told it’s because you don’t want to be better. Four, There’s only one formula, right? So, like, what if for all cancers, there was only one chemo regimen? What if there was only [00:23:00] one?

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, skin cancer, thyroid cancer. We have one regimen, and if it doesn’t work, that’s because you don’t want your cancer to go away. This is what substance use disorder care has been about. So, what we’ve learned at Eleanor Health, one, if it matters, This is a business principle.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: You measure it. So if you care, if social drivers of health matters, you measure it. And when we measure it, guess what? Number one is not housing from our community members perspective, their social needs. Number one is not housing and we’re serving low income communities. Number one is not transportation.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Number one is not paying for my medications. Number one is companionship. Okay. And number two is food insecurity. And so that was shocking to us because we thought we knew until we [00:24:00] actually started asking people about their needs. And so we’ve learned one, you have to ask to, you have to be prepared to individualize the formula for each person.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: And the only way you can scale an individualized business is data and technology. So that’s what we’ve learned.

Vic: Yeah. So Eleanor. Is it fair to say that, um, I mean, we’ve been using cancer a lot, 50 years ago, cancer treatment was pretty early stage black box. No, no real, no way it’d help you. Like we’ll keep you comfortable.

Vic: And then now 50 years later, we’re not, we’re not at the finish line, but we’ve made incredible progress on all the different, uh, ways we at least keep you with a good quality of life and long life for longer. Not that people don’t die of cancer, but it strikes me that, Behavioral health and, and, um, psychiatry is maybe at that cusp of like, we maybe like 10 years ago, we didn’t know much and Eleanor and you and others.

Vic: I [00:25:00] really kind of pushing that and uncovering new treatment protocols. Talk about what you see and maybe, um, is there signs of hope in Illinois and other other companies that are beginning to do it a new way?

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Yeah, 100 percent there are signs of hope and I think you’re spot on, Vic. That’s exactly how I think about it.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: So the difference being 50 years ago. We didn’t know a lot about cancer. Um, I actually, I don’t think it’s a difference. The same, the same thing 50 years ago, we didn’t know a lot about cancer. We had to develop the motivation to become cancer experts and that motivation developed in different ways. Right.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: But environmentally is not just your physical environment. It’s also your cultural environment. And so it is critically important that NFL football players wear pink in the month of October. It’s critically important for the advancement of [00:26:00] cancer treatment and technology. It also used to just be chemo.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Now, like, standard protocol is depending on the cancer, depending on your genetics, right? Depending on the cancer, depending on your genotype. But it also is going to be biological. It’s going to be chemo. It’s going to be radiology. It’s going to be a therapist. It’s going to be a support system for your family.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: It’s going to be a care coordinator. It’s going to be a nutritionist. It’s going to be a cancer trained psychiatrist. They really have figured out this whole person.

Vic: And it’s because they did research and all of those things contribute to recovery, cancer recovery, instead of calling it remission. Exactly

Nzinga Harrison, MD: right.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: And so now, I think you’re generous to say we’re on the precipice because I think we’re far from the precipice. I think we are walking that direction. But first, we even have to get people to understand that substance use disorders and other behavioral health conditions are not a [00:27:00] person’s personality.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: They’re not a person’s personality and they’re not a person’s choices. And that can be really hard because the symptoms are thoughts, feelings, emotions, behaviors, and that’s the way we define who you are. But this illness is not who you are. And I think that’s what the opioid overdose epidemic has done for us.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: It’s helped people to start separate drug use, drug addiction from personality. And then when you can see that people are suffering, that starts to develop the motivation to get to these new treatment protocols. So I think we’re walking that way, but it’s Eleanor Health and a few other innovators. And we need it to be an industry expectation.

Marcus: So can I just, uh, double click on that real quick? You know, you, you started this conversation saying that you [00:28:00] are a physician and activist and an entrepreneur and, and, and you absolutely are, are all three of those things. And it makes me wonder sort of as a, uh, as an investor who, uh, Certainly wants to generate returns, but wants to actually like make an impact in society through those investments, right?

Marcus: Like we want it. We want to invest. I mean, you know, we invest in companies, but really we invest in founders. Um, it strikes me that, uh, more so than many companies we see in, in the, in the healthcare venture space, um, You are having to spend a lot of time in that activist seat, and some of that just may be naturally a matter of who you are, right?

Marcus: Some of that may just be a matter of who you are, but I think it also is key to, to the business because there, there is a, there’s a need to advocate for a different model. Um, if we’re going to make progress here, sort of, as you said, right? Um, [00:29:00] The real valuable things here are often free. Uh, you know, yet getting to the point where you knew that and understood that required data and technology, right?

Marcus: And so there is a, there’s absolutely a place for venture backed companies in this space to advance things, but at the same time they require, uh, Advocates, uh, you know, competent advocates who can run a company and do all the things to make the company make money, right? You know, it has to do all that stuff has to be clinically validated.

Marcus: So that physician piece is really critical But the advocacy piece is is really really important. So as as investors, I mean when we talk about It’s one thing to look at the market and look at the payer models and say, okay, we know we’re not there yet, you know, but do you feel that you have, um, sort of sufficient colleagues, uh, you know, and comrades in, in your space that are at least, you know, maybe they’re not yet at the entrepreneur space, but sort of that [00:30:00] physician slash activists advocate piece.

Marcus: Do you think there are those sufficient leaders out there that we as investors can sort of look for? Thank you. Um, as potential investable founders to, to continue to sort of advance, um, you know, innovation in this space.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Um, I definitely do think so, but I think they’re hidden. They’re like hidden uncovered gems because in general healthcare as an institution.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: kills your entrepreneurial spirit and also just like kills your spirit in general, right? The process of medical training is, I don’t even have words for like what it is, but we’re literally being trained to think like this, follow the evidence base, only do what you already found in the literature. And so you find those.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Entrepreneurial minded innovators in the research lab. You find it in the young [00:31:00] people. Like we really need to start cultivating this in medical students before the system kind of like beats that out of them. We need entrepreneurship to be part of medical school education, or we need medical entrepreneur clubs, because I, I described this to, you know, Younger people when I’m like talking to academic institutions, I call it my innovation spectrum.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: I made it up. And so like just your personality, your basic constitution, there’s an innovation spectrum and zero. It’s like there is no new idea ever. That’s like nobody. And then it’s like, I’m going to bootstrap a new company out of my garage. That is also almost

Marcus: nobody off the

Nzinga Harrison, MD: tail.

Marcus: Yeah, that is also

Nzinga Harrison, MD: almost nobody.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Right. Like that’s also off the tail. That is not me. Why am I founder of a company that was incubated at Oxy on venture studio? Because that [00:32:00] de risk it for me personally, financially, who has a family that I’m taking care of and Noah and did not come from a family with. A million dollars in the bank, right?

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Like I was never going to bootstrap a company from scratch, but I’m probably seven or eight on the innovation scale. You need one and two, because even in our slow moving institutions, you need people who are going to do incremental innovation and improvement. But if you are listening, And you are in a traditional institution where that’s government based, non profit, private, academic, hospital, adjacent, whatever.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: And you find yourself feeling like, this system moves so slow. We could be doing this, this, this, this, and this. I’m getting resistance to this. You probably have founder DNA. And so what is our ability to have more venture studios? What is our ability to support these folks that no, cannot bootstrap, but [00:33:00] are full of amazing ideas for health care?

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Because when I say I did not know there was mission minded VC before Town Hall Ventures and Oxygen Venture Studios, I had never heard of it. And I’m mission minded. I’m not going to do anything. That’s not mission first. And so I thought that made for profit, not an option off the

Marcus: table. Right?

Nzinga Harrison, MD: I certainly thought it made venture capital, not an option.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: And so now I’m like, Oh, snap venture capital mission first. Because I do believe health, health care, you can’t do it, you can’t do it for free unless the government’s going to pay for all of it. And I believe in single payer, that’s Nzingha Harrison. But I also know the government moves slow and is wasteful.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: And so like, there has to be yes and. Right.

Vic: Yeah. I mean,

Nzinga Harrison, MD: yeah, I think there are plenty. I think we just are not finding them and we’re not cultivating. That was helpful.

Vic: Yeah. I think the part of the reason we invest in healthcare is [00:34:00] that it’s a chance to have a mission to make an impact. And also there’s an obscenely big pile of money there for Eleanor health and anyone else that, that fixes some, uh, one little piece of this 4 trillion a year issue.

Vic: Um, one of the things I want your advice on is. I agree with that concept of the spectrum. I may steal that. I’ll credit you for it. That was good, right? Yeah, that was pretty good. Innovation

Nzinga Harrison, MD: spectrum! Yeah, so if someone’s

Vic: a 3, 4, 5 listening right now, There’s not enough avenues for them to get involved, you know, like Marcus mentioned, we worked nights and weekends, um, for five years before we sort of decided, okay, there’s actually something here.

Vic: We’re going to quit our jobs and do this thing called jumpstart. And. At least for me, I wouldn’t have jumped into it before we had that experience. So I think there’s a lot of people in, in health systems and payers and, you know, [00:35:00] non governmental organizations and government that would like to spend an hour a week, two hours a week, three hours a week.

Vic: They don’t know if they qualify as a mentor at an accelerator. But they do. Or we just need to find other on ramps for them to come in and learn and play in a low risk environment. Because that’s then when they’ll get an idea that, gosh, there are some platforms that are mission first. And It’s not doesn’t have to be so risky.

Vic: You can join that can join our health. Maybe, uh, it’s still growing and working and larger than it was when you first started, but but not like a huge health system. So talk about what you’re seeing, uh, as far as like avenues for people to get involved or. Well, what should the three of us invent? What should the Health Further group invent?

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Yeah, I think Health Further group should definitely invent this. Um, I think about it, like I mentioned that my kids are going off to college. My first one’s a [00:36:00] freshman, my second one. I think has made his decision as of yesterday, but I won’t broadcast it here until he finalizes it. Um, but I was talking with a friend who just recently published a book, um, The Black Families Guide to College Admission.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: It’s, it’s excellent. And he was saying, um, black families often get started late. In the college admission process, and what I remember is at six years old, taking my kids to Georgia Tech because they had a college day for five years old to 12 years old, and no, they’re not going to admit my five year old to Georgia Tech, but they were just planting the seed.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: When 12 years from now, when you think about college, think about Georgia Tech. And so it’s that same strategy. If you ask me like, what seed are we planting in high school, middle school? My husband trades the stock market for a visit for, for, for a living. He went to the kids. elementary school [00:37:00] and taught them about stocks.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: So like what’s our elementary strategy? What’s our middle strategy? What’s our high school strategy? What internships are we offering? How do we give a little certification? How do we prep people? Because if we want innovation in healthcare, then we have to stack the deck for innovation in healthcare right now out of Marcus’s book.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Education is the great equalizer. No, entrepreneurship is the great equalizer, but we’re not stacking the deck for entrepreneurship. We’re stacking the deck for education.

Vic: Yeah, and there might be a little And I

Nzinga Harrison, MD: love education, obviously, but I’m just saying.

Vic: Yeah, there might be a little spark of someone at a large non profit Health system or payer.

Vic: They just have a kernel of an idea. It’s a little spark. If we can fan those flames, I mean, they won’t all catch fire, but eventually there’ll be more and more entrepreneurs and people that join growth companies like Eleanor.

Marcus: Okay. Uh, This has been amazing. Final word is, is yours, [00:38:00] uh, Dr. Nzinga Harrison. Uh, what do you want to leave our listeners with?

Marcus: Uh, and we will, we’ll be doing a debrief. We were, where we will give all the URLs and all the promos and good stuff. So you, you can, you can say that if you want, but you can also just leave them with something from your heart.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: I’m going to leave you with something from my heart. Number one, 75 percent of people with addiction recover.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: That means 25 percent have the malignant form of the illness. 25 times 3 equals 75. Three times more people recover. That’s where the system that sucks. So if we can get the system, right, we really have an opportunity to make a change. And I think it starts, people always say, you know, stop walking, stop talking and start walking.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: We have to talk. And so the more conversations, like tell somebody about this podcast, go [00:39:00] talk to somebody, tell them 75 percent of people recover, like just pull out some of the things you heard from here and just start talking about it. And the more we talk about it, the more. We will be unable to not do something about it.

Marcus: Amazing. Thank you for kicking off this guest series on the show and uh, I can wait to it. A hard act to follow. Yeah, of course, of course. This is why she’s first dude, . Um, and uh, I appreciate you.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: I appreciate you. This was so fun. So thank you for having me.

Marcus: Of course, of course. I invite

Nzinga Harrison, MD: myself back to people’s house for dinner, so anytime you’ll

Marcus: back, you’ll get back, you’ll, you’ll be back.

Marcus: Alright sis. Talk to you soon.

Nzinga Harrison, MD: Alright, bye. Bye.