A Cincinnati startup founder has been nationally recognized for her work in the health care industry.
Re-Assist CEO and founder Ashley Barrow has been selected as an Aspen Ideas: Health Fellow as part of its 2024 cohort.
The fellowship, put on by the Aspen Institute in Aspen, Colo., recognizes leaders in health and medicine for their work and ability to turn ideas into action. Barrow is one of 93 leaders representing 63 U.S. cities and five countries.
The fellows will convene at the Aspen Institute’s annual health conference, which will take place from June 20-23, to participate in in-depth discussions and explore potential health problems and solutions.
To be selected for the fellowship, an individual must be nominated by senior Aspen Institute staff. Barrow was nominated by a communications and events associate for the Aspen Institute who knew Barrow through Re-Assist’s participation in the 2022 MIT "Solver" cohort.
“To rub elbows with the fellows in general will be amazing,” Barrow said. “The type of strategic advice and things I’ll be able to access will be unbelievable … I’m going to bring some of that Cincinnati flavor down to Aspen and see what I can bring back to us.”
Barrow founded Re-Assist in 2020 alongside her son Aaron to digitize the patient referral process, streamlining the process for patients who face delays due to social determinants of health. It works with health care systems, physician offices and clinics to assist in finding care services for patients that are chronically ill or vulnerable.
The idea stemmed from Barrow’s more than 20 years of experience in care coordination across a variety of health care environments.
“I was thinking to myself, ‘If this person had been connected to this sooner, or if we had known about this resource, they could be on their way,’” Barrow said.
The Re-Assist software takes into account a patient's location, financial situation and required services to recommend suitable health care providers from a vast directory. This reduces the time coordinators spend matching patients with providers from hours to minutes.
“We have incorporated an electronic health record into our system, and we draw insights from that record that then assesses the patient's data and suggests different providers,” Barrow explained.
Barrow’s fellowship designation comes just months after it launched its social determinants of health software, aimed at supporting medical offices and clinics, promoting patient engagement and addressing health care navigation barriers for vulnerable patients.
Re-Assist has been testing its software with smaller clinics and the Ohio Home Care Waiver, a home- and community-based services waiver operated by Ohio Medicaid, and the results have been positive.
“We’ve been able to essentially get it ready for an enterprise customer,” Barrow said.
On the local level, Re-Assist has worked with SoCap Accelerate, Over-the-Rhine’s Main Street Ventures and Mortar in terms of startup and entrepreneurship development. Re-Assist currently works with startup incubator Alloy Growth Lab.
Barrow told me Re-Assist plans to start raising a seed funding round in July, although the target amount is yet to be determined.
