Trauma Nurse, Healthcare Lawyer, and Innovator, Kwamane Liddell

Ever since I started this podcast, I have been looking forward to talking with a nurse who is also a JD. Recently, I got the opportunity to have an insightful conversation with Kwamane Liddell. Kwamane is a healthcare visionary. You only need to glance at his LinkedIn profile to see the many accolades he has received from various sectors, including healthcare, business, innovation, and technology. Here are just a few examples:
- He was the first African-American male to graduate from Southern Illinois University's College of Nursing.
- He is an Aspen Institute Healthy Communities Fellow
- He is a Johnson and Johnson  JLABS Innovator
- He is the Founder of Nutrible, a company that utilizes AI social workers to help families access community resources on demand.
Could he have done all of this without a law degree? I’m convinced Kwamane can do whatever he puts his mind to. When he founded Nutrible, he needed to know more about the underlying causes of health disparity, which was leading to the suffering and death of his patients in the emergency room. So by furthering his education and earning a Juris Doctor degree, Kwamane became well-equipped to change health policies and address this issue. Kwamane is changing health equity, one person at a time, and in my book, he embodies the definition of a hero. In the five-minute snippet: food, glorious food!
Johnson & Johnson article

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Transcript

[00:00] Michelle: Ever since I started this podcast, I have been looking forward to talking with a nurse who is also a jurist doctor. Well, recently I got the opportunity to have an insightful conversation with Kwamane Liddell. Kwamane is a healthcare visionary. You only need to glance at his LinkedIn profile to see the many accolades he has received from various sectors, including healthcare, business, innovation, and technology. Here are just a few examples. He was the first African-American male to graduate from Southern Illinois University's College of Nursing. He's an Aspen Institute Healthy Communities Fellow. He's a Johnson Johnson J Labs innovator, and he is the founder of Nutrible, a company that utilizes AI social workers to help families access community resources on demand. Could he have done all of this without a law degree? I'm convinced Kwamane can do whatever he puts his mind to. When he found a Nutrible, he needed to know more about the underlying causes of health disparity, which was leading to the suffering and death of his patients in the emergency room. So by furthering his education and earning a juris doctor degree, Kwamane became well-equipped to change health policy and address this issue. Kwamane is changing health equity one person at a time. And in my book, he embodies the definition of a hero. In the five-minute snippet: Food, glorious food.  Well, good morning, Kwamane,  welcome to the podcast.
[01:58] Kwamane: Good morning. Thank you for having me.
[02:00] Michelle: Well, it's my pleasure. I'm so glad you're here because, since the very start of this podcast, I have wanted to talk to a nurse who is also a JD. And I went through a whole year of fabulous guests, and I was like, that's still in the back of my mind. That's still something I want to do. So I put out my all-point bulletin on LinkedIn, anybody who knows a nurse, JD, send them my way. And one of your contacts on LinkedIn tagged you, if that's how that works on LinkedIn, I'm still not sure, but I'm so happy that we connected and that you're here. So thanks again.
[02:45] Kwamane: Absolutely. Thank you for having me, and I love the interviews you've done, and I'm excited to talk more.
[02:52] Michelle: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Okay, so let's get started because you have so much to who you are and what you've done. So what I want to know first is kind of what's your nursing history like? Why did you get into nursing and what fields did you work in?
[03:12] Kwamane: My story as to how my career started in nursing is a bit unconventional. I was going into my sophomore year in college, and I had what I thought would be a summer job working in environmental services at a hospital. It was the first time I worked in a hospital. And I have only ever even been inside of one, maybe a handful of times in my life. And it was this incredible experience. I worked at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, near where I grew up. It had a medical school, nursing school, and pharmacy. I just saw all these people doing what seemed like so many things. So every day at lunch, I would just sit outside the cafeteria and ask to sit down and have lunch and talk to anybody who would be willing to talk to me and so many really smart people doing incredible things. One day, one of the nurse managers pulled me to the side, and asked me to come to her office, and I thought I was in trouble just because I had been asking people so many questions and things like that. But what I found out was that she heard all the things I was asking folks, and she sat down and really just explained the world of nursing and all the incredible things that you can do. And that experience really changed my life. And I went, and that day, after that conversation, I went and changed my major, and became a nurse, so ended up going to Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. I was the first African-American male to graduate from the program, really had an incredible experience there, and became an ED nurse right out of school. Always tell my students to really begin to try to get experience working in the space that you might work, just because there are so many specialties. And while I was in school, I worked as a secretary in emergency department tech in the same department where I ended up becoming a nurse. And it really was transformative for a lot of reasons. One, I got comfortable with the general environment in that department because it's already a lot to learn just to be a nurse. But simple things like, where are the meds, for example, when you need things, where do you find them? Yeah, it was incredible. And you were able to find, and develop relationships with the doctors that you work with and nurses. So I really had a safe space to ask questions and really learn, and I wouldn't trade that experience for the world. From there, I continued to be an ER nurse. I was a travel nurse in emergency departments across the country. I worked in Chicago, St. Louis, Oakland, Baltimore, just really in lots of different places. But what I saw was there were so many people, especially in low-income communities, who would lose their lives of well-being to things like strokes and heart attacks that were just really unnecessary. And throughout the experience, I had some really good mentors where I was able to ask them, why are things like this,  explain health disparities. Why are these things happening? I also saw them in rural areas, and I always got was resources. And one of my mentors, Melissa Atkins, she's a leader at the University of Louisville Health System right now helped me understand, really, the payment system and how health insurance is just contracts and statutes. That led me to eventually pursuing my JD/MHS at St. Louis University, where I began to transition and what I still consider community nursing. But transitioning to roles where I had the opportunity to really look at healthcare from a population health and preventative stance and translate to the things I do now.
[07:14] Michelle: Wow, Kwamane, that's a lot. That's quite a story. And I just love stories like that, that the reasons I've said this many times, the reasons that people get into nursing, are not always the ones that, I guess, the public thinks of nurses just wanting to help people. It took somebody who observed you for a period of time and saw that you were curious about how things worked and what people did and then mentored you. And like you said, that day you went and changed your major to nursing. That's an amazing story. So you're working for a while in emergency rooms all over the country, and then did you get your master's in healthcare administration? When did that happen?
[08:14] Kwamane: Yeah. Wow. So I did a dual degree, the master's in health administration, and a juris doctor at the same time at St. Louis University. Really incredible experience. The law school, again and again is the number one healthcare law school in America. And they also had a Top Rank health administration program. So I just feel like I had just, like, an unparalleled experience. Of course, I'm biased.
[08:41] Michelle: Well, Kwamane, at what part in your nursing career did you know I want to further my education, and I want to now go into law? How did that come about?
[08:55] Kwamane: Yeah, I was thinking about how we can, while I was an ER nurse. I love the science, but I really saw so many things that I would, in some cases, in reality, put a band-aid on where, for instance, there'd be people with really high blood pressure who didn't have the resources to eat the right foods that would prevent their blood pressure, for example. And I began to see that I was really interested in solving problems kind of more upstream, and I began to think about, how do I do that? And I consider it. And I really hope before the end of my career, I get to redefine what community nursing and population health nursing really means because I see it as I wanted to really adjust the systems and really have an impact kind of upstream that would prevent a lot of these things. And the closest thing that I saw in nursing was community nursing. I was weighing the options between becoming a nurse practitioner and doing really, family practice kind of medicine, or going into law and changing policies and creating programs. As I thought about where I see myself in my career and where I thought that I can make the most impact based on what I'm really passionate about, I found that law was a great place for me. And I say that because I had to think about what my daily life experience would be in my career later. And I really struggled with the idea that I wouldn't have as much patient care. I really wouldn't get to talk to patients every day in the work that I would do. But as I further explored my career, and I think I was about five years into nursing, maybe four, four and a half, I found that there are so many ways that you can be an administrative leader or a business leader  or a legal leader in policy, but still get opportunities to engage communities. And really, once I was able to check that box and confirm that, I would still get to service people directly. That's all she wrote, and I went to law school.
[11:26] Michelle: I love that that's part of your LinkedIn bio, you say you're a healthcare visionary, and absolutely, 100% true. I don't think a lot of nurses are thinking in terms of how you looked at solving some of those problems upstream. Right. ER nurses, somebody comes in in a hypertensive crisis, and we think that the answer to the problem is education, right? We're going to educate this person on, don't eat too much salt, and this is how much salt is in food. But we're not really doing anything to solve the problem of providing that food to make them healthier and avoid some of these problems that they show up in the emergency room for. And that's what you've done with Nutrible. So I'm very interested in that. I love your tagline for Nutrible: Making diagnosis-based food available to all. So tell me what that's about and how it works.
[12:39] Kwamane: I'll tell you how it started. While I was in nursing leadership at Alameda Health System, we cared for one of the largest unhoused populations in America, but also in that community. It's really kind of a melting pot. You get people from all walks of life that need things.  And we found that there were so, and we were a stroke center, but at the time, the highest ranking, I think we were a platinum stroke center. One of the things that I saw was there were so many patients that came into our department that might have had hypertensive crises, strokes, et cetera, but we didn't have an easy way to connect them to a really, actually great universe of resources that are already available in the community. I think the Bay Area has some incredible programs for people who need help. And as an emergency department, we see people in their most vulnerable instances. Oftentimes, it's still early enough to prevent something that can be catastrophic later. The Alameda Health System, there was the Alameda food bank that was less than 2 miles away, and it had medically tailored meals, not medically tailored meals, they had healthy foods, like vegetarian options and all these really great programs. So we began to think, how can we really make this easier? And, of course, digital innovation and integrations at hospitals are really complicated and expensive. So it wasn't something we could do as a part of the emergency department and maybe integrate it into the electronic medical record. So I got permission to start something else. So the original Nutrible was really a simple Excel file that had information that would tell you how to get to the food bank, and then we would get you a referral sent on the back end. So it was just a really simple thing. We're a nonprofit, and we found that it was a really great concept. Then we decided, we found that health plans actually pay for groceries for people who need them. So we knew we were already engaging all these people, and lots of them have Medicaid in the area, and the Medicaid plan already paid for food. So we had to think about, okay, how can we make this even easier for people who qualify for healthy food anyway? How do we get that to them and make it a super partner with? We joined Instacart's affiliate program, and we went and registered with the local Medicaid plan. It was Contra Costa, which was the county next to Alameda, where we actually provided medically tailored meals or groceries to patients who were in need all in one place. So they can find a food bank and healthy food through their insurance and all the education that you would need. And that's really important, because, like you mentioned, you need to educate people. But if they can't afford the thing that you're educating them to do, then it doesn't matter.
[15:54] Michelle: Absolutely. Wow. That's just thinking outside the box. And it's like all the stars aligned for you to be able to do this. And that's amazing. One of the things that was described by Nutrible is AI Social workers that enroll families into food, utilities, housing, transportation, and care management programs. And of course, the AI stood out to me because there's been so much negative press on AI, right? But you're using that for good in your program.
[16:29] Kwamane: Yeah,  AI is, can be, and I think will be really transformative in healthcare. And where I see artificial intelligence making the biggest difference is in all these places and underserved communities where nobody's doing it right now, there just aren't enough Social workers and nurses to serve all of these millions of Medicaid beneficiaries who really need help. And research shows that referrals and HHS, in their health equity report, they recently just showed that referrals are not enough for families in need. And people really think about people who are really sick or might have behavioral health issues and need additional support. And that's one important piece of the community. And I think those are areas where we should use our human resources for people who really need that high touch. But it's a fact that more than 80% of Medicaid beneficiaries and more than 80% of Medicare beneficiaries use a smartphone. Things like Facebook. So what we saw was, that we're helping all these people with food, but we then end up sending out referrals for housing, transportation, their utilities, all these other things that are important as well that really align. So we began to think, okay, how can we make this a one-stop shop for people in need? Because we found, well, if we give them the healthy food, but they can't pay their rent or their utilities, we're still not going to solve the problem. We already use machine learning to navigate people to food programs. So we added additional machine learning algorithms that would take them to what we call hyper-local utility food transportation programs that are available in their communities. And guess what? There are $96 billion in these programs that go unused every year. The thing that's between the people who need it and the actual program that could be life-changing for them is simple applications. It's a ten-page SNAP application that's daunting for many of the families that need it most. And what artificial intelligence can do, we're able to teach it these specific skills that are just doing the paperwork that social workers don't have time to do so that they can. And nurses can really focus on the families that need it most and have a really great, easy-to-use tool for families who can just have a conversation with the platform and get their application submitted.
[19:14] Michelle: Well, that's amazing. Is this an app or how does it work? So I'm a patient who comes into the emergency room. I'm in a hypertensive crisis. You guys treat me, and I'm getting discharged. And so at discharge, how does it work? Who's using it? How do I, as the patient, how do I access my food? Just kind of talk about the process.
[19:41] Kwamane: Yeah, sure. There are two ways. If we're integrated into a health system, then it'll just read their electronic medical record, and it'll ask them, do you need help with your utilities, your rent, or additional food? Because you qualify for these various programs. If you're interested, we can have a conversation, and we'll submit your applications. And what we tried to do was really mirror the experience that a person will have in a conversation that you would have with a human social worker, because in reality, in most cases, that's what we're doing. If I'm a nurse and I see this program, I'm really just transcribing what I see on the screen to the application and submitting it to the social service organization. So we use artificial intelligence to have that same conversation and transcribe the information to submit it to the social service organization. And we have a really great, real example. We had a patient who was using our platform, and while she was with her doctor, she didn't realize that she needed these resources. But when she got home, she found that she was behind on her utilities, and her energy bill and that she got a disconnection notice. And just in moments, she was able to use our platform. Our AI social worker found the local, county social service organization already had a program that she didn't know about that could pay her utilities. And a week later, she got a text message. It's called Duke Energy. She's in North Carolina. Duke Energy sent her a message that said, your $519 energy bill has been paid by the Cabaris Social Services Department. And that's the power of Nutrible. The doctor didn't have to do anything. The doctor wasn't even there. This is after she left. But she was able to get access to that and that same patient for the first time. She was able to go to her specialty appointments because she didn't have to think, well, do I work extra hours, or do I go to this follow-up appointment that my doctor suggested? And it even increased her trust, really, we think about trust in the health system, especially in Black and Latino communities. The historic earned mistrust that health systems have earned. That's a way to really engage communities in a way that we're just really not able to do until now. And she talked about that, and she actually got an in-home sleep study that she just never had before. And she really didn't have the trust of allowing people into her home. But when she saw that her doctor helped her in a way that she really needed help, it really opened up so many doors for her to transition and be able to engage with the care plan.
[22:30] Michelle: Yeah, I mean, that's just the meaning of meeting people where they are, right? And you are solving some of these health disparity problems with your nonprofit. Did you already have your JD when you founded Nutrible?
[22:48] Kwamane: I did. I founded Nutrible about two years after I finished law school. I'll tell you about an experience in law school kind of leading up to that. So, as a lawyer, you can do a lot of things. You can work in business, you can work in law. You can even be a clinical leader. And while I was in law school, I did two internships. The first year, I interned at Hush Blackwell, which is a large healthcare law firm. Incredible experience. If I was practicing law, that's why I would work. Then the second year, there's an organization called the National Association of Health Service Executives. I went to St. Louis University, and I had a dual major juris doctor, which is a law degree, and a Master of Health Administration. And really, my big goal for even being a nurse and going out to get higher education was to solve problems that I saw as a bedside nurse that I didn't particularly see. I knew that I needed to learn more in order to make a really big impact. So while I was a nurse, I was a travel nurse, and I worked in hospitals all over the country in emergency departments. And what I saw was a stark difference in upstream patient resources based on the kind of communities so low-income, primarily African American, Latino communities. There were just so many preventable things happening to families, and I really couldn't wrap my head around why. And I began to ask questions. I had some great mentors who were chief nurses and now presidents of hospital systems and hospitals and things like that. And they helped me understand that resources primarily come from health insurance, and health insurance is essentially laws. They're laws and contracts when you boil it down. And for us to really make a big difference in these kinds of resources and really make a difference in the communities that I aim to serve, I really had to understand the legislative process, that is Medicaid and Medicare, as well as the negotiation process, and really understanding how to navigate health insurance contracts. So that led me to St. Louis University, the top-ranked year-after-year school in healthcare law. It also had a highly ranked Master of Health Administration program that I could do at the same time. So I really got that legal and business education all in one place.
[25:39] Michelle: Well, I think that's really exceptional, and here's why. Because I feel like many people would not go the extra mile that you went in terms of, like, I see this disparity. I want to help solve this problem. You took it a step further in that you said, I need to understand the background. I need to understand how the system works. And then you launched into this law degree again. I'm blown away. I think that's exceptional.
[26:19] Kwamane: I appreciate that. And I want to add one thing because something that I don't get to talk about as much is that soul searching, that soul searching piece that I had to go through. So coincidentally, and of course, the universe always makes things interesting, is that I got into nursing school and law school on the same day. I got into nurse practitioner school. I mean, I got to nurse practitioner school and law school on the same day, and I got scholarships for both. And I had to really think about, where can I make the biggest difference in the ecosystem. Because I always want to let people know, you can make this impact from a clinical perspective. I think there are nurse practitioners and nurses who work more in the clinical space who are making incredible changes in the world, especially when you think about health equity and quality outcomes, really bridging the gap between health disparities. And I really just had to make a soul search and think about, okay, when I think about the mission, which is solving health disparities, making quality care better and more accessible, I had to think about where I specifically can make the biggest impact. And there are far fewer nurses who you see in the executive suites and health systems and really at the table thinking through really the high-level strategy and policies that really impact us all in the healthcare space. So that really drove me to make that decision to go on a business legal career trajectory as opposed to a clinical one.
[28:02] Michelle: Yeah, you're absolutely right. Nurse practitioners, can and do make a difference every day in the lives of the people they serve. I think that so many times their hands are tied in terms of changing health policy and regulations and laws and all of those things. So that's why I just have so much admiration for you and what you did because you went that step further and said, yes, these people need to be served. I want to serve them, but I need to figure out how this whole thing works in the background so that I can affect health policy and laws. That must have been a huge decision. Like you said, it was a soul-searching time in your life, in your career, and you weren't thinking about yourself in terms of what can I get out of it? It was solely a decision of how can the people I serve benefit the most from what I'm going to do with my life. And I don't know you really well, but I think this is part of the personality. But I also feel like that's something that you have in yourself, in your person, in your ethical standards, like, deep down, that's how you are. That's Kwamane Liddell.
[29:43] Kwamane: I appreciate that. Thank you.
[29:46] Michelle: Yeah. So let's talk about it because you had told me before that you got your master's in healthcare administration. It was a dual degree and your JD at the same time. But if I'm a nurse and I'm looking into these areas, where can I work? Where can I be the most impactful?
[30:07] Kwamane: Yeah, that is a really good question, because you can do so many things with both. So I'll start with the juris doctor, because I think that one has the most clear direction. So a juris doctor is a law degree. That's just what it says on the certificate, a juris doctor. And when you think about it, there are a few routes that you can go that are clear. So you can practice law, and there's this thing people describe as transactional versus litigation. Litigation is in a courtroom. That's what you see when you watch movies and you think about a lawyer. You're probably thinking about a litigation attorney. And lots of, especially nurses, are able to go quickly into medical malpractice and personal injury, primarily because you can read charts. So understanding a chart on day one puts you miles ahead of a lawyer who's just never practiced or who isn't familiar with medical records and understanding the standard of care. Now, something that's important, though, I will say, that I went to a healthcare school, the number one healthcare law school in America, so much, I was able to learn how to be a lawyer through the healthcare lens. So I don't remember exactly the percentage, but at least 50. Half of my education was specifically on health care, so I had lots of time to spend with regulations, the Affordable Care Act, and understanding the difference between governing bodies like the Joint Commission versus the actual federal government, which is Medicare. And so really, really, I encourage, if you think about nurses going into law, you can see it in two different ways, because a lot of people think they see the courtroom, so they say, no, I'm not interested in this. That's not for me. But in reality, a lot, if not the majority of the work happens on the transactional side. So if you think about changing policy, health policy, that's all what we would call transactional. Those are primarily the day in the life of a lawyer who does transactions, is mostly writing, and doing research. So when I meet nurses who really want to make a change, especially if they're interested in law, but they feel more introverted, they don't feel as comfortable talking in large groups. The transactional space does require that primarily in much smaller settings, maybe think boardrooms or just group settings amongst lawyers and policymakers more often. But transactional law is, if not the majority of law that happens in America, a very large percentage of the healthcare legal work. So you have the opportunity to really create change from a behind-the-scenes, if you will, stance much more writing research and really taking insight from people who are doing the work and really being the voice for the communities that need it the most. So, for example, many policies that you see right now, I was actually just reading an article today from the White House that talked about all of the health equity initiatives that are happening in so many states. And when I read what the policies are, the new policies that were established, I'm thinking about Minnesota, for example. It requires providers, it requires medical schools to have bias training so that doctors before they go out into the field, recognize that racism impacts healthcare outcomes. And someone somewhere had to hear the voice of the people who are impacted by this to really even think about how we look at really upstream opportunities to make a difference. And this is going into law in the state of Minnesota. So when you think about ways that you can make changes, that is one example of a really powerful moment in medical education that someone in the legal world most likely had the opportunity to really drive forward.
[34:45] Michelle: Well, that's a great distinction to make, the difference between litigation and transactional law, because I think more nurses would probably go into law if they were on the side of transactional law like you were speaking about making changes upstream. I think for the litigation, we think of, like, legal nurse experts, right? And they don't have to have law degrees, but they're more on the litigation side. So they're either working for the plaintiff or the defendant, and they are adept at reading electronic medical records and interpreting different plans of care and diagnoses and so forth. And I think that attracts a lot of nurses as well. But I think we get stuck so much in not being able to make those changes, and we get frustrated. And if we knew that there were those two types of law, I just think it would open up a lot of avenues for nurses. So I appreciate you making those distinctions. So nursing school and law school, I know they're different, but can you make any comparisons about how maybe they're the same?
[36:17] Kwamane: I'll start by saying law school was much easier than nursing school tenfold.
[36:24] Michelle: Wow, that's so interesting.
[36:28] Kwamane: And it's not even close. It was just a completely different experience. I will say that it's a different muscle. When you think about law school, you can use flashcards quite a bit. You can really memorize a lot of things. You have to memorize a lot of things, especially when you think about math and medications and how they work together and all those kinds of things. There's a lot of memory involved in the legal space. It's just a different muscle. I think I compare legal work to being able to do assessments. If you really zoom in on when you are in nursing school, it's one thing to learn the textbook. What is jaundice? Be able to answer that on the test, but it's a different thing to be able to assess jaundice. And the entire legal experience is much more about that assessment because on the exams, they just give you scenarios. So based on what you know, you are essentially diagnosing a scenario and creating the proper legal prescription, if you will. So, for example, Torts is a class that everyone's going to take if they go to law school. And it's always funny. People either love it or they hate it, but torts are essential, when you think about when something happens, is a person liable or not? Were they negligent or not? So essentially, you learn throughout the semester all these different ways that people can be liable or not for a thing. And medical malpractice is just one of many different kinds of torts. But the exam just gives you a scenario and you apply all the things that you learn, and most classes are that way. So when I compare nursing school and law school, if you think about when you first learned assessments and when you were first learning how to assess things and diagnose things in real life. That's what law school essentially is, all three years.
[38:51] Michelle: Well, that, again, is very fascinating. My initial reaction when you said law school is a lot easier than nursing school, was like, wow, how can that be? But then I thought, in law, there are so many knowns. I guess we have all these precedents, and you can tell me if I'm wrong. It's just a lot of cut-and-dry. And in nursing school, in medicine and nursing, there are so many unknowns. Am I on track with that? What do you think?
[39:26] Kwamane: I think so. I agree with that. There are so many unknowns. And from a physiological versus legal perspective, and compare us in a legal setting, especially in school. In a legal setting, you can focus on one or two subjects or topics, and that's what the argument is going to be about. Most of the conversations are really narrow in school, and when you get into the real world, it's a lot more complex. But in the school setting, it's mostly narrow. The professor is trying to test you on criminal justice, this specific thing, whereas in nursing, the body systems work together. So I know we've all had those questions in nursing school, where this seems like a pulmonary question, but it's really about renal failure.
[40:20] Michelle: Right on.
[40:21] Kwamane: Yeah, you have to think about all of them. And that's a really big difference in law school studies compared to nursing school.
[40:31] Michelle: That's a great distinction. Wow. Well, I'm going to switch gears for a second, because you've done a lot. And actually, I should say, what have you not done? Because you've done so much. One of the things that I saw was that you are an Aspen Fellow. And for those that don't know, Aspen is the American Society for Parental and Enteral Nutrition. And Aspen Fellows are outstanding leaders in nutrition support. They consistently contribute in education, practice, research, and service to the field. So tell me about this distinction and what it means for you.
[41:17] Kwamane: And thank you for that. I am a fellow of a different Aspen. I'm a fellow of the Aspen Institute. It's essentially a think tank for philanthropic organizations. And I'm summarizing, but since you want to make positive change in the world, I think it's an incredible experience where I was a healthy communities fellow, and what that means is, and what the institute does. They have many different kinds of fellowships, but I was a part of the Healthy Communities Fellowship, and in my cohort, I had the phenomenal experience and opportunity to work with leaders of other startups, physician leaders, leaders in the Department of Health, and just so many people making huge impacts in the world, particularly around social justice and building community-based program that will really make a difference to the communities that we serve. And we all do it in so many different ways. We have companies that are building grocery stores, companies that have transformed the way that people who need it the most get medical transportation, and companies that change the way that women, especially women of color, find trusted providers in their communities. And we're all in one place. And we went for a year-long, and it was really based on helping us tell our stories so that the work that we are doing can expand, at least. I hadn't really understood the power of storytelling, even being a nurse. There are so many things that we all agree on. I was an ER travel nurse. It was always so interesting to see that nurses somewhere in Texas have the same experience as nurses in Baltimore with certain practice settings. Really, what is the standard of care? Whether we agree or disagree? What are some things that happen anecdotally in the nursing practice that we all agree on, but the world doesn't know? In the Aspen Fellowship, I really learned some powerful tools on how to expand my voice and how to talk about issues and what we're doing right now. Artificial intelligence, social workers. How do I magnify the fact that there are tens of millions of families right now who are not getting what they need simply because the applications are too long, or simply because there are not enough social workers or people available to help them through their application? Something that can be solved really simply and make incredible impacts on our communities.
[44:18] Michelle: Well, that's phenomenal, and I apologize for getting that wrong. And please send me the link to that organization. I want to include that in the show notes.
[44:28] Kwamane: Oh, of course.
[44:29] Michelle: So another accomplishment is that you won an award for a JLabs innovator. So talk about that.
[44:40] Kwamane: Oh, yeah, that was amazing and timely. So Nutrible started out as an Excel file, and all we did was when people needed help, primarily people who would engage in an emergency department somewhere, we would offer them the Excel files, just share files, and they could write the kinds of foods that they needed, and then the local food bank would see it and just have it available to them. That's all they did.
There was another tab that had all these applications to other programs. We really wanted to make it a one-stop shop for people. As we were doing that, we created a section, a comment section, so that people can ask for help. And we just saw so many people needed just really simple pieces of support. Like, for example, a common question somewhere on one of the applications asks, what is your gross income? And in the comment section, the families, one of the most common questions was, what is gross income? What does that mean? And when we begin to think about it, if we're able to solve some of these really simple things, just imagine how many people just didn't complete the application because they didn't know what that word meant and didn't know how to answer the question and just moved on. Well, that question could be the difference between that and $2,400 in free food for low-income families. So we talked about our experience. Johnson and Johnson had an innovation challenge, what they call them. This one was for diverse entrepreneurs and really thinking about health equity and how we can make a difference. And we shared our experience with Johnson Johnson and talked about what the potential impact could be. And we won a grant that gave us access to JLABs, which is a platform that they have that just has all kinds of education for companies that are starting that were like us. And it was really cool because although it was the pandemic and there weren't a lot of in-person events that they typically would have, they did a great thing. And I always recommend this to accelerators and programs. They had been recording things for years at the time. So we were able to go into their database and learn about fundraising, learn about prototyping, hear how they answer questions, and how other questions other founders had. And that led to our first version of Nutrible, where just with that version alone when we began to help more people, we supported over 500 families for free because of the funding that we got and the education that we learned through that program. So it was a really great experience.
[47:39] Michelle: Again, like, I'm blown away. That's just amazing. And when you were talking about the application, so here's my cynical side. And I really feel like there's something to it because the people who are creating these applications and putting these questions have to have some sense of who is completing these applications and their socioeconomic situation, their grasp on just literacy, health literacy. So why is there not more clarity? I know that's a huge question, but it's just frustrated me for a long time.
[48:39] Kwamane: We live in a huge, disjointed system. It is public and private. I think I work for large health systems and health insurance companies, and it rings the same for both, that there are so many pieces in the system that I think I know are doing the right work, but they're not communicating with one another. And although Medicare and Medicaid and various departments of Health drive the vast majority of the work that we're talking about, even within those systems, they don't talk to each other very well. That's really what sparked our platform because we learned that since organizations don't talk to each other, it'd be really difficult for us to get all the organizations to work together on one platform. Now, I can say I think California is doing a great job. I think they have combined a lot of things and made the system quite simplistic compared to other places. But even still, there are a lot of steps that are prohibitive to people who need it the most. So, in our thoughts, we learned that, well, artificial intelligence can understand all of the applications really easily. That's not really a barrier to artificial intelligence. And as long as we could build a front end that was just easy enough for people to be able to use, we can make a really huge difference. And that was why, after we won Johnson and Johnson's Innovation Challenge, we later won arch grants. We also have a Blue Cross/Blue Shields Health Equity accelerator. And through those two experiences, we actually were able to build out our platform to support various categories. So it's not just food. You can get housing, transportation, utilities, rental assistance, and all those kinds of programs all in one place. And that's important to us, because nobody that we care for, especially in the food space, there was no one who. That's all they needed. We got them food. We solved all their problems.
[51:01] Michelle: Right? Yeah. These problems all kind of go hand in hand. As you said, it's not just a food insecurity problem. How am I going to pay the rent? How am I going to pay the bills? And it's not all financial, right? There are emotional factors. Yeah, it's multidimensional. And you guys at Nutrible have figured out a way to connect all these dots, and it's just a fantastic program, and you are just doing some phenomenal work. Do you refer to yourself as a doctor?
[51:46] Kwamane: No, primarily in the legal space, although lawyers have a doctorate degree, it's just not common for lawyers to do so.
[51:59] Michelle: Okay, so how do you manage stress? Kwamane, do you have stress?
[52:06] Kwamane: Oh, my goodness. That's an ongoing thing. My problem was, that there are a couple of places I want to address, especially nurses listening, something I learned when you come out of school. I felt this, and I now know a lot of people feel this. There's this pressure to just quickly be successful or get into your specialty. For example, people want to skip med/surg so they can go be (insert thing), intensive care, emergency department, surgery, et cetera. And I'm not pro or against that. I actually went directly into working in emergency departments as soon as I graduated. So there are pros and cons to both, I think. But really the majority of it is just this unwritten pressure to be able to go and do that thing right away. And the message I had to think, I had to learn for myself was to take your time, careers, and lives, it's an ongoing thing. Definitely continue to have goals and checkpoints and move toward the thing you're trying to accomplish. But probably one of the biggest things I had to do was tell myself to take my time and live in the moment. I think it's important to just live in the moment. The difference that made for me was I get so much more out of being able to appreciate the progress and the great friends I make while I'm doing it. There are so many people doing cool work and really driving health equity and really the mission that inspires me to wake up every morning and do what I do. There are so many people, and it's created just an incredible community in doing that. So that's Number One, really just taking my time and enjoying the moment. The second thing is making plans, like planning about a year out from a professional growth and business perspective. And by doing that, it really makes this big monster of goals much more bite-size and they feel more attainable. When you try to do it all quickly you really don't see the full map and the full scope. It makes me feel anxious. So really taking the time to map out, okay, if I want to be here next year, October 2024, and this is kind of a full soaking moment because I usually do it on my birthday, and today happens to be my birthday. So I actually just finished this exercise.
[54:55] Michelle: Oh, my gosh. Wow. I feel so honored that you're here on your birthday.
[55:00] Kwamane: No, of course. I think this is a great podcast and I love the topic, so I appreciate it.
[55:07] Michelle: Oh my gosh, I appreciate you.
[55:10] Kwamane: And I say that the third thing, I should just be a promoter for this book. It's called The One Thing in summation. It's really a book that talks about how to get to spend the time on the thing that matters the most to you and really how to balance life and friendships and your health and all these things while you're driving toward a goal. So I really follow that quite a bit. The one thing I always think about before we get started and I make that plan out of the 20 things we can always be doing, what's the one thing that would make the biggest difference in life right now? And I try to start with that every day if I can, when I'm really prioritizing what's important.
[55:57] Michelle: That is such great advice. And I saw that book in your bookshop on Bookshop.org, and it's on my wish list to read it. Such great advice. And all those things that you said about taking your time, find the one thing that really motivates you, that drives you to live in the moment. Those are all things that I started doing once I retired. At the same time, that's so sad. And then that's also great. It's so sad that I waited throughout my nursing career to do all those things. And then I only felt like it was time when I actually had the physical time and space to slow down and take things in and enjoy the moment. And now I'm into the ancient stoics and all these other wise people that are imparting the same wisdom that you're imparting. And I think it's just great that you are getting the message out on that advice, in particular for nurses. So important, how do you recharge your batteries?
[57:34] Kwamane: Two things. I really like to just be active. So I think I'm a novice at basketball, but I like to join the basketball leagues just to give you something to look forward to and from a physical perspective, get a reason to, air quote, train. Yeah, if that's what I'll call it. Definitely, something that I've been able to do a lot more of and be more conscious about is spending time with family, like real intentional time, and just creating activities to bring everyone together, whether it be just a simple, I'm going to have a cookout or we'll go watch some sporting events or watch movie nights and things like that. I'm fortunate enough to still have my grandfather, and I grew up with him and really close to him. So really getting to spend time and really learn from. I'm blessed to have a lot of elders in my family still and really getting to talk to them and their experiences and just a kind of different perspective in life for sure.
[58:44] Michelle: My grandmother's been gone many years, but I just find the older I get, the more I reflect on the time that I spent with her and how valuable that was and just her teaching me to sew and just letting me go into her library of hundreds of books and just pick any book I wanted. And just those things are so valuable. And I love that you're making space in your life right now for those and you're not waiting. That's so important. What is on your to-do list for the next two to five years?
[59:33] Kwamane: Two to five years to do? I'll talk about some fun ones. I'm a food explorer. That's how I like to describe it. So anywhere I go, I ask local people, people who would know the local food, because I feel like they have the best opinions and I like to try foods. And fortunately, I really love tacos. And the best tacos that I know of are in Orange County in Southern California. It's called Tacos Los Cholos. It's amazing. And what I do is every time someone's around, I try to take them there so they can tell me what tacos they think are better so I can go try those.
[01:00:25] Michelle: Okay, wow.
[01:00:26] Kwamane: And so far, it's still been the best. So I want to have more experiences like that where I can find food that is so good that every time I take other people there, they're like, no, this is the best. So I want to find three to five more places like that that are just like, undisputably really good from there.
[01:00:48] Michelle: I was going to say that I saw your Instagram and your highlights and you do a lot of traveling and many pictures are food. I think that's really neat.
[01:01:03] Kwamane: I love food. The second is, I feel very fortunate. So I feel like I was born with this gene and I am not afraid to go against the grain. It doesn't bother me at all. So long as it aligns with my mission and what I personally think is important and my values, then I'm all for it, regardless of what the grain thinks. And with that, I'm really excited about how I'm building a team and culture that is really driven toward making a change in health equity and really making, if we can't make the system more simple, making something that makes the system more simple to the people, if that makes sense, really building that conduit between this complex system and people who need to access it. And we're getting really far really fast. So I'm excited to make the lives of nurses and the patients that we care for better and more simple through technology. Over the next two to five years, I think we're going to make a really big change in a positive way. And I think the third is just continually, feeling like I'm in a phase where I'm really grounded and I'm living in the moment and having some incredible experiences and conversations and ideas and bringing a lot of it to life. And my goal is to be able to really maintain that, continue to have that ability to be present as we're doing things and building things, because I found that doing that conscientiously. I've probably learned more or as much as I've ever learned throughout this year in a really short time. And I really want to be able to keep that and continue to create more spaces for other people who have visionary thoughts and are mission-aligned to continue to work with us to bring those things to reality.
[01:03:17] Michelle: Well, I'll tell you, if anyone can do it, it is you. And I have the utmost confidence that you're going to accomplish all of what's on your to-do list. And I need you to send me some of that good juju in terms of not being afraid to go against the grain because I'm kind of more like a don't rock the boat type of person. And I find only in the last few years have I started kind of breaking out of that a little bit. And it's very uncomfortable to go against the grain. So I love it when somebody is just confident in that. And so I need that to rub off on me.
[01:04:01] Kwamane: I'm sending all the positive energy your way.
[01:04:04] Michelle: Yay.
[01:04:05] Kwamane: Thank you.
[01:04:07] Michelle: Well, as we wrap up, Kwamane, where can we find you and Nutrible?
[01:04:14] Kwamane: You can find our website nutrible.org, learn more about our AI social workers and let us know if you have any questions ideas, or potential partners. We love partnerships. And of course, you can find me on LinkedIn. And I think those are probably the best two places. If you have ideas or want to talk more, please feel free to reach out to me.
[01:04:38] Michelle: Perfect. Yes. And your LinkedIn is amazing. I think I need a LinkedIn advisor, somebody to shooz up my LinkedIn a little bit, because I look at all these other ones and I'm like, oh, my gosh, I feel so inferior. So that's amazing. And I will put all those in the show notes so that if people have questions or they want to collaborate, they can reach out to you. So. Well, this has been really fun, Kwamane, getting to know you and hearing your story. And I know my listeners are, they are just in for a treat to hear you and your enthusiasm, your motivation, your innovation, you're just amazing. I'm really glad that we connected, and I'm really glad that we had this conversation.
[01:05:32] Kwamane: I feel the same. Thank you so much for having me. This is great, and I can't wait to hear it.
[01:05:39] Michelle: Yes. Well, you are welcome. And, you know, at the end, we do this little thing called the five-minute snippet, and it's just five minutes of fun. Kwamane, it's for everyone to just kind of get your off-duty side when you're not being a JD or a nurse. So, are you ready to play?
[01:06:01] Kwamane: Yep. Sign me up.
[01:06:05] Michelle: You know all the answers. So let me get my timer up here, and we will just go. Kwamane, do you have an area of your life that you are never satisfied with?
[01:06:20] Kwamane: Yes, I am never satisfied with my cooking ability. I love food, and I always try new things and find new recipes, and I love to just be able to make them. So I'm always tinkering and trying new things just to try to bring some of that delicious food I find out in the world and be able to have it at home.
[01:06:43] Michelle: I love that. Okay. You talked about basketball earlier, so would you rather play your personal best, but your team loses, or play the worst game of your life, but your team wins?
[01:06:58] Kwamane: In recreation? Basketball, the best game of my life. Anytime, every time. And probably organized something more organized, then, yeah. I want my team to win, but in recreation, we don't get much for winning. So a lot of it is we're just having a good time and staying in shape. So definitely, if I can score 50 points in a recreation game, that would probably be a lot of fun.
[01:07:26] Michelle: That's so great. Some of my best memories are playing basketball with my brothers in our driveway. Just so much fun. Okay. What's the oddest job you ever took to earn a buck?
[01:07:42] Kwamane: The oddest job. Oh, man. I've taken some ODD jobs. I think the most odd job I've taken was selling cutlery. I can't think it's a popular company. I cannot think of what it's called.
[01:07:57] Michelle: It's Cutco.
[01:07:58] Kwamane: Yes. Cutco, that's it.
[01:08:00] Michelle: Oh, my gosh. And I actually bought some from a salesman. They make a good pitch. It's hard to say no. And I still have it to this day. Okay. Would you rather compete in an archery tournament or a bobsled race?
[01:08:25] Kwamane: Archery tournament or bobsled race? I feel like bobsled would be a lot of fun. I'm going to go with Bobsledding. I've never done that.
[01:08:32] Michelle: Speed, right? What do you think one of the biggest cons of being
famous would be?
Kwamane: One of the biggest cons of being famous would be not being able to go wherever you want. And of course, the first thing that came to mind was restaurants. Some of the best restaurants, best food trucks. A lot of people can't just go and experience this. So that'd probably be the biggest time for me.
[01:09:01] Michelle: But on the other side, you could have your own personal chef, Kwamane, just right there in your kitchen making all those dishes that you love.
[01:09:10] Kwamane: That's true. That's true. But you got to get the experience, though,  sometimes you just got to be there.
[01:09:15] Michelle: So true. Would you rather go back in time and change one historical event or see 200 years into the future, but not be able to change anything?
[01:09:29] Kwamane: I'd rather go back in time and change one historical event. Now, don't ask me what it is, because I don't know yet, but I would definitely change one. Oh, yeah. I do know what it was. Slavery in America or slavery in general. Whoever had the first idea to do that, I would stop that.
[01:09:47] Michelle: Wow. That's great. I love that. That's worthy. What famous person's memoir would you love to read?
[01:09:57] Kwamane: Famous person's memoir. That's really good.
[01:10:06] Michelle: Some of these are hard.
[01:10:08] Kwamane: Yeah, that's a hard one. There are a lot of really interesting people. I'm in the middle of Steve Jobs, or I would have said that. And I don't think I've read Bill Gates's memoir. I'm going to go with Bill Gates for now. Will you ask me that in a year? It might change.
[01:10:29] Michelle: Would you rather be a Supreme Court justice or a United Nations ambassador?
[01:10:41] Kwamane: A Supreme Court justice.
[01:10:44] Michelle: I really was hoping and thinking that that's what you were going to say, so you did not disappoint. Okay, last question. What was the worst time you ever put your foot in your mouth, and what did you say?
[01:10:59] Kwamane: Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. What is the worst time? I'm a risk taker, so I take risks in communicating and big ideas. What is the worst time? Oh, yeah, I know what I did. I was at a conference, and I completely misinterpreted or overreacted to the organizational seating assignment at an event, at a conference, and I sent it in a text message. It was the worst. That was the worst communication ever. I've ever done by a mile. I'm glad I got it out early in my career, I learned a lot really quickly, but, yeah, that was the worst.
[01:11:47] Michelle: Oh, my gosh. Yeah, that gives me chills. Like the times when we've all kind of sent a snarky comment, and we hit reply all, right, you just do that one time. You never do that again, because it's, like, so embarrassing.
[01:12:06] Kwamane: Yeah, definitely.
[01:12:07] Michelle: Well, you did really well, Kwamane. I love it. Your five minutes was awesome, and you are awesome. And I thank you for being my guest today, and I feel really blessed to know you and to learn so much about you and your work. And you have all my good juju for going forward and just changing the world because you're going to do it.
[01:12:37] Kwamane: Well, thank you so much for having me. This has been a really cool experience.
[01:12:41] Michelle: It's been the same for me. So thank you for that and just have a great rest of your day.
[01:12:48] Kwamane: Same to you. Take care.