Dr. Kristin Russell stepped into her new role as Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island’s new chief medical officer in May. Russell spoke about her professional background and her outlook on her new role.
PBN: How does your background prepare you for your new role?
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RUSSELL: First let me say, Neighborhood has an excellent reputation serving its members, providers and community partners and I am proud to join this team. The passion for doing good work is palpable. It is why Neighborhood has been ranked in the top 10% of Medicaid plans across the country for 20 years by National Committee for Quality Assurance, and earlier this month was rated 4.5 out of 5 in its annual Medicaid Health Plan Ratings. That degree of consistency and high achievement is a testament to the people at Neighborhood.
It offers the perfect environment to practice my leadership style: To collaborate with others, apply an innovation mindset and focus on data and analytics. I believe examining data and understanding trends in health, treatment and outcomes are critical to improving access to and delivery of equitable, high-quality health care.
I have a passion for how digital health and other industry innovations are increasing access to care and expanding health engagement and have immersed myself in these developments. I love working with people who want to truly continue to transform health care delivery and outcomes.
Additionally, my years as a practicing psychiatrist give me a window into the evolving behavioral health space. I understand both the patient’s and the provider’s perspectives and am impressed with Neighborhood’s vision to holistically integrate medical and behavioral care management to improve the overall well-being of members.
PBN: What are your primary goals as Neighborhood’s new chief medical officer?
RUSSELL: My professional goals align with Neighborhood’s mission and vision, which is why I’m proud to be here. At the highest level, Neighborhood wants to ensure everyone has access to health care regardless of their income, address, ethnicity, or background.
My focus as chief medical officer is to enhance our clinical data and analytics infrastructure to ensure we are making the best decisions to support the overall well-being of our members. Intrinsic to that is an emphasis on how data is used to advocate for equity and achieve measurable impact.
We need to understand our members at a deep level so we may come together to design effective and member-centric programs and services. We also want to make it easy for doctors, clinicians and social services professionals to deliver the right care at the right time while controlling costs so we can continue to invest and innovate.
PBN: What are some of the biggest challenges facing Neighborhood’s members and how do you plan to address those?
RUSSELL: As the largest Medicaid health plan in Rhode Island, Neighborhood is hyper focused on the Medicaid renewal process that restarted in April and runs through early 2024. It is so important people do not lose their health coverage because of a wrong address or an administrative issue. Any break in taking medications, managing a chronic mental health condition, or keeping up with preventative screenings and immunizations leads to more-complicated conditions.
It’s why Neighborhood has partnered with the state to create an auto enrollment process for people no longer eligible for Medicaid but at an income level that grants subsidies to cover a significant portion of the premium expense. Additionally, we have put in place processes to ensure these members maintain the same coverage when they transition from their Neighborhood Medicaid plan to being insured by a Neighborhood Commercial plan through the state’s Exchange marketplace, HealthSource RI.
We want to prevent that scary moment when someone goes to pick up their medications at the pharmacy, learns the meds are no longer covered by their health insurance and walks away without them because they cannot afford to pay for them.
PBN: What steps do you plan to take to help reduce health disparities for Neighborhood’s members?
RUSSELL: Addressing health disparities for the communities we serve is one of Neighborhood’s highest priorities. For nearly 30 years, Neighborhood and its Community Health Center founders have been working together to address the myriad of nonmedical factors and age-old structures that influence health outcomes.
What is new for Neighborhood this year is publishing the “4Report: Equity4People | People4Equity,” led by my colleague, Chief Diversity Officer Talia Brookshire. The report outlines the organization’s focus on workforce diversity and development, as well as community-based health disparities.
We are working with our employees, as well as with the wider health care, government, social services and community-based organizations in Rhode Island to affect systemic and long-lasting change. The principles and commitments in the report illustrate Neighborhood’s long-standing and ongoing commitment to equity and to document our process and progress year over year through a scorecard. We refer to it as Equity4All. If you want to learn more, you’ll find the 4Report posted on our website.
PBN: What trends have you seen in behavioral health care over the past several years?
RUSSELL: What I am most encouraged by is the advancement of medicine to better understand the brain’s influence on the body, and clinicians’ adoption of medications and cognitive treatments to improve overall health. There is still, unfortunately, stigma related to mental and substance use disorders, but we have come a long way to understanding that these conditions are rooted in our body’s biology – even trauma causes changes to our brains and our DNA. This learning has opened up access to treatments and managing behavioral health as both episodic and chronic conditions just as we do physical health.
The other big shift in behavioral health care is the use of telehealth, which has increased access to treatment. As someone who champions digital health solutions, I believe there is more we can do in this space to help people manage their mental health successfully. This is important to address another trend – increasing demand for care. According to a recent KFF study, 30.4% of Rhode Island adults reported symptoms of anxiety and/or depressive disorder. We need to better understand their needs, measure and monitor the health outcomes data as we increase the use of telehealth, and continue to innovate.
Katie Castellani is a PBN staff writer. You may contact her at Castellani@PBN.com.
