SLU Alumni are Making Healthcare Safer, More Affordable, and Accessible
Kwamane Liddell, JD, MHA, BSN, graduated from Saint Louis University’s College of Public Health and Social Justice in 2018 with a Master of Health Administration. In the short time since Liddell graduated, he founded DispatchCare, a company that combines technology and compassion to make healthcare safer, more affordable, and accessible to patients across the globe.
Liddell’s goal: to lead DispatchCare on a journey to become “the world’s leading care-coordination provider.” He credits the experience he gained while pursuing his MHA for helping him achieve early success in the health care management field.
“Prior to graduate school, I was a trauma nurse,” Liddell said.
“I knew that I wanted to study ways to improve health care outcomes for minorities and marginalized people. SLU gave me the opportunity to turn my ideas into action by helping me build and refine the knowledge and competencies I needed to succeed.”
Liddell and DispatchCare utilize a mobile platform that coordinates healthy food, medications, transportation, medical supplies and equipment, and other services for clients. For Liddell, providing virtual care assistance through the DispatchCare app is about solving problems for millions of families who need help, particularly those with loved ones recently discharged from the hospital.
“As the founder of DispatchCare, the thing I enjoy most is the opportunity to work with so many talented people to solve re-admissions, which is one of health care’s most difficult problems,” Liddell said.
Liddell’s experiences at SLU helped shape the health care leader he is today. For example, SLU’s MHA program sends several student teams each year to compete against students from top graduate health care management programs across the country to solve difficult health care problems. Liddell counts participating in the National Association of Health Services Executives’ Everett v. Fox Case Competition as one of his most rewarding experiences while working toward his MHA degree. “The competition forced me to put all of my experiences and courses together to create practical solutions,” Liddell said.
Liddell has developed a great appreciation of teamwork in the health care industry and continues to leverage teamwork in his leadership of DispatchCare.
The SLU connections run deep through the DispatchCare team that Liddell has assembled. SLU MHA alumnae, Allyssa Stevens (MHA 2020) and Clare Hostetler-Tang (MHA 2020) have been a vital part of the development of this health care startup.
Stevens is currently the Director of Digital Transformation for DispatchCare and feels that in the next 10 years there will be a need for more companies like DispatchCare.
“Post COVID-19, the expansion of telehealth and the innovations to come in at-home care will lead to more providers needing to shift with their patients,” Stevens said.
Hostetler-Tang is the Director of Strategy & Marketing, says that with social distancing and stay-at-home restrictions currently in place, the need for telemedicine will only continue to grow.
“Until now, there has been no other company that does exactly what we do,” Hostetler-Tang said. “With each milestone that we reach, we gain new momentum to really build out our vision.”
To learn more about DispatchCare, Kwamane Liddell, Allyssa Stevens and Clare Hostetler-Tang, you can find them on LinkedIn: Kwamane Liddell, Allyssa Stevens and Clare Hostetler-Tang.
About the College for Public Health and Social Justice
The Saint Louis University College for Public Health and Social Justice is the only academic unit of its kind, studying social, environmental and physical influences that together determine the health and well-being of people and communities. It also is the only accredited school or college of public health among nearly 250 Catholic institutions of higher education in the United States.
Guided by a mission of social justice and focus on finding innovative and collaborative solutions for complex health problems, the College offers nationally recognized programs in public health, social work, health administration, applied behavior analysis, and criminology and criminal justice.