Mental health care for seniors is broken. It's time we do something about it. Welcome to Rippl.

For almost two decades, I worked to build Starbucks around the world. It was an extraordinary experience. I was fortunate to live around the globe and lead the US and European businesses for several years. I loved the mission, the people-focus, the opportunity to give customers something that genuinely improved their lives (even if for a few minutes).

But, in the back of my mind, I was always thinking there must be more out there. A deeper mission.?

So, in 2019, I did something that surprised my friends, my colleagues and me. I quit.?

Fascinated by the business of health care, I left a giant, mega successful consumer behemoth to lead a long-term care company for seniors, primarily those with end-of-life cognitive challenges (it’s known as ‘memory care’ in the industry).?

I had recently experienced how our health care system fails seniors -- including my two parents. I was hearing countless stories of friends seeing the same, and when I looked at the data, it was clear the numbers were going to grow exponentially as Boomers aged. As writer David Brooks has written about so well, healthcare was my ‘Second Mountain’.

I spent almost three years learning what it takes to care for seniors at the far end of their life’s journey. Throw Covid-19 into the mix and it turned out to be one of the most challenging, yet profound and humbling experiences of my life. I discovered exactly what I thought I’d find: there is no more noble mission than caring for seniors at this stage of their lives.?

I also saw many things broadly that really shocked me about the state of senior care in America (and for many of you who have helped an aging family member, this will hardly be a surprise).

I was shocked by the lack of high-quality care for those seniors with significant mental health challenges – especially dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.?

I was shocked by the black hole that exists for patients and families on the other side of a diagnosis, leaving them to navigate some of health care’s most complex situations entirely without a guide.

Most importantly, I witnessed countless times how the ER is often the catch-all for families trying to keep loved ones with late-stage dementia at home. Yet, in most cases, the ER is no place for someone with dementia - or any mental health condition for that matter.

But it was, and is, the only option for many, many families especially outside of office hours. The statistics back it up. ?Suicides among seniors are the highest of any age group. Seniors with mental health conditions end up in the ER and hospital three times more than folks without a cognitive impairment. Dementia is the most expensive end-of-life disease, by a long shot. I could go on and on.?

Our mental health care infrastructure isn’t ready for the largest group of seniors in America’s history. Not even close.

Our antiquated fee-for-service health care system, lack of knowledge and capacity amongst primary care physicians, and a massive shortage of trained, specialist clinicians have created one of the most urgent and complex challenges that exists in health care today.

And for the past year, a few of us have been working together to figure out how to do this better. As we often say, “if not us, then who?”.

Today, we’re proudly launching Rippl.?

Rippl is a new kind of mental health company focused on caring for seniors with dementia and other neurocognitive conditions.

We’re pioneering a new care model to be offered by health plans that will dramatically expand access to high quality, wrap-around mental health care for seniors with dementia and other neurocognitive disorders – with an emphasis on making the experience work better for seniors, their families and caregivers. The Rippl model, leveraging a value-based payment approach and disruptive technology, will provide 24/7 access to care by experienced and passionate clinicians when and where seniors need it – on the phone, online or in their homes.???

Our new company is underpinned by the simple premise that when we care obsessively for our clinicians, our patients and families will get the care they deserve. That’s why we will build the platform and culture where specialty clinicians are empowered to deliver care the way they know is best, and equip them with the resources, tools and training to do it.?We envision a movement of values-driven, committed clinicians who see caring for older adults as their calling.?

Rippl is a group of impatient optimists and doers from the country’s most iconic health care and consumer brands (who have all been caregivers ourselves) who are re-imagining what it feels like to experience a mental health condition as a senior. And, re-defining that experience into something much more meaningful. One that is optimistic, hopeful, confident, intentional.?

We are deeply grateful to our visionary funding partners who have signed up to take this journey with us and share our conviction that this care can be so much better:? ARCH Venture Partners , General Catalyst , GV (Google Ventures) , F-Prime Capital , Mass General Brigham Ventures .

If you are ready to join our movement, drop me a note or visit us at ripplcare.com.

This IS the challenge of a generation. #donewaiting #aboutdamntime #createarippl