Oben Health Brings Preventative Health to the Barbershop
Enlisting barbers as community healthcare workers, Peter Njongwe of Oben Health hopes to screen more Black men for hypertension and put them on a path toward better health.
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Peter Njongwe, CEO & Co-founder of Oben Health, wants to improve access to healthcare by meeting people where they are – and barbershops seem like the right place to start. He hopes that lives will be saved through barbershop screenings for cardiovascular conditions. For him, the mission is personal. "My brother passed away from uncontrolled hypertension at age 36," says Njongwe. He went to bed and never woke up, leaving a wife and two children behind. "If my brother had gotten screened for hypertension, I think he would still be alive," says Njongwe, who considered his older brother as a father figure. "This haunts me until today."
Challenge
Since starting Oben Health, Njongwe has been turning his grief into action. "Our initial target is Black and Brown men," says Njongwe. "They’re one of the least engaged populations when it comes to health," he adds. Research shows that Black adults are more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than other racial groups and that one in five Black adults miss routine and necessary preventative screenings. Njongwe found himself frustrated with the normalization of hypertension and high blood pressure within his community. "‘Oh yeah, it's fine. Nothing's gonna happen.’ It’s just so normal to hear that," says Njongwe.
Njongwe understands the reluctance to visit a clinic for health screenings. "No one enjoys going to see a doctor or being at a clinic," says Njongwe. There are also structural barriers that make it hard for folks to go to the doctor such as taking time off work, transportation, childcare, etc. But with advances in technology, he is surprised that more creative solutions haven’t been found. "Why is chronic disease getting worse in this community? Why is it not getting better?" he asks. Through research and discussions with partners, Njongwe found that it wasn’t a lack of tools preventing progress. "It was access and support of community-based-outpatient clinics (CBOCs)," he says.
What They Built
There are about 280,000 barbershops in the US according to Njongwe, 100,000 of which serve their target audience. "On average, men go to the barbershop about once a month," he says. "A clinic would kill to have those numbers." Oben Health is committed to providing digital support to community-based organizations involved in place-based services, such as the barbershop and community health worker models. Although these organizations spearhead the implementation of these innovative services, Oben Health's role is to boost operational efficiency through automation and offer real-time data insights into their effectiveness. This partnership seeks to deepen our understanding of interactions within community settings (like barbershops) and enhance care coordination and case management for individuals diagnosed with cardiovascular disease, ensuring they receive prompt treatment.
Before the establishment of Oben Health, Roots Community Health Center had already implemented a barbershop healthcare model known as the Cut Hypertension Program. The organization was looking for a technology partner to support the demands associated with expansion of their barbershop model. At that time, Njongwe was embarking on his own path. He had pursued computer science and entrepreneurship in college and gained experience in product management and behavior design through his work with tech startups. With his background, Njongwe founded Oben Health, driven by a similar ambition to address cardiovascular disparities. However, he recognized a gap in his expertise, particularly in clinical and community-based experiences. This realization led to an exploratory partnership between Oben Health and Roots Community Health Center.
To bridge the gap between barbershops and primary care homes, Oben has been collaborating with CBOCs and community members to enhance support for existing community-based clinical service workflows and data management. Additionally, they are providing extra tools to improve the execution of place-based services. For their initial use case, they are developing a digital platform to support a CBOC that employs barbers as community health workers, utilizing existing reimbursement models for community-based services (currently, in California, this rate is $26 for every 30-minute interaction).
The goal is to empower community spaces and foster better health outcomes through a supported digital environment. "I tell my barber probably much more than I tell my partner, and that's a reality for most men," observes Njongwe. "How can we support that sacred space in addressing community needs?" Barbershops often host health-related discussions, and with the training and encouragement, barbers can direct these conversations towards actionable health measures, such as taking blood pressure measurements. The incentives for barbers go beyond financial rewards. "We aim to provide real-time visualization of how community health workers, like barbers, can positively impact the health and wellbeing of the communities they serve," says Njongwe.
Just a few of the barbershops Oben Health is in already.
Where They Are in the Process
Oben Health is currently building technology to streamline the interaction between a barber, clients/patients, and a team of professionals responsible for managing the care of any at-risk individuals. "We’re building tools to automate the reporting segments of this," says Njongnwe, who is experimenting with audio intake and scribes. "We don’t want the CHWs to be burdened with any administrative processes," he says.
Critical to the Oben's success is supporting the integration of clinical services in community spaces, such as the barbershop space. Supporting patients in receiving services in places they are comfortable and trust is important. The CBOCs they are working with are deploying pharmacists to go directly into the shops to treat patients with uncontrolled hypertension. "If you just refer a patient to go see a primary care provider, you’re going to have people falling off," says Njongwe, who is working on a platform to support communication between patients, pharmacists, case managers, a care team, and payors. Much of this is backend infrastructure, but the company is also working on an app that patients will use to enroll in a place-based service that provides a care plan, health education, and opportunities for interaction with their care team (including CHWs).
Currently, Oben Health is working with four other healthcare companies. This situation provides them with 50,000 potential patients and $3 million in potential revenue. Revenue is generated by collecting between $1,500 and $3,500 per patient per year, paid by managed care organizations and health systems. Oben Health’s mission is to make preventative healthcare accessible, and by screening widely and directing individuals to manage hypertension they are confident that healthcare dollars – and more importantly, individual lives – will be saved.
Our Take
"I really think community spaces are excellent spaces to access preventative care," says Njongwe. With advances in technology, clinics no longer need to be the only nodes for healthcare. Oben Health is forward-looking by empowering existing community spaces and leveraging technology to improve preventive care within a population that has been historically overlooked in care delivery design. Oben Health’s system is efficient, original, and just in both its design and execution.
Although Oben Health is focused on hypertension in the Black community, the technology they are developing shows potential for application to other conditions, like cholesterol or mental health, and other spaces, like nail salons or churches. They are designing technology with an eye toward adaptability – a "plug-and-play model that supports bringing care to where people are," says Njongwe.
Oben Health’s holistic data – which is continually updated whenever someone engages with the app – and their innovative use of technology to bring healthcare to community spaces promises to serve as a model for the future of preventative care and a tool to tackle some of our nation's most intractable health problems.
Join us in welcoming Peter Njongwe and the Oben Health team to the StartUp Health community of Health Transformers.
→ Connect with Oben Health via email
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Published: Feb 1, 2024