This episode’s Community Champion Sponsor is Catalyst. To virtually tour Catalyst and claim your space on campus, or host an upcoming event: CLICK HERE --- Episode Overview:  During this episode, we spend time with Colby Takeda, co-founder and CEO of Pear Suite, a game-changing company pioneering tech-enabled community health workers to address social drivers of health.  With a career improving community wellbeing through social determinants programs, Colby saw technology’s potential to empower this workforce.  While together, Colby shares how Pear Suite’s platform captures data, coordinates care, and tracks outcomes to elevate community health workers’ impact.  Additionally, we discuss the invaluable but untapped role these workers play in building trust and relationships with patients where health systems can’t reach and how connecting them to resources, social programs, and care coordination closes important health and care gaps.  By making these workers scalable, Colby sees healthcare finally utilizing community assets for equitable access. Join us for this passionate and impactful conversation. Let’s go!  Episode Highlights: Origins: Inspired by community health workers’ potential with better tech enablement The Platform: Centralizes workflows, surfaces insights and coordinates care Trusted Role: Community health workers build relationships and address social needs Scalable Model: Tech elevated data and care coordination drives sustainability Vision: Connecting community and health systems for equitable access About our Guest:  Colby Takeda is the co-founder and CEO of Pear Suite, a digital health company working to empower community health workers and better address the social determinants of health.  Through Pear Suite’s social care navigation platform, health plans, providers and community-based organizations can boost member engagement, improve health outcomes, and reduce the cost of care in a person-centered, culturally, and linguistically centered way.  Colby is a former senior living executive and has dedicated most of his professional career to improving community well-being through population health management programs, policy change, and technology solutions, particularly around the social determinants of health. After completing his undergraduate studies in health sciences, Colby completed a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Shidler College of Business and a Master of Public Health (MPH) from the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health. Links Supporting This Episode: Pear Suite Website: CLICK HERE Colby Takeda LinkedIn page: CLICK HERE Colby Takeda Twitter page: CLICK HERE  Mike Biselli LinkedIn page: CLICK HERE Mike Biselli Twitter page: CLICK HERE Visit our website: CLICK HERE Subscribe to newsletter: CLICK HERE Guest nomination form: CLICK HERE -| The Health Equity Podcast Channel is made possible with support from Bayer G4A. Learn more about how Bayer G4A is advancing equity, access and sustainability at G4a.health -| This episode originally aired on January 3, 2024 on Passionate Pioneers with Mike Biselli. Listen, follow and subscribe here.