LOS ANGELES, Dec. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Akido, a full stack, tech-enabled medical network reimagining healthcare from the ground up, has expanded its executive team with the appointment of renowned industry leader Leslie Margolin as its Head of Healthcare Networks. In this new role, Margolin will work closely with Akido’s co-founders, Sanjit Mahanti, Jared Goodner and Prashant Samant, to introduce the company’s integrated models of care to new markets through a national expansion strategy.
Akido is transforming the healthcare experience, building sustainable, performance-based programs for physical and mental health designed around social determinants of health (SDoH). Its new healthcare model is built to break systemic inequities and unlock opportunities for impactful preventive care. Margolin’s background and career-long passion for creating healthcare programs to better serve vulnerable populations makes her the ideal steward for expanding Akido’s “whole person” care philosophy nationally.
“Leslie is a true pioneer and an architect of much of what works best in today’s modern healthcare model. She has dedicated her storied career to improving the accessibility and affordability of healthcare for all populations, with a focus on the most vulnerable,” said Prashant Samant, CEO of Akido. “At Akido, we are dedicated to breaking the systemic inequities within the legacy healthcare system. Through our unique blend of SDoH-based care, world-class medical services and predictive technology, we believe we can be the force of change in the healthcare industry, shifting focus upstream towards effective prevention programs that better care for all patients and populations. We are honored to have Leslie join our team and I know she will have a tremendous impact on our business and the entire industry.”
Leslie Margolin spent more than 30 years working to improve the quality, safety, efficiency, accessibility and affordability of healthcare. As a senior executive at several of America’s largest healthcare organizations, Margolin relentlessly focused on finding sustainable ways to serve vulnerable populations, pioneering landmark partnerships to address system-wide fragmentation impeding US healthcare.
In her past role as President of Anthem Blue Cross (California), she led a statewide coalition of hospitals in launching Patient Safety First…a California Partnership for Health, a patient safety collaborative of unprecedented scale and impact credited with saving more than 3,500 lives and achieving savings of approximately $63 million in its first three years.
In her role as national chief operating officer, leading hospital and health plan operations for Kaiser Permanente, Margolin served as lead negotiator in historic interest-based negotiations with 27 local and nine international unions representing approximately 100,000 employees. Her partnership successes brought an unprecedented 10-year period of labor stability, were lauded by the U.S. Department of Labor and studied by academic institutions across the nation.
Prior to leading Kaiser’s national operations, Margolin spent 13 years with CIGNA Corporation, serving as assistant general counsel and later as President of CIGNA HealthCare of California. During her time at CIGNA, Margolin was instrumental in pioneering coverage across the U.S. for patients suffering from HIV/AIDS, previously uncovered by most health insurance plans at the time. Most recently as co-founder of The Margolin Group, Margolin capitalized on her payer-provider-consumer relationships to build groundbreaking system-wide partnerships. One such example is a re-designed behavioral health and addiction treatment care program for the most chronically ill, developed in partnership with healthcare providers across the state of Rhode Island. This innovative program led to improved health outcomes and total cost of care savings in excess of 25%.
Reflecting on her new role at Akido, Margolin stated: “By marrying market-distinctive technology with world class care, focusing on the needs of the whole person, integrating physical and mental health, and addressing socio-economic conditions across the communities it serves, Akido is at the forefront of breaking down barriers to care and addressing the needs of all populations regardless of race, socioeconomic status or ability to pay for treatment. I’ve dedicated my career to furthering this philosophy and, at Akido, I am confident it will take hold because, top to bottom, this commitment is embedded in the company’s DNA. It is with great enthusiasm and optimism that I join Akido’s executive team.”
To learn more about Akido, please visit https://www.akidolabs.com/.
About Akido:
Akido is rebuilding the healthcare experience from the ground up, focusing on addressing the systemic inequities that lead to chronic illness and vulnerability. Through early interventions designed around social determinants of health (SDoH), world-class care and human-centered technology, Akido believes it can build a healthcare model that allows for all patients to live their fullest lives. Founded in 2015, Akido was created out of the University of Southern California’s D-Health Lab with the idea that empowering government, healthcare, and nonprofit services with population-based data could help usher in a new era of preventive public health. Today, Akido is building a full stack medical network that leverages its predictive capabilities to provide a frictionless experience for patients and care providers. Akido’s proprietary Wellness Graph – one of the country’s most powerful platforms for predicting health and social outcomes – enables the company to identify key markers on a patient’s journey into chronic illness and build preventive programs to address them. Akido’s medical network currently covers more than 250,000 patients. For more information, visit https://www.akidolabs.com/.
Media Contact:
Sharna Daduk
Head of Communications, Akido Labs
sharna.daduk@akidolabs.com
