Ashley Reid, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Wellist
Creating Compassionate Health Care
There are myriad elements that contribute to an individual’s health. Health care organizations can address the need when it comes to medication or testing, but when it comes to the other aspects — a patient is often on their own.
Ashley Reid (TPR 2006) realized this gap when her best friend shared a harried tale of giving birth when one of her parents was fighting a terminal cancer diagnosis. While complex medical needs were met, simple tasks like running a load of laundry stole time and energy from the family. Ashley saw an opportunity for a better way and created Wellist to address it.
“Wellist partners with health care organizations to build programs for patients and families to get connected to hyperlocal, clinically-tailored support all across their care journey,” Ashley says. “An example of this might be as a cancer patient connecting to support groups, behavioral health resources, a wig or an acupuncturist that’s certified to address lymph node and skincare needs.”
It is health care in its most compassionate form, and it also makes good business sense, which is why systems hire the Wellist team to create this holistic wrap-around support.
“We introduce a scalable capability to the health care system that allows for patients to address a much broader set of their needs and, as a result, have better health outcomes,” she says. “Our work drives revenue and retention, increases the productivity of our frontline nurses by an average of 2.5 hours a week and ups patient satisfaction scores.”
Increasing access is a core value for Wellist, and for Ashley as well. She also serves as a board member for Mom’s Belief, a nonprofit focused on children with special needs that is also the largest mental health care and wellness provider for children in the Asia Pacific region.
“I genuinely believe that access to health care is the most important economic, social, personal problem that we all need to solve over the next 50 years,” she says. “It’s complex and will touch every single person over the course of their life.”
Story by Elizabeth Speed
From CMU Internship to Career Calling
“The woman for whom I interned while I was at Tepper was the head of strategy and marketing at Philips. She recruited me to roll out an international program, and that's how I ended up in health care,” Ashley says. “I was really grateful to my mentor for bringing me to the sector where you can do mission-driven, high-impact work. I will likely spend the bulk, if not the rest, of my career trying to help improve the system.”
