Carrot Health CEO Named 2021 Health Care Hero by Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal

Minneapolis, MN – (NewMediaWire) – April 5, 2021 – Carrot Health, a leading provider of healthcare solutions powered by consumer and claims data, announced today CEO Kurt Waltenbaugh was named one of 2021’s Health Care Heroes by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. Waltenbaugh, who was recognized in the Health Entrepreneur category, was honored for his substantial achievements at the helm of Carrot Health and the impact he and the company have had on the Minneapolis/St. Paul Community.

Recognizing that 2020 was an unprecedented year, the Business Journal launched the Health Care Heroes awards to honor the healthcare workers who have gone above and beyond in their efforts to fight the global COVID-19 pandemic while continuing to provide care for non-COVID patients. The program recognizes Twin Cities’ individuals who have put innovation, care, dedication, and compassion to work to improve the human condition. Honorees were announced on April 5* by the Business Journal and will be recognized during a virtual event on June 10 and in a June 11 special print edition.

Waltenbaugh stood out for his dedication to shining the bright light of data onto healthcare and societal disparities—the very disparities that collided in 2020 when the world was gripped simultaneously by the pandemic and racial unrest that exploded in the wake of George Floyd’s death—to enable a future without barriers to better health for everyone. He co-founded Carrot Health in 2014 as the vehicle for applying the power of data to eliminating the systemic barriers that prevent people from leading their healthiest lives.

Over the past year, Waltenbaugh’s passion for addressing the social determinants of health (SDoH) that create health disparities and impact public health and public safety resulted in development of Carrot Health’s COVID-19 Critical Infection Risk Dashboard, which predicts the populations and communities that are most susceptible to the negative impacts from a coronavirus outbreak. It also led to the launch of the Carrot Social Risk Grouper® (SRG), which was developed to help understand, identify, measure, and quantify the social barriers and circumstances in which people live. It identifies who is most at risk in a population to help determine which interventions may help lead to better health outcomes.

The impact of Waltenbaugh’s work through Carrot Health can be seen locally in St. Paul’s Frogtown community, where the SRG was used to understand the health risks associated with the 35,000 adult residents. By determining the most prevalent causes for high health risk—financial insecurity among the Hmong population and housing instability among the Black population—the SRG paves the way for designing a solution that enables all of Frogtown’s residents to lead their healthiest lives.

Waltenbaugh is also focused on applying data to address the region’s public health and public safety issues created by the disparities that were laid bare by the pandemic and Floyd’s death and subsequent riots. This includes working with neighbors and elected officials to determine the community’s best response to effectively alleviate the sort of systemic conditions that were clearly exacerbated by the dual crises.

“Being recognized as one of the Twin Cities’ Health Care Heroes is an honor,” said Waltenbaugh. “My heroes are my colleagues who joined me in building Carrot Health, and our customers who are committed to health equity and removing barriers to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to live their best life.”

He continued: “I am honored to be recognized with so many others who are similarly dedicated to improving community and health.”

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About Carrot Health

Carrot Health believes in enabling a future with no barriers to better health, for everyone. We believe that shining the bright light of data onto our disparities will help us, all working together, to improve health. We provide consumer insights for each and every individual person in the United States to engage patients and members, close gaps in care, and optimize performance for healthcare payers and provider systems. The Carrot MarketView® software platform incorporates social, behavioral, environmental, and economic barriers to health data to deliver a 360-degree view of the consumer, providing actionable insights to inform Growth, Health, and Quality.

Liz Goar

813-333-2844

liz@npccs.com