After being diagnosed with depression, Amanda’s doctor prescribed Lexapro. It didn’t help. Her productivity at work fell off and she cut herself off from all her friends. Ultimately, she tried multiple medications before finding one that was effective.
Amanda’s experience is typical and it inspired April Koh, YC ’16, to come up with a solution to treat those suffering from depression in a more timely and efficient manner. Working with fellow students Abhishek Chandra, YC ’16, and Adam Chekroud, Ph.D. ’20, the team devised Spring, a clinical tool to diagnose patients with depression and match them with the most effective treatment. The innovation won the 2016 Thorne Prize for Social Innovation in Health or Education—an $25,000 award that will be used to further implement their idea.
The prize was announced on April 15 at an afternoon competition between four teams of Yale students. Team Spring and the other finalists outlined their projects and a panel of judges from Yale and private industry assessed their knowledge and preparation with questions on logistics, marketing and product development.
Established in 2014 with a gift from Margaret and Nathan Thorne, the Thorne Prize is awarded to the best student-led innovation that addresses a pressing health or education problem. It is part of InnovateHelath Yale (IHY), a social entrepreneurship program at the Yale School of Public Health.
Martin Klein, founder and director of IHY and the school’s associate dean for development and external affairs, told the gathering at the Yale School of Management that social entrepreneurship is about “closing the gap, making people’s lives better.” Yale is ideally suited to meet this challenge because of its track record in producing creative social entrepreneurs.
Klein was also pleased to announce IHY’s new partnership with The Aetna Foundation, which will help create and promote innovative solutions to health care problems with $45,000 awarded annually to Yale students.
Alyse Sabina, national program director of the foundation, said she is looking for game-changing ideas every day. “Our mission is to promote innovation through the lens of health equity, to promote healthful choices at the community level.” She said she is delighted to be embarking on this partnership with Yale. “I can’t tell you how excited we are. We are committed to supporting and developing the next generation of innovators.”
Spring, the winning project, is a clinical tool that diagnoses patients with depression and matches patients with the most effective treatment. The goal is to make mental health a more scientific, data-driven process. As such, Spring patients are given a questionnaire with about 35 mostly multiple-choice questions. Using that tool, a diagnosis is made and a prescription plan is developed. The designers stressed that Spring is another diagnostic tool; the final word still rests with the treating physician.
According to Koh, the questionnaire was developed using machine-learning methods on two large datasets to identify 25 variables that most strongly predict whether someone would get better from a specific antidepressant. Those variables are then used to develop the questions. She said the money the team won will be used to validate the machine-learning algorithms at Yale-New Haven Hospital. The aim is to integrate their questionnaire into the psychiatry department and eventually throughout the hospital. The money will also be used to cover the team’s living costs while they apply for grants and raise venture capital.
Social entrepreneurship is about closing the gap, making people’s lives better.
Martin Klein
A total of 30 million Americans were diagnosed with depression this past year, at a cost of $210 billion, including medical costs, suicide-related mortality costs and indirect work-place costs, such as absenteeism.
The three other finalists in this year’s competition were teams Kitchen Table, Lusoy RxAll and Pub4um. Kitchen Table was created by Zoe Lloyd, MBA/MEM ’17, and Nilofer Ahmed, MBA ’16. Their idea was to create and sell plant-based frozen dinner meal kits that improve consumers’ health while reducing the environmental impact of food waste; Lusoy RxAll, developed by Adebayo Alonge, MAM ’16, and Ankur Kapadia, MBA ’17, came up with the idea of saving lives by bringing safe medicines to people living in developing countries through an internet-based health care distribution platform with which community pharmacies can order medicines without the risk of purchasing counterfeit drugs.
Pub4um, led by Paige Baum, MPH ’17, Alicia Tagliasacchi and Anna Fiastro, MPH/MEM ’17, Shane Kunselman, JD ’17, and Camila Vega, JD ’18. They developed a mobile phone app to support and increase the capacity of on-the-ground organizations serving women affected with the Zika virus, providing them with comprehensive information as well as a direct connection to experienced medical professionals.
All four of this year’s teams were strong, said James Boyle, managing director of the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute. “We were very, very impressed with the quality of the teams. It was outstanding,” he said.
The first winner of the Thorne Prize was Khushi Baby in 2014. They developed a necklace that contains a computer chip containing a baby’s health and vaccination records. The device enables medical professionals to avoid written forms, which are often lost, damaged or otherwise unreadable.
Since it won the Thorne Prize, Khushi Baby has received global coverage and won the international UNICEF Wearables for Good prize. Its co-founder, Ruchit Nagar, a student at the School of Public Health, was honored by Forbes magazine’s 30 Under 30, a listing of the nation’s most innovative and talented young leaders.
In 2015, the winning student team was StoryTime, a project that promotes early literacy by using cellular technology to address the “word gap” faced by many children in lower-income families. Moving forward, StoryTime expects Head Start and the YMCA to sign on as customers. The members of StoryTime plan to introduce their innovation in Bridgeport, Conn., Palm Beach, Fla., and Texas.
Referring to the metaphoric first and last miles of health care, Klein said, “Whether it’s the last or the first mile, we have an opportunity to make a difference. When we talk about change and innovation, we’re talking about what young people can do.”