“Your beliefs become your thoughts,

  Your thoughts become your words,

  Your words become your actions,

  Your actions become your habits,

  Your habits become your values,

  Your values become your destiny.”

  ― Gandhi 

There is no shortage of good intentions or beliefs in healthcare. Everyone believes in delivering better outcomes. Everyone believes that healthcare costs too much. And many people believe that we should provide better access to healthcare for all people. Turning those beliefs into strategies and those strategies into actions and those actions into results — this is where we as an industry can do better. We can make a difference.

At Accolade, we’re building a better way to deliver healthcare that benefits everyone — including providers, employers and health plans. It’s an ambitious charge that needs to be backed by foundational beliefs to guide us, as Gandhi so eloquently stated. 

If you know Accolade, you know we have strongly held beliefs. They guide everything we do. We’re transparent with customers and prospects about what we believe and why because our beliefs are integral to every decision we make, every solution we build, every relationship we forge.

Now, we’re putting a public stake in the ground. Have we upheld our beliefs? Do our members, customers and providers agree that we’re delivering on our promises? And finally, are we convincing other innovative healthcare companies to join us in building this better future? Because one company, as ambitious as we are, cannot do it alone.  

What we believe

We believe in lifelong relationships with each person and their family, in sickness and in health.  

Our commitment to relationships that last a lifetime means that we take responsibility for each person’s entire healthcare journey and that of their family. We’re there for annual check-ups, broken bones and chronic condition care.  We’re there when families are growing or need mental health support. Our doctors are there 24/7. We’re there for our members when they need us, because accidents and health events happen on their own schedule.  And while technology can improve the entire healthcare experience, it will never replace humans. We build trust like it’s our business because, frankly, it is.  

We believe healthcare is a human right. However, not everyone experiences the healthcare system equitably. Health equity needs to be built into care by understanding what is unique about each person and their circumstances.  

We strive to close the gaps that people experience across the healthcare system due to their community, race, socioeconomic status — and other factors. Health equity is a core principle for everything we develop and deliver to our members. Accolade’s teams are diverse so that we can meet people where they are, from our virtual primary care physicians, nurses and clinicians to our specialists. We inform those teams with insights from data and AI systems to understand each member’s barriers to care and social needs, which are disproportionately experienced by socially or geographically marginalized groups. We then deliver an evidence-based model of care called contextual care, using our proprietary training model to meet those needs and ultimately unlock better care outcomes for those who need it most.  

We believe that healthcare costs should reflect the quality and success of the care delivered.  

There is a tidal wave of transformation and innovation focused on measuring outcomes and proving success. The industry is primed to deliver the healthcare holy grail: Value-based care replacing fee-for-service. Achieving value-based care benefits for everyone. Providers can practice how they always wanted to, focusing on their patients instead of their screens. Members and employers see better health outcomes, have a better experience and lower costs.  

Accolade has a proven model in place and we’re rapidly building on that success. But one company isn’t going to fix the healthcare system. We partner with like minded companies to share data, ideas and innovation to integrate them in our clinical model.  This new model of collaboration is a big piece of being a Personalized Healthcare company. Without it, we’re all operating in the same frustrating silos that we’re trying to escape through innovation. 

We believe that integrated mental and physical health is necessary to improve outcomes and needs to be accessible to everyone. 

Having a primary care doctor reduces the risk for diseases, disabilities and death. By now, we all know this to be true. At Accolade, we go one step further: We believe that mental health and physical health are inextricably connected and that both need to be easily available to every person today, no matter where they live. Our virtual-first, collaborative care approach includes primary care physicians, mental health therapists, nurses, care coordinators and psychiatrists working as a united team to support your workforce. Together, they actively engage each person to help them live their healthiest life.  

The future of healthcare depends on these core beliefs to help every single person live their healthiest life. As a society, we’re not there yet. But as an industry, we can come together — healthcare companies, providers and health plans — to make this a reality for as many people as possible. 

I said this in an October LinkedIn post and I’ll say it again: The path to long lasting positive change is clear. We must build great businesses by fixing healthcare together, instead of making money from a system that doesn’t work. Collaboration is crucial to the future of the healthcare industry. 

The key to working together across an ecosystem is aligning on a set of common beliefs that guide our behavior and inform our compacts. To paraphrase Gandhi: Our beliefs become our thoughts, words, actions, habits, values and destiny. Our destiny as an industry relies on our beliefs. 

This is what we believe, and our door is open to partner and collaborate with others who feel the same way. What do you believe? 

Learn more about what we believe and explore how we’re bringing it to life through our solutions.