Maven, the leading virtual clinic for women’s and family health, today announced that it has hired Dr. Neel Shah, MD, MPP, FACOG, as Chief Medical Officer. A globally recognized expert in designing solutions that improve health care, Dr. Shah brings deep experience as a physician, professor and social entrepreneur to Maven.
“Joining Maven presents a unique opportunity for me to build the healthcare system I’ve been evangelizing for 15 years”, said Dr. Neel Shah. “The current system is not working well for anyone—neither people who seek care nor those that provide care—and we need to address this at scale to ensure every person can choose to grow their family with dignity. I’m a builder at heart and ready to roll up my sleeves. As the world starts to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, the opportunity to realize Maven’s vision to create an equitable, trustworthy care model has never been greater.”
“Neel has been living and breathing our mission his whole career, both as an accomplished clinician who has experienced the failure points of our system on the frontlines and as a boundary-pushing entrepreneur working to create change,” said Kate Ryder, founder and CEO of Maven. “We are thrilled to partner with Neel as we scale Maven’s impact and deliver on our mission to change the health of the world—one woman, one family at a time.”
Listed among the “40 smartest people in health care” by Becker’s Hospital Review, Dr. Shah has spent the past decade at Harvard Medical School, serving as an obstetrician-gynecologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, and founding Director of the Delivery Decisions Initiative at Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Dr. Shah’s work as a social entrepreneur has focused on improving healthcare and addressing disparities in care so that all families can thrive. In 2009, he founded Costs of Care, an NGO dedicated to providing better health care at lower cost. In 2017, Dr. Shah co-founded the March for Moms Association, a coalition advocating for the health and wellbeing of mothers. Dr. Shah has written more than 50 peer-reviewed academic papers and contributed to four books.
As Maven’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Shah will lead the clinical product strategy underpinning Maven’s new care model for women’s and family health. He will bring critical insights to the company’s product and provider teams, and forge meaningful relationships with employer and health plan clients to improve care and outcomes. Prior to joining Maven as Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Shah served as a member of Maven’s Scientific Advisory Board alongside industry-leading physicians in women’s and family health: Dr. Mary E. D’Alton, Dr. Brian Levine and Dr. Laura E. Riley.
Maven’s unique care model—grounded in 24/7 access to a network of women’s and family health providers across 25+ specialties, care advocacy focused on women’s health, pediatrics, and parenting, and clinically-approved curriculums, classes, and tracking aligned with members’ personal goals—has been proven to drive better clinical outcomes, including 32% lower NICU admissions, 20% lower unnecessary c-section rates and more than 30% lower emergency room visits.
