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Dan Cave, President and CEO
Dan Cave
Nurtur President and CEO



















Nurtur was formed to answer the question Why aren’t we in better health? By listening, we're doing something about it.
Dan Cave, Nurtur President and CEO






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Why aren’t we in better health?
A message from Dan Cave, Nurtur President and Chief Executive Officer

In my now more than 25 years in health services, this question has haunted me. I have witnessed “solutions” come and go – all with great promise, all seemingly destined for greatness. But in the end, all seem to fall short of the promise, and still… the question persists: Why aren’t we in better health?

Nurtur was born in response to this question.
 Despite the advent of managed healthcare, the amazing explosion of technology and health information, the millions spent on public health campaigns, we have not turned the tide away from chronic disease and its associated cost burden. Why aren’t we in better health?

Worse yet, the health status of our nation – indeed our globe – is worsening. Despite all of the advances in clinical knowledge and medicine, life expectancies in the industrialized world are decreasing and the prevalence of chronic illness is increasing. Why aren’t we in better health?

Roughly two years ago, as Nurtur was forming, I posed this question to myself, our leadership team and many respected industry thought-leaders. I heard (and thought of) the “standard” answers – The administrative burden of a private health insurance system. The inefficiencies of small physician practices and local hospitals. Overworked and underpaid healthcare providers. Lack of national health insurance – or too much government involvement. Rising costs. “Greed.” You name it – both “sides” of every issue. But yet none really answered the question: Why aren’t we in better health?

Nurtur wasn’t formed to be another health and wellness company, or yet another “me-too” disease management company, or to re-tread old, worn-out approaches. Nurtur was formed to be different – to change the world of health as we’ve known it. And we knew that the roadmap to changing that world was contained in the answer to the question: Why aren’t we in better health?

Sometimes, the answers to the seemingly most complex questions are very simple. They can be found right in front of us. To find them, we have to stop thinking long enough to listen and learn.

We found the answer to our question in the unlikeliest and yet most important and obvious of all places – in the lives of the people we serve: soccer moms, executives in large corporations, union employees, white collar workers, blue collar workers, urban and rural Medicaid recipients, retirees. They are all real people.

When our Health Coaches coached, they provided the best clinical knowledge available from the leading medical organizations in the world. They educated. They had success. Yet, something was missing. We were not content. Not everyone with health issues would engage in a program. Among those who did, not everyone made the behavioral changes that would lead to better health. Why? Why aren’t we (they) in better health?

Nurtur was formed to do better … to answer this question and do something about it. So when we listened to the real people – really listened – what we heard was humbling, challenging, and energizing at the same time.
  • We would tell them they needed to monitor their blood sugar regularly… “I know, but…”
  • We would tell them they needed to exercise… “I know, but…”
  • We would tell them that they had to alter their diet… “I know, but…”
  • We would tell them the way their medications worked, why it was important to continue to take them as their doctor ordered and that this or that national organization had just issued new guidelines that applied to their condition… “I know, but…”
When we stopped “telling” and started listening to what came after “I know but…”, here’s some of what we heard:
  • “I have three different doctors.  None of them know me.  I have to repeat myself every time I go to their office and they only have 10 minutes with me and I only get to see them once in while.”
  • “I’m a single parent and have to take my children to daycare in the morning, go to work, then pick them up every evening; by the time I get home, it’s too late and I’m too tired to exercise.”
  • “I’m taking care of my mom who is 82 and lives with us, she has diabetes and needs help with all her medications – I’ll take care of myself some day but right now, I have to take care of her.”
  • “I’m going through a divorce; I really can’t deal with this now.”
  • “I have too much stress in my life, my mortgage loan increased and I’m afraid I’m going to lose my house and I’m not sleeping – smoking cigarettes is my only pleasure.”
  • “The doctor told me to weigh myself every day and keep track of it – and to call him if I start gaining weight; I’m too busy with my grandchildren to worry about that.  Isn’t it the doctor’s job to take care of me?”
So why aren’t we in better health?
We aren’t in better health because life gets in the way. It burdens us, and we can’t overcome those burdens to change our behaviors, that’s why. Moreover, it gets worse. As our health deteriorates, our ability to live life to the fullest diminishes. Nobody – certainly not our doctors – truly knows us and our lives and issues. Our lives and our health are comingled. In fact, life and health are one and the same. Funny, the reason we aren’t in better health isn’t about healthcare… it’s about life.

Humbling, marvelously simply, evident and right in front of us all along. Nurtur was formed by listening to the people it serves – listening intently, with such caring, that it finally could answer that haunting question and set out on an invigorating new journey to do something about it. This journey is taking us to a different place, a place where there is no competitor to follow or emulate because no one has gone there before. But we will, and in so doing, we will lead – not follow.

Our journey is predicated on the following beliefs, which we found when we listened to the answers to the question: Why aren’t we in better health?
  • We believe that health cannot be improved through clinical means only. It is not just about educating people about their condition and their provider’s recommended treatments. It’s not about telling them what to do.
  • We believe that health is as much about motivation as it is about education. Each individual person’s willpower, strength, courage, social norms, pressures and peer acceptance are unique, and we can understand them through “interviewing” and listening. Through understanding, we can help them find the motivation - not just provide education - to do something about their health.
  • We believe that we ignore life barriers at the peril of the health of those we serve. When one of our participants says, “I know, but…” we listen, intently, compassionately, and with a mind for action. For in their words, our participants are giving us the answer to why they aren’t in better health, and more importantly, the key to helping them improve it.
  • We believe that technology is too often and too simplistically viewed as “the solution.” It isn’t. It is a tool that, if properly used by people, can create solutions. We believe that the greatest opportunity afforded by these tools is to gather data, analyze it for needed information, and share it with all stakeholders in support of much more than a “medical home”… a life home.
  • We believe that the world of health and healthcare is changing, profoundly and permanently. There is no going back. Relative to just 20 or 30 years ago:
  • We have far more choices that impact health, both behavioral and therapeutic,
  • We have nearly instantaneous and unlimited access to information about those choices via the power of the Internet; and,
  • Our choices have extraordinary economic consequences in the form of our out-of-pocket healthcare costs.
These factors are driving all of us to behave more as consumers of health and healthcare services than mere passive patients. And consumers make decisions that reflect their personal wants, desires, life situations and environments. As the saying goes, this is not your father’s healthcare system.

Nurtur was formed to answer the question: Why aren’t we in better health, and to do something about it. We’ve answered the question. Now, we have embarked on a bold new journey that will transform people’s lives. We have blended work-life and health services into a pioneering new approach – we call it PeopleCare™.

We don’t have all of the answers, but we will find them. We will find them by listening – to our customers, and to the people it is our great honor and privilege to serve. We will find them by listening to the incredible employees of our company and those of our partners, who never cease to inspire me with their compassion for others and their passion to help them transform their lives.

At Nurtur, we will never be satisfied with where we are. We will never be content to merely be recognized as an industry leader. We will never stop striving to be better. Our success will be measured by the people we serve. And we will not be satisfied until each individual we work with achieves their optimal health and life balance – their maximum human performance. We will never quit on them. Never.