Auckland financial entrepreneur Hannah McQueen aims to shake up healthcare industry with new company Age Brightly

McQueen had sold her successful financial coaching business, EnableMe, in 2023 for a number she didn’t want to disclose, but the sale also came when she felt ready to step back from the stress and fatigue of leading a business.

But despite the chance to unwind into retirement, McQueen wasn’t done with helping people just yet, and she changed her mind.

“If you’d asked me two years ago if I would have been in healthcare, I would have said, ‘What are you smoking? Of course not.’ I was ready to make soap and just go on to my next stage of life,” she says.

“I’ve only ever felt the conviction to do something about an issue to such an extent … when I started EnableMe. And I had the exact same feeling in the pit of my stomach.”

Hannah McQueen is looking forward to the opening of two new Auckland clinics for her new business, Age Brightly. Photo / Michael Craig

McQueen’s business background is as a chartered accountant with a Master’s in taxation law, but while working as a mortgage broker, a lightbulb moment came when she realised her clients would be paying back three times what they borrowed to the bank. She wanted to help Kiwis get out of debt, rather than into it, and EnableMe was born.

When McQueen offered to review a friend’s rest-home contract for her mother, a similar moment struck. It shocked her how vague and unfair the terms appeared: “I just thought, that’s outrageous!”

Then, on a trip to Southland, at Gore Hospital, McQueen saw first-hand that the trigger to accelerated decline in older people was often a sudden hospital admission after an unplanned event. Often from preventable issues such as a urinary tract infection or a fall because of a lack of muscle strength.

Unplanned hospital admissions for older people were contributing to a shortage of beds that was also putting pressure on the entire health system.

“I guess I could choose to ignore what I’ve seen, but the reality is the system is broken and under strain,” says McQueen. “And the medical professionals are incredible people, and they work so hard, but we’re getting poor patient outcomes, and the staff appear to be burned out.”

It’s even harder in regional New Zealand to get access to care.

“When we did our first cohort of testing in Gore, we found 75% of patients had conditions that they were not aware of. And 50% of those people had conditions that if they were going to be left undetected or just left, would result in a hospital admission, or a visit to the emergency department.”

After already building and selling a business at 42, McQueen feels confident in the knowledge of where her strengths lie. She tells the Weekend Herald that not having a medical background is also an opportunity, and McQueen sees it as an advantage because it allows her to focus on the business and consumer side of Age Brightly and leave the delivery of the service to her team of specialists.

Stats NZ predicts the number of people aged 65 years or older living in New Zealand will likely hit one million by 2028. And analysis of hospital admissions conducted by three independent doctors for Age Brightly found 40-60% of unplanned admissions for older patients in hospital were preventable.

As Kiwis age, undetected health conditions can lead to sudden hospital admissions.

Age Brightly’s model will give people a membership which allows them to access a team of specialists – a nurse, geriatrician, health coach, physiotherapist and others – who make baseline assessments of clients through the collection of 100-plus biomarkers. They will then be tracked over time.

The service isn’t intended to replace regular GP visits, McQueen explains, but will offer a way to measure a person’s cognitive and physical decline. It will also allow potential intervention for heart conditions, fall risks or any of the health issues that can go undetected while a person is ageing, she says.

“My concern is that we will be too busy too quickly. If we do this properly, we’re going to change so many lives and revolutionise how you age well.”

Last year, GPs complained that a 15-minute appointment was not enough time to complete a thorough patient consult and do all the administrative work associated with that, especially with patients on multiple medications or with multi-layered issues.

“The 15 minutes can be a terrifying 15 minutes when it’s a new patient who might be 70, who’s got 16 medications, who’s got a new kind of symptom. You just can’t do it,” Papatoetoe Family Doctors GP Dr Karl Cole said at the time.

McQueen says long wait times for GPs and short consultations are preventing older people from being seen for anything other than acute issues. Research conducted by Age Brightly has shown being on four or more medications can increase the risk of falls for older people.

‘If we do this properly, we’re going to change so many lives and revolutionise how you age well,’ says Hannah McQueen, of her new business Age Brightly. Photo / Michael Craig

In one instance, McQueen spoke to a man who was facing a nine-month wait to see his cardiologist privately. Through being a part of Age Brightly, he was able to get rapid access to a specialist, and this is the sort of pattern McQueen believes will enable the company to prevent poor patient outcomes.

She also says the cost of an Age Brightly membership should not be a barrier for patients.

The price is about $2.50 per day for an annual membership, she says, or between $75 and $300 per month, which McQueen says could potentially mean avoiding further expensive medical costs later down the track.

However, she also acknowledges that for a family in a stretched financial position struggling to pay their power bill, it could be unaffordable.

“A lot of Kiwis aren’t used to investing in their health. But I guess, what is the cost if you don’t? And I don’t just mean the cost to the taxpayer, which is horrific, but it’s also the cost to families and to your health and lifestyle when you don’t pick up on things early.”

McQueen plans to open a further four clinics by the middle of the year and says she isn’t romantic about how she goes about achieving her goals.

“At the end of EnableMe, I was chuffed with myself, and I was happy for that to be my offramp. But on reflection now, as I build up for Brightly, I feel like that was just a training ground for what I’m about to do.

“All the lessons I’ve learned, the perspectives I’ve gained, how you break down really big problems, how you communicate your message and bring your team on the journey.

“I haven’t cut any corners in how I achieved the success of EnableMe, and that gives me the confidence that I know how to wield a sword, and I know how to fight in an arena.”

In terms of the formula for what builds a successful business, McQueen has two key pieces of advice for anyone wanting to create their own start-up.

“Be really clear on your point of difference and surround yourself with the highest-performing team you can afford,” she says.

“With EnableMe, I couldn’t afford that team until the last five years of business, and what that means is that as the founder and owner you’re overstretched in every direction, which ultimately isn’t sustainable.

“When you have a high-performing team it’s electric, it’s just so good.”

Hannah McQueen. Photo / Michael Craig

What’s the biggest financial mistake for older people?

Not having a plan. That’s the biggest financial mistake older people can make, McQueen says.

Many older people, she explains, are not aware of the big moments in later life and are almost not ready to confront or even name the milestones.

“That might be: when are you planning to downsize your home? Are you planning to give money to your kids before you die? Are you moving into a retirement village? What happens if you need care, and who’s paying for that? When should you stop working? How do you invest your money at these different stages?

“Those are big things to work through, and we tend to want to boil it down to ‘how much do we need to save for retirement?’ But it depends on your answers to all those other questions.”

McQueen will be exploring these issues in a new weekly column for the Herald, starting on March 4.

Financial experts told the Weekend Herald there is a need for additional savings as retirees are spending beyond NZ Super, a fact that is being exacerbated by the high cost of living.

Massey University’s Financial Education and Research (Fin-Ed) Centre found most Kiwis aiming for a comfortable standard of living would need income beyond the superannuation.

At a debate held at the New Zealand Economic Forum at Waikato University earlier this week, Milford Investments CEO Blair Turnbull said that currently, 40% of retirees rely entirely on income from super because they have no savings.

He said the superannuation system was unaffordable for New Zealand because of a lack of workers, productivity and the oncoming increase of the population of over 65s.

Often, people will stop working too early, McQueen says, and downsize too late, while also not preparing adequately for milestones, which often involve mental and emotional preparation as well as physical steps.

“Even just downsizing your home, even if that was a known step financially to get your last $300,000 to fund the rest of your life. There’s so much emotion tied up in downsizing your home and throwing things out.

“There’s a lot with that, and because we don’t name these things, we kind of sleepwalk through them and the experience becomes very jarring for families.”

Now, as she readies herself to open the new Age Brightly clinics, McQueen says she is steadfast in her conviction that the service could change the landscape of healthcare for older people in New Zealand.

“There is a moment where you go, do I actually have it inside me to do this? Because so many things are entrenched in the health system about the way things are done,” she says.

McQueen sees the only way forward as being to try to break that mould for patients.

Eva de Jong is a reporter covering general news for the New Zealand Herald, Weekend Herald and Herald on Sunday. She was previously a multimedia journalist for the Whanganui Chronicle, covering health stories and general news.

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