Governance: The Glue That Holds Connected Communities of Care Together

By Keith C. Kosel, PhD, MHSA, MBA

Aligning groups that have very different backgrounds and agendas, for the good of the community, is no easy matter. Whether at the city, state, or federal level, governmental or civic entities are tasked with trying to build consensus among various stakeholder groups to affect an outcome that works for the constituents they represent. It is no different for those tasked with leading a Connected Community of Care (CCC).

The Role of Governance
The premise behind the CCC is that by bringing together healthcare providers, community-based social service organizations (CBOs), faith-based organizations, and various civic entities, a community can establish a network of care providers focused on addressing residents’ social and/or clinical needs. While the premise is straightforward, establishing the governance group and governance structure to set up and manage a CCC is anything but straightforward. Before we look at how we might bring entities with different missions and agendas to the table, let’s understand what we mean by a governance group and a governance structure, and why these are essential to form a successful CCC.

The nucleus of a CCC is its governance group― those organizations that have come together to establish the CCC and to form the rules by which it will operate (the governance structure). As most CCCs form from scratch, the governance group is typically made up of one or two organizations we refer to as Anchor Organizations. These are typically large, well-established, and highly respected organizations within the community. They could include national social service organizations such as the United Way or Salvation Army, or they could be philanthropic funders, faith-based organizations or healthcare systems. What all these organizations have in common is a mission to improve the health and well-being of their community’s residents. As such they lie at the heart of the governance group (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Connected Communities of Care Including Governance Structure

In addition to the Anchor Organizations, the governance group typically consists of four to six additional Partner Organizations. These may be somewhat smaller CBOs (in scale and scope), but they all play a foundational community role in addressing resident’s social and/or clinical needs. Partner Organizations are well-known within the community and historically work closely with the Anchor Organizations. Partners could be regional food banks, housing assistance providers, crisis centers, mental health providers, local school districts, etc.― all defined by the fact they deliver essential social or clinical services within the community.

The role of the governance group is to provide structure and guidance for the CCC. By structure we mean things like: (1) how network participants will be identified and approved, and what will be expected of each; (2) what the CCC’s mission and charter will include; (3) how the CCC will be funded; and what type of data must be collected and shared, consistent with HIPAA regulations. While the governance structure deals with establishing the rules and policies that guide the day-to-day workings of the CCC, the governance guidance function focuses on issues like: (1) support for a Readiness Assessment (See previous blog) to determine if the community needs― and is even ready for ―a CCC; (2) how and at what rate the CCC should grow; (3) strategic partnerships; and (4) CCC sustainability. A governance group is essential to establishing and growing the CCC. Moreover, without a strong, representative and resilient governance group, most CCCs will eventually fail.

Act 1 -Forming the Governance Group

While we might think that forming the Governance Group would be a fairly easy task, given that many Anchors and Partners already know one other, in reality the process is far more complicated. While many of the Anchor and Partner Organizations work in parallel, they often have a narrow topical focus, such as providing food, housing, healthcare or after-school programs. These topical focus areas may conflict either with regard to the purpose of the work or the process by which the work takes place. As an outsider looking in, we might think these are minor, easily solved issues when in fact they are anything but. Layer on top of this funding mechanisms that often are not uniform or are based on an organization’s own performance to support its mission within the broader CCC, and simple differences compound quickly. As the number of Anchor and Partner Organizations increases, the complexity of achieving alignment among these entities also increases dramatically. This is the point where the presence of a powerful and commanding Anchor Organization(s) become critical in driving alignment.

Because there are usually only one or two Anchor Organizations, the likelihood of disagreement is minimized, compared to the next governance level down (i.e., Partners). Typically, the Anchor Organizations individually have been contemplating a Connected Community of Care for some time and all it takes is the right “spark” at the right moment to bring them together. Further, Anchor Organizations by their nature are well versed in coalition building and working across multiple sectors, which is a skill set that may be less well-developed in the Partners, especially in smaller or rural communities.

A key function of an Anchor Organization is to bring a handful of Partner Organizations into the governance group. Here the Anchor’s skill in selecting collegial partners or ones that can easily be won over to align with the CCC’s mission and goals is extremely important. Including a Partner that will be disruptive or non-cooperative is a fatal error, regardless of what resources that Partner might control. Even if it means working harder to secure the necessary resources, it is better to include only cooperative and committed partners than to access resources at the cost of major disruption.

Act 2 – Moving the Governance Group Forward
Establishing a highly cohesive and well-functioning governance group is only the first step in an ongoing process to grow a successful CCC. The governance group must continue to evolve along with the CCC network. As the network expands, there may be a need to increase representation within the governance group. While warranted, this process must be handled carefully to avoid the disruption just mentioned. At the same time, the governance group may need to remove some participants from the network for failing to follow the CCC’s charter or for sub-standard performance. Although these are difficult decisions, neglecting to make them can irreparably damage the entire CCC over time.

In wrestling with these decisions, the governance group must always be focused on sustainability – sustainability of the CCC and of the governance group itself. Sustainability of the CCC takes different forms from operational sustainability to financial sustainability, each of which are indispensable to a CCC’s long-term growth and viability. Operational sustainability focuses on the challenges of keeping the CCC network up-to-date with regard to technology, strategic partnerships, growth through additional participants, and ongoing social and health needs assessments (i.e., is the prevalence of obesity increasing silently in the community? Are more people accessing utility assistance in the face of declining employment as businesses relocate to more favorable locations?). It also includes provisions for turnover at both the CCC administrative level and at the level of the CBOs, which historically have high turnover levels due to numbers of volunteer staff, etc.

Achieving financial sustainability is the ultimate challenge facing CCC governance groups. Without sustained funding, whether through internal or external means, a CCC cannot survive long term as an effective functioning network. The real challenge is not only securing funding but doing so in a way that benefits all network participants in some fashion based on need and contribution. When network participants must seek funding on their own, inequities are prone to develop, as participants begin to follow their own interests rather than the collective interest of the CCC. Though a difficult challenge, especially in today’s pandemic environment of scarce funding, CCC governance groups must confront it head-on.

CCC governance is not an easy or straight road. Rather it is strewn with potholes, stop signs and detours- but one that must be followed none the less if a CCC is to achieve its goal of improving the health and well-being of the community and its residents. The time and thought that goes into establishing a cohesive and highly effective governance group and structure will pay dividends to the CCC and those it serves many times over as the CCC grows and matures to become a key fixture within the community.

About the author
Dr. Keith Kosel is a Vice President at Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI) and is author of “Building Connected Communities of Care: The Playbook for Streamlining Effective Coordination Between Medical and Community-Based Organizations,” a guide that brings together communities to support our most vulnerable. At PCCI, Keith is leveraging his passion for – and extensive experience in – patient safety, quality, and population health by focusing on understanding social determinants of health and the impact of community-based interventions in improving the health of vulnerable and under-served populations.

Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation Expands Opportunities for Women with Data Science and Technology Summer Internship Program

DALLAS – Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI), improving healthcare in our communities with advanced analytics and artificial intelligence, recognizes the importance of a STEM education. Offering opportunities to women interested in data science is particularly crucial, which is the mission of PCCI’s summer internship program.

PCCI’s Women in Data Science and Technology Summer Internship, in collaboration with Southern Methodist University’s (SMU) Statistics Department, is one of the most prestigious internship programs in North Texas with a mission to expand opportunities for women in an industry that significantly lacks gender diversity.

The seven women participating in PCCI’s Women in Data Science and Technology Summer Internship program include high school, college and graduate students from Dallas Independent School District high schools, SMU’s Statistics Department as well as students from the University of Texas at Dallas and Creighton University.

The program’s interns will be immersed in PCCI’s daily work where they will directly experience the organization’s innovative healthcare and social determinants of health programs. The students will also have hands-on exposure to the practical applications of analytics, computing and data science.

“The Women in Data Science and Technology Summer Internship program is a rigorous and meaningful path that demonstrates to women what to expect and how to enter the technology market,” Steve Miff, PhD, President and CEO of PCCI. “Because of the important and valuable contributions from organizations such as SMU’s Statistics Department, we are able to place women side-by-side with clinical and data science experts where they can hone their programming and analytics skills within an atmosphere of mentorship and advancement.”

PCCI celebrates diversity and inclusion with a workforce that includes 54 percent women with 30 percent of its employees representing various ethnicities and communities from around the world. As an example of PCCI’s successful commitment to diversity, the Dallas Business Journal recently named Priyanka Kharat, PCCI’s Vice President, Data Engineering and Machine Learning, as a 2019 Women in Technology honoree.

PCCI’s Women in Data Science and Technology Summer Internship program is currently underway and will conclude in mid-August with a presentation program for their PCCI mentors showcasing the impact their projects are having on the Dallas community and Parkland Health & Hospital System.

About Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation

Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI) is an independent, not-for-profit, healthcare intelligence organization affiliated with Parkland Health & Hospital System. PCCI focuses on creating connected communities through data science and cutting-edge technologies like machine learning. PCCI combines extensive clinical expertise with advanced analytics and artificial intelligence to enable the delivery of patient-centric precision medicine at the point of care.

 

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Parkland Health & Hospital System, Department of Corporate Communications

5200 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas TX 75235, 469-419-4400

www.parklandhospital.com

The Time Is Now for Health Systems to Get Serious About Social Determinants of Health

A fundamental question continuing to face many health system executives is: How do we comprehensively address the needs of patients when those needs extend beyond the boundaries of traditional clinical care?  As President and CEO of PCCI, we have been focusing on this very challenge since 2012.  And while there has been much talk and excitement about social determinants of health (SDOH), we believe that ~90% of the health system market still does not leverage social/economic information when designing population health programs, developing patient-specific treatment plans, locating new services, or conducting community needs assessments. But before health system executives can design an effective SDOH strategy for their organizations, they must first assess where they are and where they would like to be based on the insights and advantages a progressive SDOH strategy would offer. PCCI’s Social Determinants of Health Maturity Model can help executives take this critical step.

Social Determinants of Health Maturity Model

Level Zero: Incomplete Picture of an Individual’s Environment

Realistically, this is the starting baseline for most organizations. Often, teams will attempt to use clinical and claims data ALONE as a means to segment patient populations and project the impact on a patient or cohort. This rarely works; rather, it often leads to late treatment in acute environments, sub-optimal interventions, and erroneous insights about specific patients, patient populations, or geographic markets.

Level 1: High-Level View of SDOH, Using Specific Social and Economic Indicators as Proxies

Teams can extract basic information from claims or clinical data that could serve as effective SDOH proxies. An example would be to look at the number of changes in addresses in a specific record, over a 12-month period, as a strong indicator of housing instability.  At the highest level, teasing out information from existing records can begin to illuminate some of the critical social and economic challenges that may present for individuals in a given community. This level of insight also allows health- system teams to test basic assumptions about a market. We’ve seen teams fooled when the employment level appears to be relatively stable, only to subsequently discover that much of the employment is via low-wage jobs with very poor benefits.  If you begin to see that people are moving around even though the employment statistic looks stable, you begin to realize that the actual stability of your community might not be what you perceived it to be.

If at Level 1, Leadership Teams Should Be:

  • Developing high-level proxy indicators to reflect underlying social and economic challenges that could play a significant role in health status or the ability to access services.
  • Understanding the payer mix; who you serve and, even within the insured population, understand the wage/income levels because there is a high percentage of employed, low-wage individuals that have vulnerabilities associated with transportation, housing, affordable daycare, etc.
  • Becoming familiar with existing local or state connected communities of care programs or activities aligning providers and community-based organizations, such as food pantries, to streamline assistance efforts, reduce repeat crises and emergency funding requests, help address disparities of care, and improve the health, safety, and well-being of residents.

Level 2: Root Causes Understanding of Poor Outcomes at the Population Level

The rubber hits the road at level 2 and teams begin leveraging local data that directly reflect variation in social determinants. We believe that to understand root causes and build actionable models for patient engagement and support, you must evaluate data at the block level. Zip-code level aggregation often masks important details. This is particularly true in highly populated municipalities that can see a tremendous amount of social determinant variation within a 0.1 mile distance. For example, if I had block-level information providing insight that a six-block neighborhood within my market was having transportation-oriented issues and concentrated pockets of non-violent crime, I would model these insights into the deployment of my mobile diagnostic clinics or my development of innovative models to improve access.  Also, if I was discharging a patient who resided in that neighborhood, I would rethink how to schedule follow-up appointments, since the chances of the patient keeping the visits are extremely low. This level of insight and actionability would be missed at the zip-code level.

In collaboration with DFWHC Foundation, Community Council of Greater Dallas, and the University of Texas at Dallas, PCCI built a platform for Dallas called Dallas Community Data for Action and/or Community Data Insights [CDI].  CDI ingests and organizes multiple, publicly available data inputs, such as housing, education, food availability, and 911 and 311 data to generate real-time, actionable dashboards containing over 60 factors that all point to specific social determinants.  In Dallas, use of this data has been vital in understanding pockets of need and in locating areas where the impact of interventions can be the most profound.  You can also use this data more broadly to generate support to build community cross-sector collaboration, by enabling health systems to effectively  engage and coordinate with local municipality officials on community-based support services and planning, and also by helping philanthropic organizations to better understand (and track) community needs in order to invest in/prioritize funding areas that will produce the greatest impact.  In addition to having a detailed and dynamic picture of social and economic needs (demand for services), the CDI dashboard can quickly map out where support services are available/delivered and map/model the interdependencies and concentration of chronic health conditions with social support needs.  As this model is rapidly scalable, PCCI is already working with others across the country.

If at Level 2, Leadership Teams Should Be:

  • Integrating SDOH market insights into your strategic planning process and your community engagement plan
    • Use block-level SDOH in community needs assessments
  • Anticipating and predicting the correlations between multiple social and economic factors to inform your patient flow and access strategy (including your telehealth strategy). Start conducting trend analyses to anticipate and forecast the changes in local-market dynamics that will impact utilization, payer mix, and social/economic barriers to health.
  • Crafting a data-driven engagement plan to align more directly with local municipalities and local philanthropic organizations.

Level 3: Comprehensive Partnership Between a Community’s Clinical and Social Sectors

Participating organizations across a community are collaborating on one Information Exchange Platform and are connected through an innovative closed-loop referral system allowing them to communicate and share information with each other. Success at this highest level requires both a strong technology infrastructure and consistent programmatic deployment [at scale] across a community. This is what we’ve done in Dallas with our technology partners at Pieces Technology Inc.; effectively managing the right balance of people, processes, and technology has allowed us to achieve the positive results that we’ve seen.

Level 3 means a significant investment and a multi-year commitment, not only by the anchoring healthcare system or systems, but also by the local community.  It requires an initial investment and a robust sustainability plan that can ensure that the platform capabilities evolve with the changing needs of the community.  Deployment requires not only new technology, but an engaged local governance structure, new legal and data sharing agreements, and further refinement of data integration and advanced analytics at the individual level.  Integrating these into new/updated clinical and community workflows enables teams to proactively predict specific health and social/economic needs, the complexity and co-dependency of needs, and the ability to act real time at the point of care to address these needs.  This can facilitate making real-time referrals for community support services, tracking whether individuals accessed suggested medical or community resources (and what specific services were provided), and measuring and tracking the impact to individual/community resiliency, self-sustainability, health outcomes, and cost.  In Dallas, we’ve also started to leverage advanced data algorithms to risk-stratify individuals based on their health and social/economic needs to better prioritize and tailor resources and to proactively target high-risk individuals for engagement and follow-up via digital technology.

At levels 2 and 3, a health system must also think about how to leverage its foundation resources and internal employee community-outreach volunteer programs.  Once you better understand the patients that you’re serving in your market and the community-based services they access, you can better deploy employee-based efforts and philanthropic activities that align with the strategic efforts and provide maximal impact.

If at Level 3, Leadership Teams Should Be:

  • Crafting the information exchange platform governance infrastructure to delineate key roles, essential participants, and shared objectives.
  • Committing to cross-community collaboration [potentially including competitors] and a long-term effort; recognizing that your health system might be an anchor organization, but it cannot independently solve the entire problem.
  • Selecting and deploying the technology infrastructure [Pieces Iris™, TAVHealth, Unite Us, etc.] to enable cross-community engagement.  Develop updated clinical and community-based workflows.

In summary, if you’re just starting to address SDOH, you’re late.  It is critical for health systems to begin their SDOH journey today, especially if you serve a vulnerable population and/or operate in a market dominated by uninsured and Medicaid patients.  Addressing SDOH is also equally important for organizations managing a lower-wage, commercially insured population and for any health system that is actively managing or considering taking on risk-based contracts.

If you’re well on your way up the SDOH curve and actively integrating SDOH into your strategic and care-delivery models, then start working on new models to bridge social isolation (physical and mental) and to better understand (and develop strategies to address) challenging behaviors, including chronic helplessness.

To learn more about our Dallas journey, please visit our website and see what our team of PCCI experts is doing to make a difference or visit our technology partners at Pieces Technology to experience the Pieces IRIS™ technology.

World Diabetes Day

Today, November 14, is designated as World Diabetes Day to unite the global diabetes community to produce a powerful voice for diabetes awareness and advocacy. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 425 million people are currently living with diabetes, prevalence is continuing to rise, and one in two people currently living with diabetes is undiagnosed.

Living with diabetes is a daily struggle, but many organizations have worked to create programs to decrease the struggle of those impacted. Ms. F, a 62-year-old African-American female with diabetes who relies on getting her nutrition from a food pantry, is a great example of someone that has benefited from these programs. Ms. F struggled with making proper food choices, adherence to proper medication, and transportation to make regular doctors’ appointments.

Through part of PCCI’s Connected Communities of Care program which shares patient’s information between providers and community-based organizations, Ms. F’s health and social service providers were able to connect and share information regarding her condition. When Ms. F visited the food pantry, staff members were aware of her diabetes. This knowledge enabled the staff to effectively guide her through her diet choices. This pilot program between three food pantries and Parkland Health & Hospital system helped many patients in taking the steps needed to control their disease.

In addition to limited access to healthy food choices, many patients in underserved communities have limited access to transportation. This challenge has made the remote monitoring of patients a critically important component in managing diabetes. PCCI is partnering with Parkland Health & Hospital System’s Global Diabetes Initiative to explore innovative approaches to improving the care of diabetic patients with foot ulcers which can lead to amputations if unresponsive to care. By acquiring data from home glucose monitoring devices and making real-time changes to treatment without physically having to see the patient, the (soon to be launched) study aims to create a sustainable remote glucose monitoring care system. This system will improve glucose control, promote faster healing of foot wound, and reduce long-term healthcare utilization and ultimately, reduce the burden cost of care for individuals and families.

Resources:

https://www.worlddiabetesday.org/

https://www.idf.org/e-library/epidemiology-research/54-our-activities/455-world-diabetes-day-2018-19.html

https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pdfs/data/statistics/national-diabetes-statistics-report.pdf

The Tech Tribune: 2019 10 Best Tech Startups in Dallas

The Tech Tribune staff has compiled the very best tech startups in Dallas, Texas. In doing our research, we considered several factors including but not limited to:

  1. Revenue potential
  2. Leadership team
  3. Brand/product traction
  4. Competitive landscape

Additionally, all companies must be independent (un-acquired), privately owned, at most 10 years old, and have received at least one round of funding in order to qualify.

Obtaining Results in Population Health Management

THREE FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENTS

True population health management requires at least three fundamental elements to drive transformational change and meaningful results:

  1. Aligned incentives across payers, health systems, post-acute care providers, and physicians.
  2. Technology and framework fit for engaging an entire community that leverages resources for care coordination and addressing social, economic, and behavioral needs
  3. Personal engagement to drive activation, behavioral modification, and create a foundation for shared decision making.

HOW ASTHMA AFFECTS POPULATION HEALTH

While this framework is required for managing all populations, it becomes critical and complex when managing chronic disease. For example, asthma is a common disease, but it’s rarely recognized as one of the most common chronic diseases for children under the age of 18 with 6.2 million affected individuals. Over 8% of children have asthma, most with symptoms occurring before five years of age. Asthma disproportionately affects low-income, minority, and inner-city populations with African-American children being at the highest risk. It is a significant driver of school absenteeism, with an estimated 12-15 million school days lost per year.

Asthma impacts both families and the healthcare system financially as well as socially. Childhood asthma is the cause of nearly five million physician visits and more than 200,000 hospitalizations each year. Medical expenses for a child with asthma are almost double than those for a child without the disease. Given these statistics, there’s a compelling need for early identification and effective intervention to control this disease.

PCCI’S POPULATION HEALTH FRAMEWORK

The Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI) has developed sophisticated predictive models to proactively identify children at risk for asthma exacerbations and has combined this powerful engine with a comprehensive population health framework to:

  • Reduce asthma emergency department visits and hospitalizations
  • Increase patient adherence to medication and clinic visits
  • Increase evidence-based leading practices at the provider level

 

Figure 1 Highlights the PCCI Pediatric Asthma Framework
Figure 1. PCCI Pediatric Asthma Framework

PCCI’S PEDIATRIC ASTHMA MODEL AT WORK

Through tailored clinical workflows, monthly provider reports, point-of-care EHR integration, and patient-centric mobile messaging applications, the framework can engage providers, communities, patients, and their families to optimize care, drive engagement, and reduce unnecessary utilization.

Within three years, deployment of the program in the Dallas metro-area by a large health plan resulted in:

  • 32-50% increase in the appropriate use of controller medications
  • 31% reduction in ED visits
  • 42% reduction in asthma-related inpatient admissions

This framework has resulted in more than a 40% drop in the cost of asthma care with the health plan saving over $18 million for both patients and healthcare providers.

ENGAGEMENT IS KEY

The key to PCCI’s pediatric asthma framework is that the clinicians, patients, and health systems are all engaged which generates value for all parties involved. With a foundation in literature-based evidence, the framework aligns with national and international guidelines. It is also both modular and patient-friendly – offering different levels of interventions based on patient risk score, needs, and available resources.
By utilizing our sophisticated predictive model to identify children at risk for asthma proactively, we are able to combine it with a comprehensive population health framework to:

  • Increase patient adherence to medication and clinic visits
  • Educate patients in care and self-management
  • Optimize health plan to care manager outreach and workflow
  • Engage physicians via direct EHR alerts
  • Reduce preventable asthma ED visits and hospitalizations

CURRENT DEPLOYMENT

ENGAGEMENT WITH THE POPULATION HEALTH FRAMEWORK

High and very high-risk patients can engage through succinct, precise, and educational text messages delivered by a simple effective mobile platform. Patients are surveyed about their condition, emergency inhaler usage monitored, and they are reminded of upcoming appointments and medication refills. These innovative features allow continuous symptom monitoring by the clinician to ensure continuity of care and positive outcomes. Patients have displayed satisfaction with the program, with over 70% top box satisfaction and an attrition rate of less than 15% on mobile engagement over a two-year period.

Community engagement is a critical element when trying to ensure not only coordination of care, but referrals and connections to community resources. Providers at either hospitals or the clinics, receive best practice alerts and utilize technology to identify SDOH needs. They can also refer families to community-based organizations (CBO) for assistance with critical daily needs. Currently, we’re in the process of expanding interactions and engagement with local schools, so that school nurses concurrently receive alerts on high risks children and can help coordinate care in those settings.

COMPETING POPULATION HEALTH FRAMEWORKS

While there are multiple and broad initiatives occurring in every market, results have displayed limited to incremental progress. PCCI has demonstrated that transformational change and meaningful results are achievable. Meaningful results require concurrent engagement and coordination of payers, providers, community, and patients via advanced risk-predictive stratification algorithms and deployment of information via new/updated workflows at the point of interaction. Figure 2 highlights the difference and impact our comprehensive program has across a market.

 

Figure 2. PCCI Pediatric Asthma controlled analysis. Comparison 1: DFWHC Medicaid <18 yo: 5% drop in asthma ED visits. Comparison 2: All Health Plan Members <18 yo: 10% drop in asthma ED visits. PCCI Asthma Program: 31% drop in asthma ED visits

Additional Innovations

Despite tremendous success, opportunities still exist to improve results and continue to further engage providers and patients. We are designing and rolling out two additional innovation pilots:

  1. Testing the effectiveness of disease-specific in-home personal assistance devices (Amazon Echo) to engage groups of homogeneous, high-risk, pediatric asthma children in a gamified home environment.
  2. Integrating within a home or community to allow remote monitoring of asthma medication adherence and in-home air quality by using “Internet-of-Things” integration.

The framework is designed with adaptability in mind and is ideal for environments where providers hold risk-based contracts. Future applications will include other patient populations and health conditions. PCCI’s Pediatric Asthma Population Health Framework has not only reduced unnecessary utilization and costs, but it has also improved the healthcare experience for hundreds of pediatric patients and their parents.

Central to the work of PCCI is its strength in predictive analytics/modeling and building connected communities using intelligent, integrated, electronic information exchange platforms. Our state-of-the-art programs and advisory services deliver exceptional value to Parkland Health & Hospital System, the local community, and the broader healthcare market.

Learn more about PCCI’s collaborations, or stay up-to-date with our recent news by following us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn!

The Increasing Importance of Social Determinants of Health

IMPACT ON HEALTH OUTCOMES

Over the last few years, it has been very clear from research that Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) variables have a major impact on health outcomes. It is estimated that close to 80% of health outcomes are impacted by SDOH. With the rise of population-based risk contracts in both the commercial and government sector, it is essential for both providers and payers to collaborate in the identification of best practices to address these SDOH variables. This is especially relevant as providers such as hospitals assume greater risk in arrangements with plans throughout the country such as Accountable Care Organizations (ACO) and bundled payments.

NATIONAL INTEREST AND PROGRESS

Many national associations such as the American Hospital Association (AHA) and America’s Essential Hospitals have developed resources and launched learning collaboratives for hospitals and health systems to address these variables such as food insecurity, housing, and transportation. Health system innovation and care-redesign models driven by organizations such as Healthbox and AVIA have launched collaboratives and forums to educate and address SDOH initiatives. The May 3, 2018, Healthbox forum discussion on “Challenging the Status Quo of Social Determinants” visually captured the opportunities and challenges ahead into one image (Figure 1):

Social Determinants of Health
Figure 1: Image captured during Healthbox Executive Panel Discussion, May 3, 2018. Chicago, IL

These variables have always been a focus of many health systems in terms of articulating their benefit to the community, but now they have particular importance given the rise of more population risk contracts.

Several major barriers have impeded the industry’s progress in addressing SDOH variables: funding and regulations. Fortunately, we have begun to see opportunities in both areas emerge in 2018!

MEDICARE UPDATES AND THE BENEFITS OF SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH DATA

Medicare Advantage (MA) has a regulation titled “Uniformity Standard” that requires all of the plan’s benefits, including cost-sharing, be the same for all plan enrollees. On April 2, 2018, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) outlined several widespread changes in this regulation that both providers and plans have advocated for over the last several years in their 2019 Medicare Advantage Call Letter. CMS expanded the flexibility of lifting the uniformity of supplemental benefit to allow different segments of an MA plan to offer specific benefits to a targeted population like diabetics. This can begin in CY 2019 (January 1, 2019) after the plan designs are approved by CMS. An example could be reduced cost sharing for foot or eye exams. In their official bids that were submitted by the June 4, 2018 deadline, the MA plans can include any of these supplemental benefit elements. Hopefully, providers will see many of the plans deciding to include these additional benefits in their MA bids to address the SDOH variables.

Additionally, in the Bipartisan Budget Act (BBA) that was passed in early 2018, Congress has taken it further by extending the lifting of the uniformity of the supplemental benefits to all chronically ill members of the MA plans effective January 1, 2020. This reinforces the need for us to gain valuable lessons during 2019 in order to determine what works and what doesn’t before it is transitioned to a broader population.

The Chronic Care Act of 2018 extended the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation’s (CMMI) Valued-Based Insurance Design Model to all 50 states in 2020. This model was launched in 2017 to allow Medicare Advantage plans to offer supplemental benefits and reduced cost-sharing to seven conditions including Coronary Artery Disease or Congestive Heart Failure. The model focuses on four approaches:

  1. Reduced Cost Sharing for High-Value Services
  2. Reduced Cost Sharing for High-Value Providers
  3. Reduced Cost Sharing for enrollees participating in disease management
  4. Coverage of additional supplemental benefits such as transport or meal delivery

The creation of more supplemental benefits will enhance the quality of services we provide for our patients especially in terms of addressing the SDOH. Encouraging the inclusion of these targeted supplemental benefits will allow us to partner with payers to improve the health of the country in a more innovative way.

ADDRESSING SDOH WITH HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS AND COMMUNITY RESOURCES

At PCCI, we have been directly involved in national and state-driven education forums, presentations, and roundtables directed to design and deploy local models for the Connected Communities of Care program (previously known as the Information Exchange Portal) that bring together providers, payers, philanthropic organizations, community-based organizations (CBO), and local/state government entities. While most markets continue to be in a learning mode, significant and tangible activities are being initiated in a number of municipalities, including Dallas, Raleigh-Durham, Louisville, Detroit, Chicago, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, as well as across whole regions. For example, North Carolina recently requested proposals for the development of a North Carolina Resource Platform via the Foundation for Health Leadership & Innovation. The goal of this multi-year program is to connect over 3,000 statewide community-based organizations via technology, and facilitate SDOH. This will be completed through a programmatic coordination of referrals between healthcare providers and community resources to comprehensively identify and address the needs of individuals across the state. On a broader level, the Accountable Health Communities Model deployed in 2017 is engaging 31 organizations across the country to address a critical gap between clinical care and community services in the current healthcare delivery system. This is being done by testing the process of systematically identifying and addressing the health-related social needs of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries through screening, referral, and community navigation services to see if it will impact healthcare costs and reduce healthcare utilization.

SUCCESS IN SIX TRACKS

Our experience over the last five years across Dallas tells us that models will need to address six tracks to be successful: Governance, Legal, Technology, Clinical Workflows, CBO Workflows, and Sustainability (Figure 2). The maturity and evolution of the models need to develop and be staged within a multi-year deployment framework (concentric circles in Figure 2 represent the progression and evolution of the model with outer circles representing mature and more sophisticated models).

Social Determinants of Health
Figure 2: Connected Communities of Care program multi-year deployment framework

There is also a critical upfront readiness and deployment/implementation assessment that is important in order to stage the deployment of a Connected Community of Care program. This broad representation of the community’s fabric is critical to ensure that:

  1. A community is ready to undertake the operational and financial requirements associated with deploying a Connected Communities of Care program
  2. The healthcare and social needs of the community are at the forefront of the customized design of the platform (something most for-profit technology vendors offering an out-of-the-box solution either cannot do or fail to do properly)
  3. The design is sufficiently flexible to adjust as the healthcare or social needs of the community change

Addressing SDOH is finally moving from a “buzz” word to implementation pilots. While we talked a lot about population health over the last 10 years, doing population health without a truly engaged and “Connected Community of Care” is like focusing on rescuing people from drowning in a river vs. building a bridge so they can cross it safely. As we continue this journey, let us make sure we build a bridge that adapts to the needs of each community and has emerging local and national models of care to ensure sustainability. We don’t want to end up with a bridge like the Choluteca Bridge in Honduras, connecting nothing to nowhere.

Acknowledgments: Valinda Rutledge, PCCI Executive Advisor and Lindsey Nace, PCCI Marketing and Communications have contributed to this article.

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