From Policy Statement to Practice: Integrating Social Needs Screening and Referral Assistance With Community Health Workers in an Urban Academic Health Center

Social and economic factors have been shown to affect health outcomes. In particular, social determinants of health (SDH) are linked to poor health outcomes in children. Research and some professional academies support routine social needs screening during primary care visits. Translating this recommendation into practice remains challenging due to the resources required and dearth of evidence-based research to guide health center level implementation. We describe our experience implementing a novel social needs screening program at an academic pediatric clinic.

The Community Linkage to Care (CLC) pilot program integrates social needs screening and referral support using community health workers (CHWs) as part of routine primary care visits. Our multidisciplinary team performed process mapping, developed workflows, and led ongoing performance improvement activities. We established key elements of the CLC program through an iterative process We conducted social needs screens at 65% of eligible well-child visits from May 2017 to April 2018; 19.7% of screens had one or more positive responses. Childcare (48.8%), housing quality and/or availability (39.9%), and food insecurity (22.8%) were the most frequently reported needs. On average, 76% of providers had their patients screened on more than half of eligible well-child visits.

Our experience suggests that screening for social needs at well-child visits is feasible as part of routine primary care. We attribute progress to leveraging resources, obtaining provider buy-in, and defining program components to sustain activities.

The full article can be downloaded below.  

Social Determinants of Health Among Adults with Diagnosed HIV Infection, 2017

HIV continues to disproportionately affect various populations in the United States. According to the 2017 HIV Surveillance Report, numbers and rates of annual diagnoses of HIV infection decreased from 2012 through 2016 in the United States [1]; however, numbers and rates increased in some populations and remained stable in others. Differences in HIV burden, by sex and race/ethnicity (i.e., blacks/African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, and whites), have long been highlighted through HIV surveillance data in the United States. Factors other than individual attributes related to sex, race/ethnicity, or behavioral risk factors are likely contributing to the rate disparity, and may be partly explained through a better understanding of the social determinants that affect the health of populations.

The term social determinants of health (SDH) refers to the overlapping social structures and economic systems (e.g., social environment, physical environment, health services, and structural and societal factors) that are responsible for most health inequities [2]. Stratifying public health data by key SDH is useful in monitoring health inequities. Addressing the SDH that adversely affect health outcomes may advance efforts in reducing disparities in HIV diagnosis rates between populations. Addressing SDH also helps to quantify health differences between populations or geographic areas and can provide insight for identifying populations or areas that may benefit from HIV testing, prevention, and treatment initiatives.

The full CDC HIV Surveillance Supplemental Report can be viewed at this link.  

How AI Is Revolutionizing Health Care

The market value of AI in the health care industry is predicted to reach $6.6 billion by 2021. Artificial intelligence is increasingly growing in popularity throughout various industries. Most of us associate AI with things like robots, Alexa and self-driving cars.

But AI is a lot more than that. AI experts see it as a revolutionary technology that could benefit many industries.

The full Forbes article can be viewed at this link.  

Access And Actionability Are Key For Genetic Testing And Precision Medicine

Over the past two decades, the field of medical genomics underwent nothing less than a revolution in terms of both technological advancement and accumulated knowledge. This revolution holds the promise of changing the entire medical practice, and while the industry continues to improve genome sequencing technologies and decrease the price of sequencing a genome, other challenges are lurking that hinder the prospects of this revolution and undermine the efforts of wide-scale integration of genomics into mainstream medicine.

The full Forbes article can be viewed at this link.  

Fewer in U.S. Continue to See Vaccines as Important

Widespread public support for childhood vaccines creates a wall preventing contagious diseases like measles and polio from spreading in the U.S., but a breach in that wall appeared in 2015 and it has not been repaired. A recent Gallup survey finds 84% of Americans saying it is extremely or very important that parents vaccinate their children. That matches Gallup's prior reading in 2015 but is down from 94% in 2001.

The full Gallup article can be viewed at this link.  

Digital Healthcare Growth Drivers In 2020

It has been an extraordinary time for digital medicine and the new year will bring continued growth. The key drivers are expanded patient engagement as well as institutional investment with the ultimate goal of reducing costs. Big pharma, payers and insurance companies have recognized the business benefits of patient empowerment. Digital applications are helping patients become better decision makers for their own health by providing personalized insights. As companies and legislators seek to reduce health costs, digital tools are ever more attractive options to drive efficiencies. 

The full Forbes article can be viewed at this link.  

The economy of connecting

Right now, patients don’t know their own strength. But as they wake up to their emerging role as keepers of their own healthcare data, the economic clout that comes with ownership will hand them a controlling stake in the new business models that are set to disrupt traditional financing across the sector.

Forecasts give a strong indication of the potential scale of that role – and the reasons why technology startups, insurers, providers and researchers are gearing up for the age of value-based health, in which patients will trade their data as currency, investing in their own care outcomes and the tools that will help to identify and realise them.

The full Healthcare IT News article can be viewed at this link.  

The Future Of Clinical Trials? Here Is A Simulation Model Of The Heart

Clinical trials can be very expensive, time consuming, and difficult to recruit for and run. They also can be far from perfect, yielding results that don't really match what happens in the "real world." In some cases, they can put patients at significant risk. Otherwise, no problem, right?

For years, medicine and health care have relied on the randomized clinical trial as the “gold standard” to evaluating an intervention, a drug, a medical device, or some other product. But in actuality, this standard has often been more gold-plated than true gold for the reasons mentioned above. Therefore, there’s been a need for new approaches to help fill the current gaps left by clinical trials. And something called The Living Heart Project has really gotten to the heart of this issue.

The full Forbes article can be viewed at this link.  

The Boldest Healthcare Prediction For 2020: Business As Usual

As the decade turned and the 2020s began, news headlines made it seem as though the healthcare revolution was already underway. One banner boasted “2020: Another Year of Radical Change in Healthcare,” mirroring similar stories claiming that innovations and technologies will continue to transform medicine in the year ahead.  

Just one problem with these predictions: There’s no empirical or statistical evidence that American healthcare has undergone (or will soon undergo) any kind of radical change, or even meaningful improvement. 

In healthcare, the past is a reliable predictor of the future. And when you look at key performance measures—such as cost, quality and satisfaction—it’s clear that U.S. healthcare underperformed over the last decade.

So, why should we expect anything different in 2020 or in years to come? In short, we shouldn’t. Here’s why: 

1. Costs Keep Rising
2. U.S. Still Lags Far Behind Global Peers In Quality
3. Physician Burnout Up, Patient Satisfaction Down

The full Forbes article can be viewed at this link.