Last week, Forbes published an article listing the top 8 predictions that will disrupt healthcare in 2020 according to Frost & Sullivan's Transformational Healthcare Group.
Their No. 1 prediction concerned the influx of health plans and hospital systems adopting social determinants of health (SDOH) solutions in the coming year to improve quality and affordability of care. As they mentioned, “proactively engaging the right patients based on their SDOH can improve health outcomes and help healthcare organizations meet quality standards.”
Addressing SDOH outside the healthcare system will be imperative for organizations as the industry continues its rapid transformation from a fee-for-service payment model to value-based care.
However, there is only one metric that will determine the success and long-term sustainability of these SDOH initiatives: outcomes.
Referrals delivered between providers and community organizations is not an outcome. But demonstrating whether these referrals had a downstream impact on quality measures, patient satisfaction, and financial performance, is. This requires the safe sharing of information between covered and non-covered entities with a privacy-enabled SDOH solution.
Across the country, Signify Community is helping health plans, hospital systems, government agencies, and community organizations work together for the benefit of their patients/clients. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, for example, we helped one health system reduce heart failure readmissions by 22% for over 5,000 high utilizers (read more). And in San Antonio, Texas, we’ve helped assemble a cross-sector care team that has diverted nearly 800 unnecessary ED visits per month in 2019, improving outcomes and reducing healthcare costs.
We applaud Forbes for their recognition of SDOH as an underlying cause of healthcare costs and poor outcomes. As the term SDOH continues its transition from buzzword to the boardroom, organizations that invest in an outcomes-based model that prioritize privacy-safe collaboration will be best positioned to make a lasting impact in 2020.
