During a July 14 webinar, sponsored by TransUnion and hosted by Becker’s Hospital Review, two thought leaders delved into social determinants of health data and how it can be leveraged to transform care delivery for at-risk populations. The presenters were:
• Trenor Williams, MD, founder and CEO of health IT and analytics firm Socially Determined
• Jim Bohnsack, chief revenue and strategy officer of TransUnion Healthcare
Here are five key insights from the discussion:
1. Research shows a small percentage of the population generates a large portion of healthcare spending, which is why focusing on the social factors affecting their lives and how it leads them to interact with the system is important to understand, Mr. Bohnsack said. The more providers know about community- and individual-level needs, the better they can target and direct care efforts to populations that drive the most health spending.
2. We are also seeing how social determinants of health can influence the course of epidemics and pandemics, Mr. Bohnsack said. A 2020 study conducted by Cambridge, Mass.-based Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies shows that the COVID-19 death rate is higher in areas where there is more poverty, more crowding in terms of housing, and in communities of color.
3. Current data collection methods are unsustainable and need improvement, as long medical visits and screenings can contribute to provider burnout and lower patient satisfaction. Hospitals can consider other sources that gather relevant social determinants of health data, such as TransUnion, which has both public record information and historic credit bureau information, Mr. Bohnsack said.
“[The question is] how do we create a more holistic view of that individual and their needs, the situation they live in, the risks they are exposed to,” he said.
4. Hospitals can also partner with companies with the analytics capabilities to conduct sophisticated assessments of community- and individual-level social determinants of health data. These technology platforms can then combine this data with clinical and claims data to create individual risk scores and visualizations of risk exposure across communities, Dr. Williams said.
5. Dr. Williams also discussed ways providers and governmental agencies have used this data to successfully identify and support at-risk communities. For example, Toledo, Ohio-based ProMedica used Socially Determined’s platform to aggregate and analyze data for more than 1.1 million individuals. The health system was then able to assign social risk and prioritize different cohorts. In particular, ProMedica identified complex disease patients who were also experiencing financial difficulties.
“The organization is now working in collaboration with their health plan, Paramount, to proactively connect those individuals to LISC’s Financial Opportunity Center, an evidence-based intervention that has been shown to improve healthcare outcomes and improve financial resilience,” Dr. Williams said.
“In healthcare, we can be myopic,” he added. “We have done a really good job of using the data that we have had access to. I would contend that that [data] is incomplete, that it doesn’t tell the full story about a person or a family or about a community — the challenges, the barriers people have in their life that limit or prohibit them from being healthy. We believe that understanding social risk allows us to expand that visibility and allows us to … act with precision.”
Learn more about TransUnion here and view the webinar here.
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