Hello 

Together. In collaboration. In resilience. In community. 

We’re proud to present this report as a celebration of the impact we made together in 2022—a year that taught us that strengthening communities and collaboration is our super power. 

Our mission is to power collaboration across sectors to meet the needs of communities. We know that needs are filled, solutions are found, and gaps are closed when we bring communities together. 

That happens because of you. Your ingenuity and compassion. Your experience and capacity to learn from the people and partners we serve. All woven into the relationships we’ve strengthened, the digital infrastructure we’ve taken to the next level, and the unprecedented social and health data we’ve harnessed. 

Together, we’ve helped feed rural communities; shown healthcare organizations how to open doors to their patients with the highest needs; given community groups access to local resources and partners they never knew they had; extended the reach of the Chickasaw Nation to feed families; and provided wraparound services to new mothers in Florida.

For Unite Us, 2022 brought with it more opportunities to make strategic decisions and deepen our investments in products and solutions that will support communities for the long term. Together, we have the resilience and adaptability to thrive through changing macroeconomic trends post-COVID recovery, and even natural disasters. 

Thank you for the impact you bring to our community. 

Better together,

Dan Brillman and Taylor Justice

Our Impact in 2022

Read the full report to learn more about our impact in 2022.

Read the Report

The post 2022 Impact Report: A Letter from Dan and Taylor appeared first on uniteus.com.

SDoH are non-clinical contributors to whole-person health. Such behavioral, personal, lifestyle, socio-economic, and environmental factors are responsible for around 80 percent of an individual’s overall health status. In contrast, clinical care influences only around 15 percent of health status, but absorbs 60 percent of U.S. healthcare spending. Redressing that imbalance with programs and services that incorporate SDoH insights into their strategy is increasingly critical, particularly for underrepresented populations and in value-based markets. 

Yet it’s often a challenge for life sciences organizations to identify SDoH needs for the communities they serve and apply data-driven insights effectively.  

Here are three areas where data-driven SDoH insights can have a transformational impact on whole-person care, adherence, health equity, and patient engagement while also optimizing business processes and organizational outreach.

1. Use Data-Driven SDoH Insights to Enhance Every Aspect of the Product Life Cycle 

As medication and therapies become more targeted and measuring outcomes becomes increasingly important, life sciences organizations can incorporate SDoH into every aspect of the product life cycle, starting with discovery and development. 

Data-driven SDoH insights can enhance understanding of the health conditions, circumstances, and challenges of specific patient populations at higher risk of disease. For example, mortality rates for Black women with breast cancer are 41 percent higher than for white women. When we start to take a deeper look at the underlying factors behind these statistics, we can see that there are many non-clinical factors, such as lack of transportation or access to child care, that can impede treatment or diagnosis. SDoH insights help identify these critical, human-centered components and inform the product life cycle, starting with discovery and development. 

Clinical trials have historically struggled to engage individuals from underrepresented communities. The failure to include representative members in clinical trials has influenced discovery and development and impeded effectiveness for those communities. According to the Lancet, between 2000 and 2020, the majority of clinical trials in the United States did not report specific race/ethnicity enrollment data, but white people likely represented 80 percent of enrollees.

SDoH needs—such as access to transportation and childcare—significantly impact the extent to which individuals are able to participate in clinical trials. Data-driven understanding of those barriers can help life sciences organizations and contract research organizations (CROs) source a more representative population of patients, facilitate their participation and long-term engagement, and address community distrust in the discovery and development processes. 

Connecting with communities at the ground level can better inform collective understanding of the barriers and challenges faced by certain patient populations. Clinical trial engagement can be greatly enhanced through the support of trusted community partners who have real relationships with potential trial participants. 

In a clinical trial conducted by Vanderbilt Academic Medical Center in 2011, community experts addressed the specific social barriers for trial participants, including transportation, appointment flexibility, and tailored marketing materials. These insights helped researchers increase enrollment by 78 percent and meet recruitment goals 16 months ahead of schedule while achieving 100 percent participant retention and study adherence.

SDoH insights can also help identify barriers to care within patient populations and communities. Such insights enable life sciences organizations to develop localized patient strategies across key markets and engage relevant health providers and community resources for therapy-specific programs. 

2. Recognize the Role SDoH Play in Adherence and Health Outcomes

Medication and therapy efficacy alone is not enough to ensure better health outcomes. Medication non-adherence remains one of the biggest drivers of poor health outcomes and increased healthcare costs. 

Non-adherence is particularly common among patients suffering from chronic disease, such as diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular conditions. Often, the same non-clinical factors that can impede initial treatment or diagnosis may also play a role in non-adherence. Non-adherence to medication for chronic illnesses increases healthcare system costs by over $600 billion each year. The ability to identify relevant patient populations within these chronic disease states and develop data-driven programs that connect patients to resources in the community represents a tremendous opportunity to enable the patient journey, increase adherence, and improve overall outcomes.

A complex range of factors typically influences noncompliance, including socioeconomic circumstances and access to care. A study by Unite Us showed that populations with elevated social risk, as defined through Unite Us Social Needs System taxonomy for measuring SDoH, have seven percent lower care compliance across key measures, including: 

• Breast cancer screening 
• Colorectal cancer screening 
• Medication adherence: statins (PDE) 
• Medication adherence: diabetes (PDE) 
• Medication adherence: RAS (PDE) 
• Osteoporosis management in women who had a fracture 
• Annual wellness visit 
• Diabetes care: HbA1c test 
• Primary care visit
  

Single-factor interventions rarely move the needle for patients facing chronic illness. SDoH insights can significantly inform interventions that improve adherence by identifying the non-medical reasons that impact non-adherence. Factors like lack of transportation, secure housing, adequate food, access to pharmacies, or poor health literacy can intersect in complex ways.

Knowing which factors to address, how to track utilization, and how to measure the impact of therapies and interventions long-term are all key to improving whole-person care, patient engagement/experience, health outcomes, and health equity. 

With robust, data-driven insights, life sciences organizations can also predict and measure the impact of specific social care interventions—like providing transportation or food—in collaboration with community partners. This enables organizations in at-risk arrangements to improve outcomes in cost-effective ways and design intervention opportunities to improve results. 

3. Enhance the Impact of Investments in Patient Care and Communities 

Life sciences organizations can also contribute toward providing culturally competent resources to help mitigate needs that drive noncompliance in the first place. 

Connecting with a strong network of community-based, social care organizations can go a long way in supporting historically underrepresented communities. To improve adherence and outcomes across many populations at scale, life sciences organizations not only need access to such an infrastructure, but they also need data-driven SDoH insights to direct, track, and measure the impact of their efforts to ensure dollars are spent effectively and efficiently.

Patient and provider education is another important component. With better understanding of patient populations, life sciences organizations can target messaging appropriately, identify the right channels for those messages, and improve patient engagement and marketing ROI exponentially. This can not only improve adherence but screening and preventative care as well.

Life sciences is already among the most philanthropic sectors in the world. With the right data-driven SDoH insights, life sciences can invest in communities and patients more effectively while improving trust in their organizations and in the efficacy of their therapies. 

Advancing Whole-Person Care, Health Equity, and Organizational Performance

Every healthcare organization is more aware today of how disparities in health equity and SDoH influence health outcomes, whole-person health, and overall healthcare costs. 

Life sciences organizations can take a leading role in addressing these disparities and improving whole-person health by incorporating SDoH insights into their business processes and by coordinating services with providers, payers, community partners, advocacy and support organizations, government agencies, and patients. Specifically, they can leverage data-driven insights to support strategic initiatives that advance adherence and improve outcomes.  

By addressing the social determinants of health, life sciences organizations can help build the future infrastructure of care and meet the challenge of health equity through targeted and effective investments. 

Visit Unite Us to learn more about transforming patient services with whole-person care. 

The post Three Ways Life Sciences Organizations Can Use SDoH Insights to Inform Whole-Person Care appeared first on uniteus.com.

Community-based organizations (CBOs) play a vital role in designing and innovating solutions to address their communities’ health. Working alongside their clients, neighbors, and local leaders, CBOs are often the source of the most creative, and ultimately, the most sustainable solutions to address service gaps, health inequities, and emergent challenges.

In an era of growing needs and shrinking resources, how can we ensure these organizations are well-resourced and supported in their efforts to catalyze growth and opportunity in communities near and far?

Join us at our panel, Advocating for Community, which will elevate this critical role, drawing on experiences in communities across the country to show how CBOs are indeed on the frontline of policy design and implementation, and asserting themselves as advocates and leaders at both the local, state, and national level.

The post Advocating for Community: Leading Local and State Transformation appeared first on uniteus.com.

Now more than ever, people are turning to their communities in times of need. When a person needs support, they may not go to a hospital or clinic. Instead, the first line of care often lies within their schools, churches, libraries—even the local barbershop.

Across the country, organizations have stepped up to serve as local navigators in their community, working hard to connect individuals with accurate information and resources.

From navigating the healthcare system to helping those with housing needs, many of these organizations are uniquely positioned to put individuals at the center of care, connecting them to appropriate services in their communities.

Join our panel, No Wrong Door, to learn more about transformative community engagement efforts and how unique organizations are reshaping and transforming the areas in which they reside.

The post No Wrong Door: Meeting Communities Where They Are appeared first on uniteus.com.

Unite Us is proud to serve as the technology backbone connecting health plans, network leads, providers, and public entities engaged in HOP. With Unite Us’ Social Care Payments product, providers can manage eligibility and authorization, send referrals to contracted providers, securely track outcomes and document services, generate invoices, and efficiently manage reimbursement of social care services.

In record time, Unite Us successfully socialized the new program and trained, onboarded, and enabled five prepaid health plans, three network leads, three clinically-integrated networks, and more than 100 health service organizations.

HOP is Expanding Social Care to North Carolinians

In the first few months since HOP launched in March 2022, community-based organizations have provided nearly 10,000 social care services that are—for the first time in the nation—eligible for Medicaid reimbursement. In that same time, North Carolinians have received more than 5,000 food boxes addressing needs like food insecurity and many others. 

To date, 97 percent of individuals identified by a care manager as eligible for the pilot were successfully enrolled in the program. After a service is approved through the CMS-mandated workflow, providers accept the referral to provide services within one day on average. And the rejection rate for claims is less than 3%, compared to typical clinical rejection rates of 10-20%, which reflects the high-quality eligibility and invoicing process facilitated by Unite Us and its partners in North Carolina.

Unite Us has a long history of proven success in North Carolina dating back to 2015. Following the success of the competitively procured, statewide care coordination network in North Carolina powered by Unite Us—known as NCCARE360—the state made the decision to work with Unite Us to launch the Healthy Opportunities Pilot in 2022 to reduce silos, improve efficiency, and reduce overall spend. 

Unite Us is extremely proud of our work supporting communities across North Carolina, the success of which has been recognized throughout the country, including by the North Carolina Institute of Medicine; Health Leaders; the Center for American Progress; Princeton School of Public and International Affairs; and Politico.

Learn More

The post How North Carolina is Improving Lives Through the Healthy Opportunities Pilot appeared first on uniteus.com.

Reflecting on the event, Georgina shared, “We should all be more motivated than ever to transform the way we think about food and health. In order to end hunger in America, we must recognize the role of hunger with cultural sensitivity, or we all further the inequities that plague our communities. We owe it to our youth to make sure they never experience hunger again. Now is the time to all step up and do our part, and Unite Us is proud to continue leading by example, hand in hand with our partners!” As a vocal supporter of the importance of food security for students and families, her passion lights a spark within us all.

Empowering Organizations Through SDoH Technology

In various sessions throughout the conference, Unite Us was mentioned for the role our solution plays in breaking down silos that prevent community members from accessing vital resources such as nutritious food.

In one example, our partner Shavana Howard, Assistant Secretary of Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services shared, “Most people come to our state agency because they want food stamps or they want cash benefits, or they just need help. Oftentimes, what we’re able to give them is approval for food stamps or approval for cash assistance, but we can’t address the child care, we can’t address the housing crisis or challenges that they have, even connecting to schools. So we’ve worked with United Way and 2-1-1 to actually roll out the Unite Us Platform, where all of our staff will actually have access to address those other needs. So instead of saying ‘you can pick up the phone and call this place,’ they can actually send a referral directly to that ZIP code in which that individual lives, so that they actually can get the resources and support they need.”

As Shavana explained, it is critical to take the burden to find resources off of the community member and instead empower providers to securely communicate and track outcomes, proving when a person receives the help they need. Watch her full remarks here.

Another major theme at the conference was the need to reimburse community-based organizations for addressing SDoH needs, like food and nutrition. States like North Carolina and California were recognized as having proven that such efforts at scale can work. Unite Us is proud to be the technology backbone for North Carolina’s $550 million investment in reimbursing CBOs for these and similar services.

Recognition at the event was both unexpected and heartening, further emphasizing the trust and buy-in which Unite Us has earned from our cross-sector partners in 44 states.  This is what happens when you create a tool that empowers community members to address disparities and meet the social needs of the underserved.

Our Continued Commitment to Nutrition and Health

Now, the Biden-Harris Administration has released a fact sheet of commitments supporting the five pillars of the conferences, which listed Unite Us as a participant. To support the “Integrate Nutrition and Health” pillar, Unite Us has joined the Sync for Social Needs coalition, a select group of leading health technology companies and health systems, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, to standardize the sharing of patient data on social determinants of health, including food insecurity.

Members commit to collectively evaluate and pilot the integration of specific social screening tools in electronic medical record systems. In addition, the leading healthcare standards-setting bodies will commit to working with participants to scale these approaches, further lowering the clinician burden to screen for social needs. The group will kick off a six-week discovery sprint, which will determine a design for an initial pilot through which screening data will be shared.

“As the nation’s leading cross-sector collaboration platform, we are excited to bring our expertise in demonstrating how the secure sharing of standardized social care data is being done at scale,” said Dan Brillman, CEO and Co-Founder of Unite Us. “We believe the true value of screening data is valuable when coupled with data-driven actions within communities that result in outcomes and improved health. We look forward to driving this initiative forward, leveraging work already being done with Unite Us across the country, and supporting the work needed to evolve the industry.”

Unite Us joins the member organizations committed to the initiative, which includes BayCare, Epic, Geisinger, Graphite Health, Higi, HL7 International, Meditech, National Committee for Quality Assurance, National Quality Forum, Oracle-Cerner, Riverside Health System, Rush University System for Health, Saffron Labs, Sanford Health, SCAN Health Plan, SSM Health, The Joint Commission, Tufts Medicine, and XanthosHealth.

In the months ahead, we look forward to sharing our expertise and participating in critical conversations with fellow members.

Explore Our Solutions

The post Unite Us Joins National Coalition Standardizing SDoH Data appeared first on uniteus.com.

Watch the Webinar

In this webinar, you will learn about:

• Market dynamics and policy trends regarding SDoH and quality performance
• Securing buy-in and internal alignment
• Data-driven insights on specific social needs and risk in your population
• Managing targeted, effective, community-based interventions
• Tracking and proving the impact on quality scores

Health equity and social determinants of health (SDoH)—such as access to secure housing, adequate nutrition, transportation—have an impact on healthcare utilization, costs, and outcomes. This means social care services are just as important as clinical care services in improving quality scores. However, most health plans still lack a practical understanding of the actual impact of social care services on key quality measures.

It’s time to close the gap between research literature and practical understanding of how social care interventions measurably impact quality scores. Our five-step guide is based on our experience in enabling health plans to successfully address SDoH and our position that quality care is equitable care.

This new resource is designed to give health plans the ability to make strategic decisions around social care with the same rigor and confidence they already apply to clinical care. It describes a practical path for integrating social care services into the strategic goals, operations, and workflows of a health plan’s whole-person quality program.

Integrating social care services and clinical care services is the key to advancing health equity. Watch the webinar and prepare for success in 2023!

Watch the Webinar

The post Integrating Social Care to Improve Quality Performance: A Five-Step Guide for Health Plans appeared first on uniteus.com.