We believe that prioritizing the privacy and dignity of individuals seeking care is fundamental to the mission we share with our partners across communities. To that end, we’re sharing our vision of the rights we believe all individuals should have with respect to their social care information—and how all partners in this work can advance our shared goals to enable secure and seamless access to care. 

Unite Us has built our solution to center our core principles of privacy and dignity and these five fundamental rights for every person seeking care. Our platform features a robust consent process that is centered around the person seeking care. The consent form is translated into over forty languages and available in multiple formats to promote accessibility. We designed this consent model to protect client privacy and alleviate the challenges people face when seeking services. When accessing services through providers coordinating through our platform, individuals have the right to know what information is collected from their providers, the right to consent to the sharing of their information, the right to correct their information, the right to revoke consent to sharing their information, and the right to delete their information. 

In addition to these fundamental rights, individuals seeking care should trust that their information will be protected and secure. At Unite Us, we protect all social care information as though it were protected health information, employing the same security measures required by HIPAA for all data on our platform, regardless of where it originates. We also provide heightened protections for information subject to 42 CFR Part 2 and other federal and state protections, enabling providers that have historically been siloed to collaborate with their partners and improve outcomes. Our partners have welcomed this opportunity to securely connect across sectors: 

“Normally, we are not able to use any other platforms because they could jeopardize the safety of survivors of gender-based violence. Not being able to receive and make referrals through other platforms kept us siloed. This is the first community-based referral connector system that we’ve ever seen that would meet our qualifications and ensure survivor safety. Unite Us worked closely with us to ensure that this platform could work for our population. This partnership creates more referral pathways for healthcare and other community-based organizations to connect survivors to our services that might not have otherwise been referred.” – Executive Director of a Community Provider Serving Survivors of Domestic and Interpersonal Violence in Oregon

By providing the technology and resources to support secure coordination across sectors, we alleviate the burdens imposed on resource-constrained providers serving our communities. 

When we develop new features for our solutions, we always take into account community feedback to ensure that the individuals in need of care and community partners serving them are heard. We listen to our community partners to reflect our shared vision to promote seamless access to care that centers the individual. As one community partner shared: 

“Unite Us has successfully and easily linked families with whom I work and resources specific for their needs. I recently had a family with a variety of needs. The mother and her two children were living in a car but were able to get a home through a community program. Unfortunately, they did not have any furniture, lighting, clothing, or household goods. The mother was also interested in assistance in obtaining childcare and a job. The mother agreed to me entering her information into the Unite Us Platform. It took about five minutes or so. The mother was sent a text message from the program, where she had to give electronic permission for Unite Us to disseminate her information to the resources I had chosen. Within 24 hours, she was linked to a potential employer, financial resources, and community resources to meet their concrete needs. The mother has been so grateful for the resources and assistance.” – Social Worker in West Virginia

These five fundamental rights—coupled with solutions that protect social care information under the same strict protections required for protected health information—protect individuals’ privacy and help ensure that their social care needs are addressed. 

Get in Touch

The post How Unite Us Advances Privacy and Dignity for Individuals Seeking Care appeared first on uniteus.com.

We know from research and personal experience that people are healthier when they have safe housing, access to healthy food, and viable transportation options. Despite this reality, there has been a historical lack of funding and infrastructure for organizations addressing social determinants of health in communities across the U.S. But not anymore. Systems are changing to finally meet people where they are and elevate social care to the same priority level as healthcare.

In North Carolina, the Healthy Opportunities Pilots is one of the nation’s first comprehensive programs to provide payers, providers, and community-based organizations with the tools, infrastructure, and financing necessary to integrate non-medical services directly related to improved health outcomes into the delivery of care.

Using our Social Care Payments Solution, which enables stakeholders to access and pay for social care through the Unite Us Platform, local government agencies, health plans, and providers alike have been able to partner effectively, manage program efficiency, and ultimately, expand their programs’ impacts.

Join us at our panel, The Future of Funding, to hear more from the organizations in North Carolina that have gone beyond the call of duty to connect individuals to care in their own communities. We’ll discuss the Unite Us Payments product and learn more about how organizations like yours can better prepare for these types of strategic investments.

The post The Future of Funding: Building Stronger Communities Through Strategic Investments appeared first on uniteus.com.

• Healthcare costs: Total cost of care per member, per year (PMPY)
• Adverse system utilization: Hospital and emergency department visits
• Compliance and adherence: Care plan compliance and medication adherence
• Consumer experience: CAHPS surveys and retention
• Health outcomes: Physical and mental health outcomes
• Other measures: Unhealthy days and COVID impact

Measuring the Impact of SDoH

With the emergence of value-based care and at-risk contracting, today’s health plans and providers are increasingly responsible for total care costs and health outcomes for their members and patients. As a result, more organizations are beginning to focus on nonclinical and upstream factors that drive costly healthcare utilization and diminished health status. To systematically measure the impact of SDoH challenges across a variety of demographics, geographies, and health outcomes definitions, we have developed an innovative analytics approach that defines and measures social and economic vulnerability.

Game-Changing Opportunity to Make a Difference

To improve health trajectories in the U.S., the healthcare industry must flip the traditional care model from reactive to proactive. This involves identifying and stratifying advanced clinical and social needs. Health plans and providers can move the needle significantly by embedding appropriate SDoH programs in their workflow and engaging with responsive community partners. As a pioneer for data-driven SDoH innovation, our end-to-end solution enables organizations to effectively assess social care needs, identify optimal engagement strategies, and enroll individuals in needed services. An excerpt from the white paper:

“The success of these interventions will unlock new funding streams, galvanize the next generation of health policy, and reinforce incentives for collaboration and data sharing. Most importantly, they will engage traditionally underserved patient populations and communities, ensure they feel heard the first time they tell their story, and lead to meaningful improvements in health and quality of life.”

– Spencer Pratt, Vice President of Sales Solutions at Unite Us

Learn how your organization can improve health outcomes using SDoH:

Download the White Paper

The post Whole-Person Care and the Impact of Social Determinants of Health appeared first on uniteus.com.

On February 11, 2022, Unite Us joins the nation in celebrating National 211 Day—an opportunity to raise awareness about 211 services that help people find the local resources they need. Across the country, 211 organizations are connecting people to critical resources in their community like housing, food, and health care.

This 211 Day, we’re sharing how Unite Us and 211 organizations can create lasting, meaningful partnerships that improve health and social care impact in communities throughout the U.S. Check out the webinar above with Unite Us Co-founder and President Taylor Justice, and Joshua Pedersen, 211 Director of Network Operations & Performance at United Way Worldwide. Taylor and Joshua lead a discussion on advancing health in communities and making sure every individual gets connected to the care they need.

“We want to be in every county and every parish connecting the dots for organizations that want to participate on the network and figure out ways where we can advance social care to the same priority level as health care.”

–Taylor Justice, President of Unite Us

Currently, we have regional and statewide partnerships with 211 organizations across the U.S. We value our partnerships with 211s and look forward to expanding our collective vision for collaboration and building healthier communities.

“Going back to our core values, this is not an easy thing to solve, but the best way to do it is if we do it together.”

–Joshua Pedersen, 211 Director of Network Operations & Performance at United Way Worldwide

We want to meet you! Contact us to learn more about partnering with Unite Us.

Contact Us

The post Unite Us Celebrates 211 Day appeared first on uniteus.com.

Sometimes you don’t know the kind of danger you’re in until you’re out of danger. That’s my story about domestic violence: I didn’t know where to go or how to ask for help, until I received it.

My domestic abuse story started on the first day of freshman year in college – my light was bright. I was so excited to meet new people and because of that, I was incredibly social and ready to start this part of my life. When I met my abuser they weren’t wearing “abuser” on their welcome name tag. They, too, were full of life and reminded me of the friends and comforts of home. This was the beginning. During this relationship, I had friends and a family who loved me deeply and provided financial support, but I stayed. It all felt so deeply shameful. Even now, I remember feeling like I was an observer of my own life – telling her to get out and not to look back as I watched the cycle continue for more than a year.

The warning signs were always there, but I wasn’t prepared to accept them. My level of sleep deprivation, self-confidence, and social isolation varied by the day depending on what I was experiencing with my abuser. I was told I had an “attitude” and rationalized that I deserved or at least instigated this treatment. A windshield shattered by an angry fist, being locked in a closet for hours, or choosing an outfit based on what best hid bruises – this all had to be my fault.

I am not sure what made me finally try to find help. Maybe it was the missed classes, missed memories with friends, or the fear of what he would do to me next that prompted me to search for help online. I will never forget my first conversation with the therapist I found:

“I think the relationship I am in is dangerous, see these bruises? What do you think? I am probably over-exaggerating. He was adamant about dropping me off and picking me up because he doesn’t like that I’m coming here – that’s weird, right?”

The therapist knew the signs and helped me create my escape plan that day. Although I wouldn’t leave school to get away from him, I would gradually become busier, more unavailable, and put real boundaries between myself and the abuse. Thankfully it worked.

My survival was based purely on luck and timing. It didn’t have to be that way.

Instead of asking survivors why they stayed, let’s start asking what we can do to help them and prevent the abuse from happening again. One in four women, one in seven men, and more than 65% of trans individuals will be victims of domestic abuse in their lifetime. And yet as a society we are not efficiently serving survivors. Ultimately, we are putting their lives at risk.

The way I looked for help all those years ago — through a simple Google search — is the same way survivors are looking for help in 2021. That shouldn’t feel right to any of us. I was in the privileged position of having friends and family I could go to for support. I had enough money in my bank account to seek help from a therapist. What about those survivors who need to leave their homes, feed their children, find safe shelter, and start a job search? What are we doing for them?

The time to create accountable networks of care for survivors of domestic violence is right now.

We shouldn’t be asking those experiencing a traumatic situation to tell their story over and over again. We must do better as a community to support these individuals and their families so they can survive not by chance or luck, but by the implementation of a thoughtful network that powers a community of protected, wraparound support.

Unite Us has built that network. Unite Us is building a world in which client confidentiality is protected and information sharing is readily available, so we can reduce barriers to individuals getting the end-to-end care they need. All of this is done within a secure ecosystem to ensure client privacy, consistent with all legal and regulatory obligations, which enables community-based organizations to focus on serving their clients’ needs. This is a world where the survivor comes first.

While my history with domestic violence doesn’t define me, it’s a part of who I am: an innovator, a technologist, and a survivor. And I want to be a part of solutions that help more survivors come out on the other side.

Join a Network

The post I Didn’t Realize I was a Survivor of Domestic Violence—Until I Survived appeared first on uniteus.com.