Five Myths About Poverty: What you may think, and what we know…

In this webinar, we will debunk the most common misconceptions about those struggling with economic disparities. What the data actually shows us leads to a better understanding of poverty and to more effective strategies to help the underprivileged overcome adversity and succeed in life. Presentation: 56:0

What’s the Value of Virtual Care?

COVID-19 has transformed healthcare through the rapid adoption of temporary payment for telemedicine visits. Will the parity of payment for virtual and face-to-face care continue after COVID-19 has abated? We won\u27t pay the same for a virtual visit as for an office visit is a statement that reflects our traditional assumption that paying for doing has more value than paying for triage, coordinating, educating, and managing our patients using cognitive services

Healthcare’s New Diagnosis: Poverty (Z59.5) A Standard of Care to Treat the Social Determinants of Health

More than a decade ago, Dr. Marcella Wilson took over a failing charity, and recognized two frequently opposing paradigms for addressing poverty: everyone had good intentions, but a “character flaw” mentality infused their efforts. Unlike other public health challenges, there was lack of a “science of poverty.” Join us for a joint presentation with Drs. Wilson, Osmick, and Kaminski about the evolving science of poverty, and how that knowledge can be applied to address poverty as a core social determinant of health to strive for healthier populations. The Population Health Alliance is the only national professional and trade association dedicated solely to population health. PHA supports our members and the industry through education, networking, and representing the voice of population health in health policy. Join PHA today by reaching out to [email protected]. Presentation: 1:00:4

Confronting Inequities Uncovered By COVID-19: We’re not all in this together…What Can Health Providers Do?

COVID-19 has exacerbated underlying disparities that put ethnic and racial minority groups at increased risk for serious illness and death during the pandemic. In this Webinar, we will review data about these disparities, tie them to social determinants of health, and discuss strategies that healthcare providers can develop to address the challenge

Addressing Social Determinants of Health: Practicalities for Healthcare Systems

Social determinants of health have become a primary front in our efforts to achieve better population health and to reduce healthcare disparities. While the need to address SDOH is clear, the “how?” is evolving. How can healthcare systems have an impact on community and social factors? How do frontline healthcare providers add this to busy schedules? Are community agencies prepared to engage with greater need identified through healthcare? How can healthcare systems collaborate with community agencies and with one another most effectively? Components are being developed: screening tools to capture social determinant opportunities, platforms to partner with community agencies, and protocols to make it all happen. This PopTalk session will feature a presentation, followed by a discussion among a panel of leaders representing a healthcare system, frontline primary care, and an agency already addressing SDOH for their constituents. Presentation: 1:00:0

The Importance of Utilizing Diabetes Prevention Programs

Quality Insights and guests presented an innovative look at how the National Diabetes Prevention Programs are utilized and tracked throughout Pennsylvania and West Virginia. This webinar will bring awareness to healthcare providers, partners, and stakeholders about the recommendations on screening, testing and referring to National Diabetes Prevention Programs

Digital Clinical Trials: A Multi-Stakeholder Analysis of the Challenges and Opportunities

As one evaluates the many challenges of the US health care system, it is important to note that drug development within the pharmaceutical industry has not markedly changed in the past three decades. The lack of progress has a direct impact on patients, as medicines and vaccines that could provide improved quality of life or cures for patients, are delayed. According to the Tufts Center for Drug Development the cost to bring a drug to market is estimated to be over $2 billion dollars. The drug development process takes 12-15 years, with little efficiency improvement over time. (Terjesen 2015) As pharmaceuticals represent between 10-15% percent of the total health care cost, any efficiencies in the drug development process may offer an opportunity to accelerate treatments or cures to patients, while also lowering pharmaceutical company operating costs which can offer opportunities for lower pricing to patients, governments and health care systems. Given the intense pressure on pharmaceutical company pricing in the US, there is a business imperative to explore any opportunities to change the current research model. Employing digital technology into drug development may be an enabler to the current drug development process. This paper will explore the challenges and opportunities of digital clinical trials from the perspective of the key stakeholders, patients, regulators, pharmaceutical companies, insurers, investigators and technology companies. Currently digital clinical trials have not been fully adopted by the stakeholders. However, it is important to note the momentum that is building due to the rapid acceleration of technology that is coupled with the strong case for change. There is an opportunity for the stakeholders outlined in this paper to collaborate, learn and develop a consistent approach that can serve as a modern model for drug development designed to better meet patient and societal needs

Telehealth-Barriers to Overcome Before Going Live: How a Pandemic May Help.

There are numerous studies and surveys reporting telehealth use will increase in the future. There are reports that billions of dollars will be generated and physician use will skyrocket. However, this revenue will not occur, and physicians will not embrace telehealth unless certain barriers are overcome. My paper discusses the process, barriers, and possible solutions when an organization implements a telehealth program. To implement the program, John P. Kotter’s eight-stage process of creating major change was followed. However, the transformational process did not occur until there was consecutive adherence, full development, and reinforcement of each stage. Difficulties in each stage i.e. lack of urgency, a weak guiding coalition, inability to have a strong vision and communicate it, and not understanding barriers such as telehealth definition, physician education, usability/functionality, impacts on workflow, electronic medical record documentation integration, coding and billing, reimbursement, physician and patient engagement, malpractice coverage, and platform costs, security and capabilities needed to be addressed. The leadership of an organization should find early adopters, educate both physicians and patients to increase a sense of urgency and engagement, be prepared to answer the primary concerns of the physicians and patients with assistance from a powerful guiding coalition, continuously communicate the change vision, and empower those willing to act by ridding of obstacles. Without correctly leading and utilizing a change management process, acknowledging and identifying the difficulties and barriers, and being prepared with solutions, successful telehealth implementation within an organization will be unlikely

The Real World Realities of the EMR and Social Determinants of Health

Population health as a discipline has advocated for decades for a more holistic approach to community health. In this effort, researchers have identified and developed non-health indicators, known as social determinants of health (SDoH), to address the health of a community more broadly. Despite consensus about the importance of SDoH, establishing standard processes for collection, standardization, sharing and utilization of these measures has proven quite difficult. In this effort, electronic medical records (EMR) vendors have begun trying to integrate SDoH into their interfaces and workflow capabilities. This paper assesses the extent of those efforts to date using publicly available information about the platform, industry specific knowledge, and review of the case studies of two system-wide level attempts to implement SDoH collection in Epic (one of the leading EMR vendors). I find that effective standardization and utilization of SDoH data through EMR systems remains an elusive goal. The amount of variability in the screening tools, significant variation among EMR vendors, and the level of customer demanded customization in implementation make it almost impossible to see how SDoH data could be shared between hospitals in the same system, much less by healthcare providers in concert more broadly given the currently utilized approaches