Medicaid Innovation Archives - uniteus.com https://uniteus.com/topic/medicaid-innovation/ Software Connecting Health and Social Service Providers Tue, 09 Apr 2024 21:20:42 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.3 https://uniteus.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/uniteus-favicon-150x150.png Medicaid Innovation Archives - uniteus.com https://uniteus.com/topic/medicaid-innovation/ 32 32 Unite Us Celebrates the Approval of the New York State 1115 Medicaid Waiver: Improving Access to Care and Advancing Health Equity Together https://uniteus.com/blog/new-york-1115-medicaid-waiver/ Thu, 11 Jan 2024 14:30:30 +0000 https://uniteus.com/?p=6811 This week’s approval of the New York State 1115 Medicaid Waiver is a major step forward in advancing a stronger, healthier state for all New Yorkers. At Unite Us, we strongly support the waiver’s ambitious goals of building a resilient, flexible, and integrated delivery system that will improve access to health and social care, advance …

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This week’s approval of the New York State 1115 Medicaid Waiver is a major step forward in advancing a stronger, healthier state for all New Yorkers. At Unite Us, we strongly support the waiver’s ambitious goals of building a resilient, flexible, and integrated delivery system that will improve access to health and social care, advance health equity, reduce disparities, and support health-related social needs (HRSNs).

With our proven track record of successfully facilitating secure closed-loop referrals and social care payments in New York and other Medicaid waiver states, Unite Us stands ready to support this important initiative.

Key Insights on Social Care Components

Social Care Networks (SCNs): 

SCNs, or contracted entities in each of the State’s nine regions, will be charged with establishing a network of social services and community providers to deliver eligible Medicaid beneficiaries with HRSN screenings and referral services. The State will reimburse selected HRSN services related to housing, food, and transportation.

Managed Care Plans: 

Managed care plans will contract with SCNs to deliver the selected HRSN services through two tiers of benefits. Level 1 services will be available to all Medicaid beneficiaries and will include referrals to existing public programs that are separate from the newly authorized HRSN services; Level 2 services will be provided to targeted beneficiaries who meet certain criteria. Subsequently, MCOs will be required to report data in order to evaluate the utilization and effectiveness of the HRSN services on health outcomes and equity of care.

Hospitals:  

Safety net hospitals located in Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, and Westchester Counties can apply to participate in a Medicaid Hospital Global Budget Initiative that aims to help safety net hospitals transition to a global budget system. This initiative is designed to empower selected hospitals to prioritize population health and enhance quality of care in order to stabilize their financial situations and advance accountability and health equity.

Together, Driving Impact in New York

Building upon our ongoing collaborations with valued partners and community networks in New York, we are ready to deliver the solutions needed to successfully achieve the goals of the waiver while establishing a sustainable infrastructure for the continuous delivery of social care.

Accessing community resources like food, benefits, housing, and legal support can be incredibly difficult. It is a rare occurrence to be connected to the right resource at the right time. But thanks to our partnership with Unite Us, Public Health Solutions has developed a coordinated, accountable, and modern network of organizations, WholeYouNYC, that supports over 1,000 New Yorkers each month to access services in their community. Unite Us enables us to collaborate in real-time, deliver reliably and responsively, and provides the visibility we need to ensure no one slips through the cracks. We hope that the coming investment through New York’s Medicaid Waiver program supports us to bring this infrastructure to scale.

Zachariah Hennessey
Chief Strategy Officer, Public Health Solutions



Since New York’s previous 1115 Waiver, HWCLI has led the Health Equity Alliance of Long Island (HEALI), Long Island’s Social Care Network, to build a comprehensive and integrated social care system for the region. In preparation for the upcoming waiver, our coalition partners have utilized Unite Us as a critical referral and communication tool to connect social care services across Long Island. Unite Us has been a responsive and collaborative partner by providing a technology solution to build the social care infrastructure necessary for our vision for Long Island

Lori Andrade
Chief Operations Officer, Health and Welfare Council of Long Island



Our vision is to create a connected ecosystem of care across healthcare, government, and social care in the Hudson Valley to improve access to needed services for individuals and their families. Unite Us enables organizations in our region to better coordinate and collaborate in order to care for the whole person, through visibility into the status of referrals and ultimately what services are delivered. We look forward to scaling our work together under the New York 1115 Waiver to promote health equity in our region and beyond.

Amie Parikh
Chief Executive Officer, Hudson Valley Care Coalition



Northwell is proud to partner with Unite Us as we continue to expand our screenings for the social determinants of health to over one million. Unite Us is a thought leader that is fostering dialogue around best practices throughout our region and nationally. The upcoming 1115 Medicaid Waiver will help accelerate the work we are doing and forge new community partnerships that are committed to making a difference

Deb Salas-Lopez, MD MPH
Senior Vice President of Community and Population Health, Northwell Health



The partnership with Unite Us has allowed the 360 Collaborative to begin preparation for social care payments, which is a critical component of the upcoming NYHER waiver. We have initiated a pilot that addresses food insecurity for individuals who have a Type II diagnosis. It has allowed us to have a better understanding of the resources dedicated for waiver implementation and partners are providing feedback in real-time on the support they need to make this social care delivery a success.

Peter Bauman
Executive Director, 360 Collaborative Network



As organizations across New York move to implement the new 1115 Waiver, there will be an even greater need for effective and efficient integration of clinical and social supports. Through our collaboration with Unite Us, we have developed readily adaptable systems and processes to screen patients for social needs, initiate referrals, and connect with new and existing community partners. During and post-DSRIP, CCB has advanced programs and partnerships that improve quality of care and address social factors impacting the health of 1.2 million Medicaid recipients in Brooklyn. The 1115 Waiver offers a unique opportunity to connect health and social care providers across the State to affect whole person care.

David I. Cohen, MD
Executive Committee Chair, Community Care of Brooklyn



As a Social Care Network and one of only 58 designated community care hubs in the nation, we at Healthy Alliance deeply understand the role a social care referral system plays in effectively connecting community members with health-related social needs (HRSN) to organizations that can help. Throughout our partnership, Unite Us has provided the technology infrastructure for our referral coordination center (RCC) and our network partners, enabling us to successfully connect thousands of people to services, such as healthy food, benefits counseling, housing, primary care, and workforce development, across a broad geography. With Unite Us, our RCC network partners have visibility into screenings, referrals, and case outcomes. Our partnership with Unite Us supports a shared goal and vision to create stronger, healthier, and more connected communities.

Michele Horan
Chief Operating Officer, Healthy Alliance









Leveraging Our Experience with State Medicaid Programs

We are proud to have established a reputation as the leading software solution for Medicaid programs addressing HRSNs across the country. Our cross-sector collaboration tools support a no-wrong-door system of social care, produce comprehensive insights to measure social need and community capacity at scale, and enable government leaders to strategically shift investments upstream to community-based partners, maximizing health benefits and better managing government spending. Like many Medicaid leaders, we know that social care coordination will improve outcomes, so we built our tools to collect structured social care data using a longitudinal care record. This allows states to measure real-time network performance and conduct integrated or longitudinal program evaluations over time, which will be critical in New York.

With networks in 44 states and partners leading the way in Medicaid transformation across the country, we’ve learned a lot about how we can support this critical work. Here are just a few examples:

North Carolina

North Carolina Growth MapIn North Carolina, Unite Us has partnered with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services to act as the technology backbone connecting health plans, network leads, providers, and public entities engaged in The Healthy Opportunities Pilot. The pilot directs $650M in Medicaid funds to social care through NCCARE360, its statewide care coordination network that is powered by Unite Us.

Since the program launched in March 2022, the partnership has seen an incredible impact, with invoice metrics citing a 2-3% payer rejection rate – compared to the national denials rate of 26% – and over 236,354 services delivered to Medicaid members to date.

Oregon

Oregon Growth MapTo implement SDoH initiatives from Oregon’s previous Medicaid 1115 demonstration, Unite Us partnered with Oregon’s Coordinated Care Organizations (CCOs) to establish screening and referral workflows.

The Unite Us longitudinal care record enables care teams across providers, plans, government, and social services to collaborate securely across sectors and care for the whole person.

Unite Us and Connect Oregon network partner CCOs are working to implement workflows and functionality to reimburse for Medicaid members’ health-related social needs, as approved by Oregon’s 1115 new Medicaid waiver.

As of January 2024:

  • The Connect Oregon network offers partners access to over 2,400 accountable, in-network programs.
  • 15 of the 16 Oregon CCOs have contracted with Unite Us to provide social care infrastructure to any healthcare provider or community-based organization serving Medicaid members in Oregon.

Rhode Island

In Rhode Island, the Executive Office of Health and Human Services offers SDoH screening through our collaborative software, allowing the State and health plans to understand gaps, target resources, and drive plan performance toward equity.

As of January 2024:

  • The Unite Rhode Island network offers partners access to nearly 1,000 accountable, in-network programs.
  • More than 28,000 managed cases have been seen to completion since 2021, meaning that social or healthcare services have actually been delivered to the client in need.
  • Nearly 83% of all referrals are accepted within four days.

Missouri

Missouri Growth Map GIFUnite Us is supporting an innovative rural healthcare delivery model serving Medicaid members in Missouri. The Transformation of Rural Community Health (ToRCH) project led by the Missouri HealthNet Division of the Missouri Department of Social Services is a new model of care to direct resources to rural communities committed to addressing the ‘upstream’ causes of poor health through integrating social care supports into clinical care.

The ToRCH project establishes community-based hubs that serve as regional leads to direct strategy and coordinate the efforts of healthcare providers, community-based organizations, and social service agencies within a designated rural community. These hubs will holistically address social determinants of health (SDoH) by screening for health-related social needs (HRSN) and connecting Medicaid recipients with select CBOs funded to provide social services. By addressing social needs of Medicaid recipients, ToRCH aims to improve population health outcomes and achieve cost savings. Through Unite Us’ Social Care Payments product, partners will be able to manage eligibility and authorization, send referrals to contracted providers (i.e., close the loop), securely track outcomes and document services, generate invoices, and efficiently manage reimbursement of social care services.

 

We’re proud to support partners across the country in leveraging our solutions to support Medicaid waiver initiatives and advancing whole-person care. Interested in learning more about Unite Us solutions?

Get in Touch

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Powering Medicaid Transformation Webinar https://uniteus.com/webinar/powering-medicaid-transformation/ Fri, 27 Oct 2023 19:45:24 +0000 https://uniteus.com/?p=5571 Implementing Medicaid transformation can be challenging but, when executed correctly, has the power to drive real results in both outcomes and cost.  Across the country, states are prioritizing investments in community-based care and population health management strategies to address social drivers of health (SDoH) that negatively impact members and exacerbate program costs. 

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Implementing Medicaid transformation can be challenging but, when executed correctly, has the power to drive real results in both outcomes and cost. 

Across the country, states are prioritizing investments in community-based care and population health management strategies to address social drivers of health (SDoH) that negatively impact members and exacerbate program costs. 

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Powering Medicaid Transformation https://uniteus.com/flyer/powering-medicaid-transformation-flyer/ Mon, 23 Oct 2023 21:21:30 +0000 https://uniteus.com/?p=5695 The post Powering Medicaid Transformation appeared first on uniteus.com.

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Medicaid’s Next Generation SDoH Strategy https://uniteus.com/blog/medicaids-next-generation-sdoh-strategy/ https://uniteus.com/blog/medicaids-next-generation-sdoh-strategy/#respond Fri, 11 Nov 2022 22:36:22 +0000 https://uniteus.com/?p=2738 Building Shared SDoH Infrastructure to Deliver Whole Person Care Medicaid leaders across the country are aligning around a common vision of a more person-centered Medicaid program that addresses social drivers of health (SDoH), improves coordination of care, and invests in health-related social needs (HRSN). To make this vision a reality, states need new tools and …

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Building Shared SDoH Infrastructure to Deliver Whole Person Care

Medicaid leaders across the country are aligning around a common vision of a more person-centered Medicaid program that addresses social drivers of health (SDoH), improves coordination of care, and invests in health-related social needs (HRSN). To make this vision a reality, states need new tools and technology to facilitate collaboration, to measure person-level outcomes and system impact, and to drive accountability across sectors and providers. Addressing HRSN and the broader SDoH also requires deep community engagement and cross-sector partnerships of the providers and community-based organizations (CBOs) that are committed to delivering whole-person care. 

 At Unite Us, we combine technology infrastructure with supported community infrastructure to break down silos across sectors and government programs. Through Unite Us’ interoperable referral platform—which uses an electronic master person index to empower cross-sector care teams and evaluate individuals’ longitudinal community care journeys—we create seamless system linkages and closed-loop workflows across historically fragmented systems of care. The common platform we provide supports a true “any door” system of social care, produces system-wide analytics to measure social needs and community capacity at scale, and helps government leaders strategically shift investments upstream to maximize health benefits and better manage government spending. 

Addressing social needs through the PHE unwinding

Unite Us can help make the Medicaid redetermination process more targeted and effective for members at high risk of social vulnerability and lost coverage. Using extensive health and social care data sets and direct outreach capabilities, Unite Us supports state efforts to deliver appropriate coverage and social support through our accountable social care networks. Specifically, we provide:

  • Social risk stratification to target outreach at the individual level
  • Updated member contact information and communication preferences
  • High-touch support for the most at-risk populations
  • Ongoing monitoring and evaluation of health and social risk

Addressing HRSNs and SDoH through Medicaid Managed Care

Medicaid programs across the country are updating quality measures, establishing new care management requirements, and testing innovative risk modeling to encourage a greater focus on SDoH amongst managed care plans. Shared end-to-end SDoH technology infrastructure can break down access and quality gaps between coverage options. It also standardizes approaches to program oversight by using common measurement, data, and systems to identify members’ needs, facilitate effective outreach, engage members in services, track member- and system-level outcomes, and facilitate investments in needed community-based services. 

Nationwide, Unite Us’ end-to-end SDoH data and technology suite provides a blueprint for plans and Medicaid programs to proactively leverage SDoH data and infrastructure to drive measurable health outcomes and return on investment. 

States Taking The Lead

1. Quality Measures:

Through their recently approved 1115 waiver demonstration, Oregon Healthcare Authority (OHA) redesigned its quality incentive program to include a new health equity upstream metric, “Social Determinants of Health: Social Needs Screening and Referral,” which incentivizes managed care plans not only to measure but also address HRSNs. The evolution of quality improvement measures related to SDoH is also being driven by leading healthcare quality standard entities, such as the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). The Social Need Screening and Intervention (SNS-E) measures are included in NCQA’s 2023 updated Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) quality measure slate. With this newly established measure, health plans can be evaluated on their ability to screen and provide interventions for members with housing, food insecurity, and transportation needs.

2. Care Management Programs:

In Mississippi, managed care plans will be required to implement comprehensive care management programs inclusive of SDoH screening, risk stratification, and trackable closed-loop referrals. These requirements underpin a program-wide commitment to advancing health equity that is financially incentivized through minimum investment requirements in SDoH, as well as Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) allowances for costs associated with closed-loop referral platforms.

3. Risk Modeling:

Incorporating social needs data into quality and risk adjustment programs is another important trend that ensures adequate funding is allocated to manage members’ social care needs. MassHealth, the Massachusetts state Medicaid agency, developed its medical risk adjustment model for managed care organizations (MCOs) and accountable care organizations (ACOs) by incorporating data found to be associated with heightened SDoH needs. The updated model considers age, unstable housing, a “neighborhood stress” score, disability, serious mental illness, and substance use disorders.

Unite Us predictive Insights solutions take a human-centered approach that leverages comprehensive and integrated health and social care data to systematically predict and measure social, environmental, and economic marginalization.Unite Us Social Connector provides community-level insights to help organizations be proactive in their SDoH strategies. With Social Connector, Medicaid programs can better understand the key social care needs impacting members at a community level. 

Social Connector+ provides person-level and community-level insights. Social Connector+ can provide Social Needs System (SNS) scores to support member-specific matching, outreach, and engagement to better understand the needs of members and the communities where they reside.

Our analytics framework sheds light on what social drivers are prevalent in each community and how they impact health outcomes. Unite Us’ SNS — the industry leading framework for SDoH analytics — systematically predicts and measures social, environmental, and economic disparities. We provide clear dashboards and access to meaningful and actionable SDoH data to enable organizations to:

  • Understand and address social vulnerability in a specific community
  • Monitor in real-time, and optimize decisions on, programs and resources 
  • Measure and report on impact

With actionable data in hand, and an extensive network of actively engaged CBOs, Medicaid programs can accelerate progress on priority initiatives (e.g., maternal health, transition supports for justice-involved, or housing insecure populations).


Shifting Investments Upstream

Through Medicaid waivers and other reinvestment initiatives, state Medicaid programs are advancing new initiatives to address HRSNs by directly funding CBOs that traditionally have not been financed by healthcare. The implementation challenge that states now face is how to create streamlined billing and reporting infrastructure for social care providers without over-medicalizing the delivery of needed community-level services. 

Implementation efforts for these initiatives must include a plan for supporting and reimbursing CBOs that provide health-related social services to create adequate capacity. In many instances, CBOs’ existing systems and workflows do not generate service-level invoices, manage reimbursements, or track outcomes. This is particularly true for smaller CBOs, which are often best positioned to serve vulnerable populations. These smaller CBOs and the populations they serve are likely to be left behind if states and health plans don’t provide them with the tools and support they need to participate. As Medicaid programs increasingly adopt requirements for connecting members to community partners, they must also invest in the protocols and technology needed to strengthen CBO capacity, including those needed for rate setting, reimbursement, and reporting.

With Unite Us Payments, CBOs can streamline service tracking and billing for social care services provided. Medicaid agencies using Unite Us Payments can track the flow of CBO funding and pair reimbursement with outcomes data to better understand impact and return on investment. Unite Us also generates data and insights, like our Health Equity dashboard, to provide our partners with actionable information that they can use to target resources and interventions to address local priorities, such as health disparities and inequities in access to care. 

Opportunities for Cross-Sector, Interagency Partnerships

As state Medicaid programs take the lead in promoting statewide coordinated care networks, local government and other agencies need coordinated care networks to address priority populations and advance specific policy objectives. In a mature network, Medicaid programs improve coordination across agencies to support multi-system members, including foster children, justice-involved individuals, people with substance use disorders, or children with special health care needs. Establishing reusable statewide SDoH infrastructure to advance community-level care coordination is core to Medicaid’s role as a safety net coverage option. Statewide plans to invest in SDoH technology as part of a state’s Medicaid Enterprise Systems strategy can include more than just the healthcare delivery system by engaging a cross-agency governance team to proactively set system-wide priorities and needs across multiple at-risk populations. 

Unite Us is the only SDoH technology vendor that has scaled statewide with government partners. We leverage a robust, cross-sector planning and community engagement methodology to ensure that government partners maximize state and federal investments through regular access to, and use of, key SDoH indicators collected through our robust structured outcome taxonomy and standard data visualizations. 

How Medicaid Scales Impact Across Systems of Care

In North Carolina, the Department of Health and Human Services has implemented the Healthy Opportunities Pilot (HOP), a first-in-the-nation effort to fund social care through Medicaid. In the first few months since HOP launched in March 2022, CBOs have provided nearly 10,000 social care services that are—for the first time—eligible for Medicaid reimbursement. In that same time, North Carolinians have received more than 5,000 food boxes.

97% 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%.

Unite Us was selected by North Carolina to provide the technology infrastructure for HOP because of its prior work integrating health and social care providers across the state. In 2018, Unite Us built the first statewide network (NCCARE360) in the country that unites public and private health care and human services organizations with common technology infrastructure to enable a coordinated, community-oriented, person-centered approach for delivering care. Partner state agencies, such as the Department of Public Safety, also participate in NCCARE360 to provide closed-loop referrals for justice-involved individuals returning to their communities. NCCARE360 enables care delivery with high-touch, coordinated health and social care services as covered by the North Carolina Institute of Medicine; the Center for American Progress; Princeton School of Public and International Affairs; and  Politico.

 

Learn more

 

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Health Equity in HEDIS 2023: How to Prepare for Success https://uniteus.com/policy-news/health-equity-in-hedis-2023-how-to-prepare-for-success/ https://uniteus.com/policy-news/health-equity-in-hedis-2023-how-to-prepare-for-success/#respond Fri, 19 Aug 2022 21:05:34 +0000 https://uniteus.com/?p=1806 What’s New Confirming its long-term focus on advancing health equity, NCQA announces changes for Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) in measurement year 2023, including: Race/ethnicity stratification in eight additional HEDIS measures with integration to additional measures planned over the next several years Gender-affirming approaches to ensure HEDIS measures appropriately by acknowledging and affirming members’ gender identity New social …

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What’s New

Confirming its long-term focus on advancing health equity, NCQA announces changes for Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) in measurement year 2023, including:

  • Race/ethnicity stratification in eight additional HEDIS measures with integration to additional measures planned over the next several years
  • Gender-affirming approaches to ensure HEDIS measures appropriately by acknowledging and affirming members’ gender identity
  • New social needs screenings and interventions measure to encourage plans to assess and address members’ unmet food, housing, and transportation needs using prespecified instruments

Understanding Diverse Social Needs Through Risk Stratification

Measuring stratification by race, ethnicity, gender, as well as other social risk factors, is critical to understanding diverse social needs in the population and addressing disparities.

Looking beyond clinical encounters and claims data, health plans can uncover hidden risk and devise proactive, whole-person approaches.

It’s important to note that social and economic indicators such as Z-codes, surveys, and geographic-aggregated data can help but have limitations. On average, 11,000 people live in a single ZIP code. Incomplete information or broad categories can lead to assumptions on larger populations and do not facilitate understanding or action. More detailed and standardized data fields help:

  • Generate greater trust in data collection efforts.
  • Better capture critical information on hard-to-reach populations.
  • Increase efficiency and leverage meaningful and actionable data.

Unite Us’ Social Needs System (SNS) analytics framework helps zero in on the impact of social drivers of health. For example, we have observed that highly socially underserved members represent 30 percent higher regression on mental and physical health (Health Outcomes Survey).

Measure stratification can help not only better assess how social marginalization impacts plan performance and quality outcomes, but also better drive targeted interventions, and measure and prove impact.

Closing the Loop on Care with Social Screenings and Interventions

Social needs screenings and referral tools should be integrated into systems of record to create a seamless and intuitive experience for care teams and ultimately members.

Feedback from our users highlights the importance of integrating social care in their care management platform and workflows to achieve true community care coordination.

Data standards, pre-built forms, and collaborative workflows reduce errors and improve efficiency in working with the community while also improving the ability to measure impact and close the loop on care.

Health plans can now build on social needs measures, assessments, and referrals to make sure their investments are driving impact on quality outcomes in their population—turning this from an additional effort to the key to unlocking value.

By connecting members with a consistent, accountable community network and real-time, actionable metrics, health plans can monitor and optimize impact on outcomes such as:

  • Decreased waiting time
  • Percentage of needs resolved
  • Co-occurring needs and service gaps that need attention

Dedicated reporting can offer a health equity lens to help ensure and monitor that all individuals are receiving equitable access to care.

HEDIS 2023 updates are part of a larger industry and policy trend to shift focus and funding to effective and preventive whole-person interventions. The business case of health equity interventions rests on the ability to connect these interventions to impact on outcomes, lowering costs while promoting access to care and long-term sustainability.

Explore our solutions to learn how Unite Us enables health plans to succeed in meeting these new requirements, advancing health equity, and increasing value.

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A Collaborative Approach to Improving Maternal Health https://uniteus.com/webinar/a-collaborative-approach-to-improving-maternal-health/ https://uniteus.com/webinar/a-collaborative-approach-to-improving-maternal-health/#respond Mon, 13 Jun 2022 22:08:48 +0000 https://uniteus.com/?p=1742 Collaborative innovations can help us remove barriers to accessing care; emphasize upstream, preventative programs; and integrate community and clinical resources to deliver whole-person, coordinated care. In this webinar, experts from policy, industry, and community-based organizations (CBOs), will share their perspectives on new trends, best practices, and lessons learned. Specifically, you will learn about: Recent trends, …

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Collaborative innovations can help us remove barriers to accessing care; emphasize upstream, preventative programs; and integrate community and clinical resources to deliver whole-person, coordinated care.

In this webinar, experts from policy, industry, and community-based organizations (CBOs), will share their perspectives on new trends, best practices, and lessons learned.

Specifically, you will learn about:

  • Recent trends, new policies, and programs
  • Lessons learned to overcome barriers and bridge gaps
  • Success stories and opportunities to drive impact on health outcomes

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Improving Maternal Health Through Collaborative Innovations https://uniteus.com/blog/collaborative-innovations-to-improve-maternal-health-2/ https://uniteus.com/blog/collaborative-innovations-to-improve-maternal-health-2/#respond Tue, 03 May 2022 21:48:34 +0000 https://uniteus.com/collaborative-innovations-to-improve-maternal-health/ This May, Unite Us is recognizing maternal health by highlighting a collaborative approach to improving maternal and child health outcomes. Improving maternal and child health outcomes is a top priority for decision-makers and community stakeholders across the country. However, we continue to have the highest maternal death rate of all developed countries, and we are …

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This May, Unite Us is recognizing maternal health by highlighting a collaborative approach to improving maternal and child health outcomes.

Improving maternal and child health outcomes is a top priority for decision-makers and community stakeholders across the country. However, we continue to have the highest maternal death rate of all developed countries, and we are the only industrialized nation with a rising rate. At Unite Us, we know we can do better. That’s why we are dedicated to advancing equity and improving maternal health outcomes for all pregnant people and new parents.

In a new report, we discuss maternal health challenges and priorities in the U.S. You will learn:

  • Contributing factors to maternal health inequities
  • Key policy priorities to improve maternal health
  • Data solutions that take a human-centered approach to identifying needs and improving outcomes

Maternal-Health-Issue-Brief-1024x682-1Access the Report

The Role Community-Based Organizations Play in Improving Maternal Health Outcomes

Community-based organizations (CBOs) have long played a key role in addressing critical care gaps, advancing equity, and supporting the health of mothers and infants. Through their community-driven approaches and culturally competent models of care, CBOs are not only better equipped to address the unique challenges and unmet needs of mothers and infants across communities, but also provide access to wraparound services that go beyond traditional models of care. These services, which range anywhere from community-based doula programs to freestanding birth centers, demonstrate the importance of adopting a human-centered approach to identify needs and improve outcomes.

It is only by continuing to leverage evidence-based, novel interventions, that communities will be able to help meet mothers where they’re at, when they need help most.

Empowering Partners to Drive Change

At Unite Us, we work with community-based organizations, health systems, and government partners to ensure all women and infants, particularly those at risk of poor health outcomes, have a chance at a safe and healthy life.

We believe innovative and collaborative strategies should focus on removing barriers to accessing care, emphasizing preventative approaches and integrated community programs. Our shared, community-wide platform makes it easier for health, human, and social service providers to:

  • Connect underserved pregnant people and new parents to coordinated care and resources, so they can get the care they need when they need it.
  • Leverage proactive interventions such as home-visitation programs, prenatal care providers, and breastfeeding support.
  • Increase access to high-quality maternal care by partnering with credible provider networks and social service agencies; building strong partnerships and learning collaboratives with public and private stakeholders help advance equitable maternal health care in the U.S.

Partner Spotlight: A Model of Coordinated Care Powered by Unite Us

We’re proud to partner with organizations like First 1,000 Days Sarasota, which connects families with community resources such as financial assistance, healthcare, and food during pregnancy and in the first 1,000 days of life.

First 1000 days Sarasota stats

Care coordination: Sixty-five organizations and over 110 unique programs have joined Unite Florida in Sarasota County, connecting CBOs, pediatricians, obstetricians, and local government agencies to provide care coordination to low-income families and their children.

Parent participation: A parent advisory committee ensures parents’ voices are woven into every aspect of the initiative. The group meets every other month and offers guidance on their social media campaign, community murals, and initiative marketing strategies.

Targeted interventions: First 1,000 Days Sarasota formed a county-wide Plan of Safe Care task force. The Plan of Safe Care is a federal mandate to identify and support pregnant women with a history of substance use by providing ongoing care coordination for the families after birth until the child is five years old. Sarasota County is pioneering an innovative program by partnering with Unite Us to pilot their care coordination platform.

With critical policy tools, willing community partners, and the right SDoH solutions coming into place, we can turn this crisis around. No family should have to grieve during what should be one of the most celebratory times in life.

Access the report to learn more about this partnership and how our data-powered, social care solution can drive change and positively impact maternal and infant health outcomes.

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Interested in taking a collaborative approach to improving maternal health outcomes in your community? Watch our webinar to hear from industry experts on how adopting a collaborative approach is key when bridging gaps and driving better outcomes for new and expecting parents.

Watch the Webinar

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Collaborative Innovations to Improve Maternal Health https://uniteus.com/report/collaborative-innovations-to-improve-maternal-health/ Tue, 03 May 2022 19:06:00 +0000 https://uniteus.com/?page_id=1569 The post Collaborative Innovations to Improve Maternal Health appeared first on uniteus.com.

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Unite Us Town Hall: Keep Us Moving Forward https://uniteus.com/webinar/unite-us-town-hall-keep-us-moving-forward/ Mon, 18 Apr 2022 19:38:41 +0000 https://uniteus.com/?page_id=1582 We know social determinants of health matter, but what do we do to create healthy and sustainable communities? How do we move beyond talk to action? In this Town Hall, hear from a dynamic panel of industry leaders as they discuss the importance of insights and how data helps shape their cutting-edge SDoH strategies. Key takeaways: The …

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We know social determinants of health matter, but what do we do to create healthy and sustainable communities? How do we move beyond talk to action?

In this Town Hall, hear from a dynamic panel of industry leaders as they discuss the importance of insights and how data helps shape their cutting-edge SDoH strategies.

Key takeaways:

  • The regulatory changes that are driving social care investments
  • How government and healthcare leaders can create systems to shift social care investments upstream
  • Recommendations (e.g. policies and tools) to address SDoH successfully

It’s time to move the conversation about SDoH to the next level. Watch the Town Hall to gain insights and discuss the technology driving the next phase of SDoH innovation.

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Transforming Care Delivery: Driving Systematic Change to Fully Integrate Health and Social Care https://uniteus.com/webinar/transforming-care-delivery-driving-systematic-change-to-fully-integrate-health-and-social-care/ Thu, 31 Mar 2022 19:37:14 +0000 https://uniteus.com/?page_id=1581 In this virtual roundtable co-hosted by Unite Us and City & State, a prominent policy-focused publication, we address some of the biggest issues in healthcare today—including care delivery to support the reentry of justice-involved individuals and Medicaid transformation. Hear from experts in the Northeast as they examine challenges around community-wide care coordination, and discuss how …

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In this virtual roundtable co-hosted by Unite Us and City & State, a prominent policy-focused publication, we address some of the biggest issues in healthcare today—including care delivery to support the reentry of justice-involved individuals and Medicaid transformation. Hear from experts in the Northeast as they examine challenges around community-wide care coordination, and discuss how meaningful data helps achieve social care coordination at scale.

The post Transforming Care Delivery: Driving Systematic Change to Fully Integrate Health and Social Care appeared first on uniteus.com.

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