- UVA Health Deploys Cloud-based Referral Network for SDOH Program
Payers and providers are investing in the analytics tool focused on addressing SDOH to improve care for patients.
"Our investment in Socially Determined will help advance our mission to improve healthcare quality and increase access to care for our members," Ricardo Johnson, vice president of Healthworx, stated in the announcement. "The company's focus on measuring the impact of social determinants of health will play a significant role in transforming our healthcare landscape."
Socially Determined turned their focus entirely to the science and measurement of the impact of SDOH. The company’s analytics platform, SocialScape, quantifies social risk and uncovers various ways how SDOH impacts utilization, cost, and outcomes.
The organization highlighted that the $11.1 million will be used to further expand its operations and support programs to support SDOH.
"It was important to us that our initial institutional round represented strategic investors and leaders across the healthcare industry," Trenor Williams, MD, CEO and co-founder of Socially Determined said in the announcement. "We are pleased that CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, a leading healthcare organization, and Lafayette General Health, an innovative provider system, joined the round to support our work to improve the health of our communities."
As SDOH becomes an increasing issue, payers, healthcare providers, and health systems are being called on to leverage data and analytics to make informed population health decisions and predictions about what healthcare services patients may need in the future considering their overall medical history.
“Innovative medical treatments are rendered ineffective if people don’t have social support and access to resources readily available to help keep them well. This is not optional; healthcare and government organizations that don’t act on social determinants will spend more and more money, only to watch health status decline,” said Kelly Barnes, PwC’s Global and US Health Industries leader, in an report.
One of the five suggestions PwC identified to help payers address SDOH was to generate data insights to inform decision making.
Predictive analytics can be used to understand both individual and population behaviors. Forty-seven percent of respondents indicated that healthcare providers are not openly sharing predictions about what healthcare services they may need in the future considering their medical history. And to further help these individuals, providers need more information and tools to prevent chronic conditions.
Fifty-six percent of consumers said that they use their smartphones to support their health. But the report emphasized that technology can only work if it is embraced and trusted by the community members expected to use it.
“Leaders in social determinants of health have built coalitions, harnessed the potential of data and predictive analytics, and identified where early investments in an intervention can have tremendous impact on people’s health and lives,” said Barnes. “We can’t underestimate the transformative effect this action can have not only on health systems and governments, but the healthy life years we can give to more people across the globe.”