In an article for the World Economic Forum, Bruce Broussard, President and Chief Executive Officer of Humana Inc., shares three ways to tackle the Global Health Crisis. We will focus on one of these in each of three blog posts over the coming weeks. The first one is to “Intervene at the intersection of health and lifestyle”.
Broussard recognizes the need for care providers to understand the social determinants of health (SDOH), items such as food insecurity, social isolation and loneliness, that impact the patient’s qualify of care. We discussed this in our blog post last week.
In particular, he believes that insurers must be present at the “intersection of health and lifestyle”. He believes that the SDOH – items that hinder an individual’s ability to alter unhealthy behavior – can be directly addressed at this juncture.
Capturing SDOH and Integrating into Workflow
ISeeYouCare agrees with Mr. Broussard’s idea, and are committed to including the capture of SDOH factors as part of the healthcare workflow. By working with community groups, such as social agencies, schools, shelters, care providers and public health advocates, we have an understanding of the grave need for better understanding of a patient’s lifestyle factors.
By integrating this information into the clinical workflow, we can better inform care providers of social factors that may impact a patient’s ability to adhere to their care plan. Consider this extreme example. A doctor prescribes a medication that requires refrigeration for a patient. However, the patient is homeless and lives in a shelter that does not provide access to a refrigerator. Or worse yet, he lives in a tent in a homeless camp. Either way, the patient will not be able to keep the medicine and adhere to his prescription.
Improving lifestyle factors and synchronizing them with the patient’s care plan is a fundamental need. It is one of the best and most effective ways to drive better outcomes for all. We support any and all attempts to improve the healthy lifestyles of all our citizens.