We still have work to do to craft and articulate the business case for addressing social needs and creating health equity, says Health Leads Co-Founder Rebecca Onie. One of the foundational questions we need to ask is, “What’s the purpose of the endeavor? Are we willing to accept the parameters of the economics that we are pledging ourselves to try to prove our value as we undertake this?”
When you look at emerging measures that matter to many health systems, if not most in the U.S., very few are functionally achievable without walking through the work of addressing patients’ social and mental health needs. For example, when Health Leads launched, they had 12 months to migrate from the community benefit budget of a Boston hospital to its operating budget. “It seemed impossible,” says Onie. But when they sat down with hospital leadership, Medicaid coverage had just expanded in Massachusetts, and one of the institution’s top priorities was patient satisfaction for those patients. Health Leads was able to demonstrate that “of course patients are happier when you engage with them around their health versus just managing their disease.” The organization has now been in the operating budget of that hospital for over 5 years. ……more