Latest news with #communityhealth
Forbes
4 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
How SDoH Platforms Are Driving Smarter Healthcare Decisions
Raghvendra Tripathi | Sr Director/Enterprise Architect Principal | Independent Researcher | IEEE Senior Member. If you've spent any time in healthcare leadership or management, you know that patient outcomes hinge on more than just clinical care. Social determinants of health (SDoH)—everything from housing stability to education and food access—play a huge role in shaping health outcomes. But integrating those complex, often siloed factors into healthcare strategies has always been a challenge. That's where innovative solutions like an SDoH enterprise platform come in, turning diverse social and economic data into actionable insights. When my team first looked at tackling SDoH integration, the biggest hurdle was the sheer breadth and complexity of data sources. You're dealing with data from electronic medical records, census reports like the American Community Survey, public health indices such as the CDC Social Vulnerability Index and even real-time assessments from local community organizations. Each source speaks a different format or "language," making it tough to connect the dots efficiently. The breakthrough came with a cloud-based platform that standardizes and consolidates this data—what we call the "SDoH Enterprise." Imagine a system where race, ethnicity, language preferences and even nuanced factors like sexual orientation and gender identity are harmonized across EMRs and community datasets. This platform uses rigorous standardization protocols, like OMB guidelines for demographics and ISO codes for language, ensuring consistency. At the heart of this is a cloud warehouse powered by Snowflake, which acts as a central hub for all this information. Whether it's batch uploads or real-time feeds, the platform makes data accessible and actionable. What I find truly exciting are the tools that can be built on top of this integrated data. For instance: • Geospatial Dashboards: These reduce complexity by visualizing how social factors vary across neighborhoods and populations. It's like having a map that highlights areas at risk for health disparities. • EMR Integration: Providers get real-time prompts about patients' social needs, allowing them to tailor care plans effectively. Plus, partnerships with community organizations mean referrals can be closed in a "loop," ensuring patients truly get the support they need. • APIs For Accessibility: Seamless API connections enable sharing insights across systems, empowering everyone from care coordinators to public health officials. • Smart Engagement: Analytics identify which members are at risk or would benefit most from particular interventions, allowing programs to focus resources wisely and improve member experiences. Implementing this type of platform changed the game for us. We saw a significant uptick in identifying future high-cost members before their health spiraled, reducing unnecessary hospital visits and emergency care. Care coordination improved as healthcare providers could see a fuller picture of each patient's context. Even better, enterprise-wide reporting standardization means leadership teams can evaluate the effectiveness of SDoH initiatives with hard data—creating accountability and guiding future investments. If you're navigating the complexities of value-based care and population health management, incorporating SDoH platforms has become increasingly important for comprehensive healthcare delivery and outcomes. The key includes: 1. Starting With Data Standards: Ensure your systems speak a common language. 2. Investing In Integration: Centralize your data for real-time, actionable insights. 3. Leveraging Analytics: Use predictive modeling to prioritize resource allocation. 4. Partnering Outside Healthcare: Community organizations are critical allies in addressing social needs. 5. Tracking and Iterating: Use impact reporting to refine and scale programs effectively. The potential here extends well beyond current programs. Long-term, the goal is healthier communities and more equitable care—with technology and data as the backbone. As I've seen firsthand, embedding social determinants into healthcare delivery transforms how care teams work and, ultimately, how patients live. Let's keep the conversation going—how is your organization tackling SDoH? What lessons have you learned? The way forward is collaborative, and sharing insights can help all of us lead smarter, more compassionate health systems. Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Community Health Director earns prestigious award
BINGHAMTON, NY (WIVT/WBGH) – A veteran member of the Broome County Health Department is being recognized for a career marked by service, resilience and innovation. Community Health Director Carrie Horton has been with the health department for 27 began as a health program specialist with a passion for preventative cancer screenings. Horton quickly rose the ranks to her current position where she oversees the department's clinics treating tuberculosis and sexually transmitted illnesses and administering also manages 11 grant programs as well as a variety of advisory boards and policy committees. Horton says prevention is key. 'People call public health an invisible force field. If we are doing our jobs and we're doing it correctly, prevention is our key effort and people don't really pay attention to public health until something goes wrong and then they realize how fundamental public health really is,' she said. Horton says all of the health department's work in such area's as lead prevention, cancer screenings and traffic safety are date-driven and based on scientific based says she intends to finish out her career at the organization. 'I have been so fortunate over the years to work with the most inspirational, knowledgeable people that are public health professionals in Broome County. The Broome County Health Department is outstanding. We are a role model for a lot of other New York State programs. I just feel very fortunate to have been a part of it.' Horton received the v Hermann M Biggs Memorial Award at the 2025 Public Health Partnership Conference in Ithaca earlier this month. She says she's particularly humbled to get the lifetime achievement award as it typically goes to commissioners or physicians. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
BBC News
24-05-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Cash boost for revamp of ex-Gateshead Council leisure centres
Four former council-run leisure centres are said to become more family friendly and accessible, following a programme of Dunston, and Heworth leisure centres, along with Gateshead International Stadium, were recently taken over by charitable social enterprise group has now allocated £750,000 to replace health and fitness equipment in the gyms at the four centres with state-of-the-art machines. It will also be working with the council to operate six community tennis courts, which the authority is currently refurbishing. GLL said it was putting in place measures to ensure its facilities were inclusive and accessible to everyone, and there would be specially designed equipment to support those with disabilities.A multi-sensory lighting system being introduced at Dunston Leisure Centre will cater to children with sensory processing needs. The existing underused squash courts at that site will become a multi-functional space for community activities, health programmes and school holiday clubs. Scott Holmes, from GLL, said: "Our overarching aim is to improve the health and happiness of communities by investing in facilities and encouraging participation in activities."We will continue to work in partnership with Gateshead Council to introduce additional community-led programmes." Follow BBC North East on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Health clinics that service immigrants are making house calls on patients too afraid to leave home
Across Los Angeles, the Inland Empire and the Coachella Valley, one community health center is extending its services to immigrant patients in their homes after realizing that people were skipping critical medical appointments because they've become too afraid to venture out. St. John's Community Health, one of the largest nonprofit community healthcare providers in Los Angeles County that caters to low-income and working-class residents, launched a home visitation program in March after learning that patients were missing routine and urgent care appointments because they feared being taken in by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. St. John's, which offers services through a network of clinics and mobile units across the region, estimates that at least 25,000 of its patients are undocumented, and about a third of them suffer from chronic conditions, including diabetes and hypertension, which require routine checkups. But these patients were missing tests to monitor their blood sugar and blood pressure, as well as appointments to pick up prescription refills. Earlier this year, the health center began surveying patients and found that hundreds were canceling appointments 'solely due to fear of being apprehended by ICE.' President Trump came into his second term promising the largest deportation effort in U.S. history, initially focusing his rhetoric on undocumented immigrants who had committed violent crimes. But shortly after he took office, his administration said they considered anyone in the country without authorization to be a criminal. In the months since, the new administration has used a variety of tactics to sow fear in immigrant communities. The Department of Homeland Security has launched an ad campaign urging people in the country without authorization to leave or risk being rounded up and deported. Immigration agents are showing up at Home Depots and inside courtrooms, in search of people in the U.S. without authorization. Increasingly, immigrants who are detained are being whisked away and deported to their home countries — or, in some cases, nations where they have no ties — without time for packing or family goodbyes. The Trump administration in January rescinded a policy that once shielded sensitive locations such as hospitals, churches and schools from immigration-related arrests. Read more: Kern County immigration raid offers glimpse into new reality for California farmworkers In response to the survey results, St. John's launched the Health Care Without Fear program in an effort to reach patients who are afraid to leave their homes. Jim Mangia, chief executive and president of St. John's, said in a statement that healthcare providers should implement policies to ensure all patients, regardless of immigration status, have access to care. 'Healthcare is a human right — we will not allow fear to stand in the way of that,' he said. Bukola Olusanya, a nurse practitioner and the regional medical director at St. John's, said one woman reported not having left her home in three months. She said she knows of other patients with chronic conditions who aren't leaving their house to exercise, which could exacerbate their illness. Even some immigrants in the U.S. legally are expressing reservations, given news stories about the government accusing people of crimes and deporting them without due process. Olusanya said waiting for people to come back in for medical care on their own felt like too great a risk, given how quickly their conditions could deteriorate. 'It could be a complication that's going to make them get a disability that's going to last a lifetime, and they become so much more dependent, or they have to use more resources," she said. "So why not prevent that?' Read more: More immigrants opt to self-deport rather than risk being marched out like criminals On a recent Thursday at St. John's Avalon Clinic in South L.A., Olusanya prepared to head to the home of a patient who lived about 30 minutes away. The Avalon Clinic serves a large population of homeless patients and has a street team that frequently uses a van filled with medical equipment. The van is proving useful for home visits. Olusanya spent about 30 minutes preparing for the 3 p.m. appointment, assembling equipment to draw blood, collect a urine sample and check the patient's vitals and glucose levels. She said she has conducted physical exams in bedrooms and living rooms, depending on the patient's housing situation and privacy. She recalled a similar drop in patient visits during Trump's first administration when he also vowed mass deportations. Back then, she said, the staff at St. John's held drills to prepare for potential federal raids, linking arms in a human chain to block the clinic entrance. But this time around, she said, the fear is more palpable. 'You feel it; it's very thick,' she said. While telehealth is an option for some patients, many need in-person care. St. John's sends a team of three or four staff members to make the house calls, she said, and are generally welcomed with a mix of relief and gratitude that makes it worthwhile. 'They're very happy like, 'Oh, my God, St. John's can do this. I'm so grateful,' ' she said. 'So it means a lot.' Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
BBC News
24-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Worcestershire couple fit 50th defibrillator in friend's memory
A couple have completed their 50th community defibrillator installation in memory of a and Sonia Diamond were motivated to install the equipment across Worcestershire after Bert's best friend, Adam, died of a heart attack 15 years Diamond, an electrician, said there was no defibrillator nearby and he had "always believed it might have saved him".Working alongside a local volunteer group, the couple have so far helped deploy 27 potentially life-saving defibrillators in Evesham and are expanding their work further. Local charity Evesham Defibrillators helped to raise funds for the equipment, which was then fitted and tested free of charge by Diamond Electrical Installations."We're professional electrical installers, so this felt like a good way to give something back to the communities we're working in," Mrs Diamond have also been fitted in other areas of Worcestershire - in Barton, Church Lench, Worcester and couple are also replicating their community-first model in Gloucestershire and installed their first defibrillator there in Chipping are calling for councils, community groups, schools and businesses in the area to partner with them on the project."We've shown what's possible when local people pull together," Mr Diamond said."If communities can fund a defibrillator, we'll make sure it's safely installed and ready to go." Follow BBC Hereford & Worcester on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
