Resources

A Strategic Approach to Address the Social Determinants of Health — Socially Determined

Written by Socially Determined | Sep 3, 2021 8:13:00 AM

Many organizations across the healthcare ecosystem know that to have efficient, effective and equitable healthcare, they need to understand and address the systemic economic and social conditions influencing the most vulnerable populations in the U.S. The Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) are the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks. Obstacles including financial strain, food insecurity, transportation barriers and more have been proven to have a much more significant role on people’s health outcomes than genetics. Follow the guide below on the Social Risk Intelligence™ methodology for a strategic, full-cycle approach to healthier communities, optimal business performance, and health equity.

1.) IDENTIFY RISK

Get an unobstructed view into the contours and concentrations of social risk. If you're only looking at clinical data, you're not seeing the full picture of what’s happening on the ground. Socially Determined takes a data-driven approach to precisely identify social risk. Our HITRUST-certified, Social Risk Intelligence platform, SocialScape®, continuously ingests and analyzes data assembling comprehensive profiles of people, populations, and communities so businesses can understand the full extent of SDOH challenges. By taking into account core risk factors including financial strain, food insecurity, housing instability, transportation barriers, and health literacy challenges, our platform provides both a birdseye and zoomed-in view into social risk.

2.) QUANTIFY OPPORTUNITIES

Quantify the Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) to understand how social risk affects key business metrics, such as sub-optimal utilization, avoidable costs, and quality measure attainment, as well as overall community health and wellbeing. SocialScape® enables you to get an unobstructed view of risk to catalyze and inform decisions. You can see who’s impacted across different domains and why it matters to you and the populations you serve. Armed with this information, you can pinpoint the best opportunities for sustainable, high-ROI interventions and strategically address SDOH at scale.

3.) PRIORITIZE ACTIONS

Determine where to proactively direct resources and support based on the greatest need once you have quantified each opportunity in your community. Socially Determined’s advisory services team guides your SDOH journey by helping you establish quick wins and maximize speed to impact, optimize current investments and programs, and pursue net new partnerships and programs.

4.) MEASURE IMPACT

Create sustainable, scalable, and measurable intervention programs to substantiate ongoing investment. Once you’ve put the dollars and resources behind your intervention programs and deployed them, you’ll need to know what’s working and what’s not. Socially Determined has the arsenal in place to help measure your return on investment so you can substantiate where it makes sense to continue initiatives and where to scale back.

Developing a full-cycle Social Risk Intelligence approach involves identifying where risk exists, quantifying impact across key measures, prioritizing actions for long-term scalability, and measuring initiatives in a standardized and repeatable way to drive future investments. This may look different for every organization, depending on where you are in your SDOH journey.

Contact Us