BOSTON and BLOOMINGTON, Ill. (PRWEB)
November 18, 2020

Activate Care®, a provider of integrated health and social care solutions, today announced a partnership with PATH, the agency providing 211 services to 45 counties in Illinois, to positively affect both healthcare and community-focused organizations as well as thousands of hospital patients across the Midwest. Activate Care works with PATH Illinois, the local 211 that provides crisis response, community resources and referrals to callers, to influence better outcomes in behavioral health, community care coordination and referral management. The progress made from the collaboration between PATH’s Executive Director Karen Zangerle and the Activate Care team speaks to the need for better and more comprehensive closed loop coordination in the region to meaningfully impact social determinants of health (SDOH).

“The way we engage communities in social interventions has scaled up dramatically over time, but it’s not enough to merely close the loop on a referral or even develop a shared care plan,” said Ted Quinn, CEO, Activate Care. “I think every care team, which most definitely includes 211 staff, must incorporate a whole person care perspective into care planning. Referrals, care coordination, and data exchange are all meaningful inputs into this process. To improve access to quality care, delivery of social services, and decrease the costs of care, we need to do a better job of actually solving the complex health and social needs that so many individuals share. Our collaboration with Karen and her team at PATH will help us fulfill our joint mission to help organizations in the Midwest improve quality of life in their local communities,” added Quinn.

By collaborating with Activate Care, PATH will leverage its central role in counties across Illinois and convene partners and stakeholders who want to work together to improve how people access community services. When people enter the medical system, they deserve care coordination, and the social services organizations like local 211s deserve to be able to track cases to resolution more effectively. PATH is an entry point to help, but often times there isn’t enough staff or resources in local organizations to make sure no one is left behind. While these challenges are persistent, they can be solved. It takes a community to make health and social needs brief, rare, and non-recurring in nature.

“Over the course of my career, I have been involved with efforts to help impact SDOH in our Illinois communities, and through the development of 211 I know all too clearly that as a community resource people turn to when they are seeking help in human services just how deep and wide the need for help is across this state,” said Karen Zangerle, executive feedback director of PATH. “We have to work together to improve capacity of social services and track people through the system, until they get the help they need. Because of this, I believe Activate Care offers huge value to the healthcare system. To be able to work with a company that is willing to expand a hospital’s ability to follow through is wonderful. Simply put, we want more people to find answers to their problem before it negatively impacts their health.”

In Illinois, state leaders are well aware that chronic homelessness causes many costly consequences, including overuse of emergency rooms and overcrowding prisons, but without a way to care for the whole person who calls the 211 system, those consequences are nearly impossible to track and stop.

“PATH currently serves 45 counties across the state and I’m hopeful that once more and more members in the community benefit from the Activate Care platform we’ll see an improvement in community health outcomes and more robust participation from all our counties, especially those that are rural,” added Zangerle.

About PATH/211 Illinois

PATH began on the campus of Illinois State University in 1971 as a drug hotline. The service quickly expanded to provide crisis response and later to add community resources and referrals. In 1985, PATH was awarded a grant to provide outreach for people age 60 and older. In 1998, PATH was awarded a HUD grant and began providing outreach to the homeless and coordinating homeless efforts in McLean County. PATH now coordinates the Central Illinois Continuum of Care and three homeless services programs, and serves the following counties: Alexander, Champaign, DeKalb, DeWitt, Douglas, Franklin, Gallatin, Hamilton, Hardin, Iroquois, Jackson, Jefferson, Johnson, Kane, Kankakee, Knox, LaSalle, Lee, Livingston, Macon, Marion, Massac, McHenry, McLean, Menard, Moultrie, Ogle, Perry, Piatt, Pope, Pulaski, Saline, Sangamon, Shelby, Union, Vermilion, Warren, Washington, Wayne, White, Whiteside, Williamson, and Winnebago.

About Activate Care®

Activate Care’s cloud-based CareHub™ platform connects patients, families, care teams, and community partners to address social determinants of health and create better whole person care on the journey to health and wellbeing. With Activate Care, everyone directly involved with a patient’s health can act together to improve health and social outcomes, making healthier lives happen, wherever they are. Headquartered in Boston, Mass., Activate Care is privately held and venture-funded by the disruptive innovation investment firm, Rose Park Advisors. The company was named one of BostInno’s “50 on Fire” in fall 2020, which showcases the 50 companies in Boston “with innovative approaches to solving problems and are making the biggest impact.” For more information, visit https://www.activatecare.com.