BOSTON (PRWEB)
January 21, 2021
Activate Care®, a leader in integrated health and social care solutions, today announced a first of its kind initiative to help communities change how local health and social service systems collaborate and the impact that communities can achieve together.
Activate Care’s Screen-to-Intervene™ Initiative (https://info.activatecare.com/activate-care-101) is engaging communities in all 50 states in an effort to link these systems of care around the individual patient or client, rather than just the activities of the care coordinator or case manager. This initiative builds on the company’s evidence-based CareHub™ offering, the only technology proven to help health and social service organizations reduce costs and collaborate for the collective benefit of the person being served, and ultimately the community as a whole. Activate Care brings expanded data exchange capabilities to this initiative, allowing communities to “screen anywhere” across the ecosystem, with enhanced care coordination tools to link diverse teams together to “intervene everywhere” in order to meet a person’s whole set of medical and physical, behavioral health, and social service needs. Closing the loop on the referral to actually intervene until the problem has been rectified reduces everything from hospital readmissions to chronic homelessness.
“For too long, the status quo in our healthcare system has been to screen people for mental health or social service needs, then simply refer them out to other providers in the community. Numerous peer-reviewed studies now show this fails up to 80% of people in need,” said Activate Care Co-founder and CEO Ted Quinn. “We know for a fact that it’s rarely just food insecurity affecting someone’s health, or an anxiety disorder, it’s almost always more than one issue facing a family. And when we look to the future with a keen eye on how the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic will certainly increase incidents of homelessness, food insecurity, mental health, and many other SDOH, deploying large-scale interventions to these intersecting challenges will require an integrated ecosystem more than ever. It’s time to prepare for these predictable challenges to actually make a positive impact for our vulnerable populations.”
“Our Screen-to-Intervene initiative brings an end-to-end process to the problem, and we are currently demonstrating its effectiveness by powering some of the most efficient community-wide interventions in the country,” Quinn added.
Activate Care Helps Hospitals Shift to Proactive, Whole-Person Care
For healthcare providers, Activate Care coordinates the full scope of medical and non-medical data across the continuum of care, and connects patients to the behavioral health and social services they need right now. Integrations with electronic health records (EHR) extend the value of the Activate Care platform by enabling front-line health workers to manage, monitor, and support the non-medical complexity of their patients’ needs in one streamlined workflow.
Every year, Activate Care customer Queen of the Valley Hospital in Napa Valley, Calif., discharges many patients who are low-income, uninsured or underinsured, and chronically ill, who will face obstacles to maintain their health.
The hospital’s CARE Network team—case management, advocacy, resources and education—shared in a Scottsdale Institute® webinar (member-only access) how they use Activate Care to deliver timely health care services to this population. Through this seamless continuum of care from hospital to community, hospitalizations and emergency room utilization each decreased by about 64 percent for these patients. CARE Network patients have a 21 percent lower 30-day readmission rate than the hospital’s other patients. These improvements can yield economic benefits to the hospital’s uncompensated care budget and help to mitigate the risks of financial penalties.
Activate Care Strengthens Outcomes and Case Management for Social Services & Integrated Care Organizations
Connection and collaboration is paramount for a community. Activate Care customer Neighborhood Service Organization (NSO) is a community-based, integrated care organization and the only shelter provider in Detroit, Mich. with medical and behavioral health services onsite. In Detroit, NSO’s CEO Linda Little knows the continuum of care for an individual experiencing homelessness is extremely fragmented. “Systems do not talk to each other, let alone other care team members, resulting in huge redundancies, higher costs, a poor patient experience, and a burden on the system of care. Without a complete patient profile, it’s nearly impossible to elevate quality of life and patient health. Nobody is winning!” said Little.
Like NSO, the goal of most integrated health organizations is to substantially improve patient outcomes and promote health equity. Linda Little notes, “Activate Care is a game changer, a tool that enables connectivity between multiple partners like hospitals, pharmacies, lab services, and homeless services, all with a high volume of programs, and it gives the full picture of the individual to truly deliver whole person care. It reduces the burden on the entire system of care.”
With 2-1-1 Helplines, Activate Care Turns Community Resource Information into Community-Based Interventions
America’s network of local 2-1-1 helplines is available to approximately 309 million people, which is more than 90% of the U.S. population. Activate Care further expanded its care coordination capabilities through strategic partnerships with local 2-1-1 helplines that bring customers a single-pane view for referring, coordinating, and intervening on behalf of community members in need. 2-1-1 data in Activate Care gives communities participating in the Screen-to-Intervene Initiative access to the most reliable community resource information inside their community-based interventions.
In Illinois, Activate Care partner PATH Illinois provides 2-1-1 services to 45 counties across the state. Like many local 2-1-1 helplines that Activate Care works with, PATH Illinois provides crisis response, community resources and referrals to callers, to influence better outcomes for thousands of individuals across the Midwest every year.
Most healthcare organizations spend countless hours building their own community networks and resource guides, which need to be regularly updated, costing time and money. Organizations like PATH Illinois offer an entry point to help. “It takes a community to help our people in need,” said Karen Zangerle, executive director of PATH Illinois. “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.”
Local Leaders Choose Activate Care to Help Manage COVID-19 Effects
“We can see a shimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel for the pandemic, but we can’t vaccinate against the effects of it. Unfortunately, there is no vaccine for unemployment, homelessness, domestic violence, mental illness, and so many other issues that we know will skyrocket over the next year,” said Ted Quinn.
Activate Care’s COVID-focused tools, powered by the Activate CareHub platform, help local leaders in healthcare and government more safely and efficiently manage their long-term response to the economic and social impact of the pandemic, at scale. With millions of jobs lost and many families on the brink, Activate Care helps connect people in need to essential services, sharing critical data across the entire community, with a platform that is designed to radically improve how our healthcare and social services heroes communicate, collaborate, and take action together.
Activate Care customers in Humboldt County, Calif., implemented the company’s COVID-focused tools in less than a week, which they used for rapidly housing at-risk homeless individuals in motels; it provided the care coordination framework for the newly housed and was described in a California Health Care Foundation report as a “major success.”
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 making the biggest impact.” For more information, visit https://www.activatecare.com.
