Integrating Health and Social Care to Improve the Nation’s Health: An Interdisciplinary Committee’s Consensus Findings and Recommendations

Consistent and compelling evidence demonstrates strong associations between social risk factors and health outcomes, leading to a growing number of health care payment and practice innovations related to identifying and addressing patients’ social needs alongside more traditional medical care – and often partnering with community-based organizations to address individual and family needs. In 2018, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) convened an 18-month national expert committee charged with examining efforts to integrate social care and health care services to achieve better health outcomes, and the committee’s report was released in September 2019.

The report highlights several intersecting approaches to address social risk factors, including: 1) health care sector approaches to providing social care and to strengthening the social resources landscape; 2) workforce demands of social and medical care integration; 3) health information and technology needs of social and medical care integration; 4) payment models that can support integration; and 5) barriers to improving integration. Watch this Aging and Disability Business Institute webinar, when one of the committee members Robyn Golden, LCSW will present an overview of their consensus findings and recommendations, with an emphasis on opportunities for community-based organizations to advocate for and elevate their role in improving health outcomes for individuals, families, and communities.

 

Presenter
Robyn Golden, M.A., L.C.S.W., is associate vice president of Population Health and Aging at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Recently she served as a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s committee studying the Integration of Social Needs Care into the Delivery of Health Care.

 

Learning Objectives

•     Describe the final report from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, called “Integrating Social Needs Care and the Delivery of Health Care: Moving Medicine Upstream,

•     Identify key recommendations and opportunities for stakeholders in community-based organizations to take action; and

•     Explain the study in context of various initiatives across the nation that address inequities in health and well-being by making healthcare more responsive to social needs.