Bright Spots in Healthcare Eric Glazer

CareSource, Independent Health, and AdhereHealth outline strategies for the upcoming Medicare Advantage Star Rating changes, focusing on medication adherence and the Health Equity Index (HEI) starting in measurement years 2024-2025 for the 2027 Medicare Advantage Star Rating Period. 
 
Under HEI, plans must identify disparities in populations with social risks and create intervention strategies to address these inequities. Tune in and gain insights on leveraging policy changes, predictive analytics, and strategic implementation to meet these new standards and reach or maintain 4+ Stars.
 
Panelists:
Amin Serehali, Senior Vice President, Chief Data & Analytics Officer, Independent Health
Logan Fox, PharmD, MBA, Director, Enterprise Quality
Improvement, Programs, CareSource
Kempton Presley, MPH, MS, Chief Strategy Officer, AdhereHealth
 
https://www.brightspotsinhealthcare.com/events/convergence-of-pharmacy-the-health-equity-index-in-2024-and-beyond/
 
This episode is sponsored by AdhereHealth
AdhereHealth is at the forefront of delivering purpose-built, innovative technology solutions designed to elevate pay-for-performance achievement for government-sponsored lines of business. This includes improved Star Ratings for Medicare, plus enhanced patient experience scores, improved patient health outcomes, and optimized cost outcomes for clients. The company’s pioneering efforts are particularly noteworthy for addressing social determinants of health (SDOH) and significantly improving patient experiences as a mechanism for improved Star Ratings performance through multi-modal outreach capabilities.
 
Powered by the industry-leading Adhere Platform™, AdhereHealth integrates predictive analytics, intelligent clinical workflow software, and proactive multi-channel outreach. This combination, executed by a nationwide team of licensed clinicians, effectively drives health equity and adherence outcomes that improve quality of care for patients and boost financial results for clients.
 
The impact of AdhereHealth's comprehensive solutions is far-reaching, touching tens of millions of patients across over 100 health plans, self-insured employers and other risk-bearing entities. Since its inception in 2006, AdhereHealth, headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee, has grown into a robust organization with hundreds of dedicated professionals nationwide, all committed to their mission of improving healthcare outcomes. Visit www.adherehealth.com for more information.

Fred Turner, co-founder and chief executive officer of Curative, joins Eric to discuss how Curative is reinventing health insurance by adopting a more preventative approach to drive better results and lead to a more affordable delivery of plans.
 
Fred shares Curative’s journey from a pandemic testing company to a health insurance provider with a first-of-its-kind plan that eliminates copays and deductibles and advocates that the most effective approach to promote early preventive care is ensuring accessible and cost-free access to top-tier healthcare providers.
 
Fred underlines the significance of simplifying the healthcare system and the positive impact of Curative's approach. The innovative health insurance plan offers unmatched transparency into healthcare costs, providing reassurance to both employees and employers about the affordability and accessibility of healthcare. 
 
Tune in and learn what makes Curative different from other plans and how it makes health care affordable, accessible and engaging for members.



About Fred
Fred Turner is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Curative. A British scientist from West Yorkshire, Turner attended the University of Oxford. Fred was named one of the top 100 practicing scientists in the UK by the Science Council in 2013. Turner was included in Forbes “30 Under 30” list and ranked first in the European Union Contest for Young Scientists. 
 
About Curative
Curative has been critical and a national leader in bringing COVID-19 testing and vaccine-administration resources in response to the pandemic, providing more than 32 million tests and two million vaccines across thousands of locations in 40+ states. Concurrently, Curative has created and launched a first-of-its-kind health insurance plan offering that offers unmatched transparency into health care costs.

 
Leading healthcare investors and strategists discuss how to rethink capital in healthcare and share unique ways to grow and scale companies to improve health outcomes, cost savings, and operational efficiencies.
 
Topics include:
Components investors look for in 2024
Healthcare sectors with the highest growth projections
Human capital strategies
Growth strategies to scale your company
Bright spots that have been attracting people and capital
 
Anna Haghgooie, Managing Director at Valtruis, a WCAS Company
Steven Klopfer, Founder & Managing Partner, Kamyn Search
Shayan Masoudpour, Director, Bow River Capital
Naimish Patel, President, Healthcare Practice, Red Cell Partners
 
https://www.brightspotsinhealthcare.com/events/investor-insights-strategies-to-drive-transformative-growth-in-healthcare
 
Feedback survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/VGMVMWB

 
Katherine Gergen Barnett, MD, Vice Chair of Primary Care Innovation and Transformation in the Department of Family Medicine at Boston Medical Center (BMC) and Cheryl Harding, patient and community advocate, join Eric to share how Boston Medical Center is utilizing storytelling to build trust and connection between the hospital and its community partners. Katherine and Cheryl discuss the impact medical mistrusts has on health outcomes and health disparities.
 
They also tell how the "Storytelling to Build Medical Trust" project was born out of the desire of BMC to improve the health and well-being of Black and brown community members. The project puts a face to the statistics and allow community members to explain why they lack trust in the overall healthcare system.
Hear how this unique project has brought the medical and local communities together and how empathy and trust can help advance health equity and narrow health disparities.
 
About Katherine
Katherine Gergen Barnett, MD, is a family medicine physician and the Vice Chair of Primary Care Innovation and Transformation in the Department of Family Medicine at Boston Medical Center (BMC). Dr. Gergen Barnett is also a clinical associate professor at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. Her primary clinical interests are behavioral health, preventive medicine, nutrition, trauma-informed care, gender-affirming care, women’s health, reproductive care, mindfulness-based stress reduction, and group medical care. Dr. Gergen Barnett’s research focuses on innovative models of care to address chronic medical conditions and physician burnout and engaging community partners in creating feasible solutions to increase health and wellness and to address medical distrust in traditionally marginalized communities. Dr. Gergen Barnett is involved in local and state health policy addressing health inequities and national policy addressing primary care delivery and is a regular contributor to The Boston Globe, Boston Public Radio, and various television outlets.
 
About Cheryl
The founder of a Boston nonprofit, From Roots to Wings, Cheryl continues to be a strong voice for the underserved and underrepresented to ensure that everyone gets access to information, services and opportunities. 
 
About the Project
“Storytelling to Build Medical Trust” focuses on highlighting the experience and wisdom of community members, who shared in video interviews their negative interactions with the healthcare system in the hope that the healthcare industry would finally listen. The project is jointly led by Boston Medical Center, Everyday Boston, and the B.L.A.C Project, in partnership with Transformational Prison Project, We Got Us, and EmVision Productions. The project was funded by Boston University Clinical and Translational Science Institute and MA-CEAL. Learn more at https://www.storiesformedicaltrust.org.
 
About Boston Medical Center
Boston Medical Center is a non-profit 514-bed academic medical center and safety-net hospital in the South End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. As part of the Boston Medical Center Health System, the hospital provides primary and specialty care to residents of the Greater Boston area. Boston Medical Center is a founding partner of the Boston Medical Center Health System, which is focused on creating a coordinated, equitable, value-based continuum of care to deliver world-class care to patients and health plan members. Find out more at www.bmc.org.
 

Elevance Health, Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, and the Business Group on Health and Socially Determined discuss how plans can provide a more holistic and effective healthcare journey for members by gaining insight into all barriers to caring for your members, including social risks such as food insecurities, housing instabilities, financial strain, health literacy challenges, and lack of transportation.
 
Our expert panel explores the value of quantifying the impact of social risks and shares strategies and actions that health plans can take to improve health outcomes, reduce health disparities, decrease costs, and track measurable results. 
Link to report on Elevance's Whole Health Index (WHI) mentioned during show: https://catalyst.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/CAT.23.0015
Guests:
Shantanu Agrawal, MD, MPhil, Chief Health Officer, Elevance Health
April Richardson, MD, Vice President, Clinical Services, Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina
Ellen Kelsay, President & CEO, Business Group on Health
Trenor Williams, MD, CEO & Co-Founder, Socially Determined
 
https://www.brightspotsinhealthcare.com/events/innovative-strategies-for-health-plans-to-mitigate-social-risk/



This episode is sponsored by Socially Determined
Socially Determined provides social risk data, analytics, and expertise to healthcare organizations seeking to understand how Social Determinants of Health and social risk factors impact the communities they serve. Our analytics platform, SocialScape, provides actionable insights into community-level SDOH risk exposure and individual-level social risk factors, and their impact on health care utilization, cost, outcomes, and equity.

Allison Bryant, MD, MPH, Associate Chief Health Equity Officer, Mass General Brigham (MGB), joins Eric to discuss how the health system ensures its innovations are accessible to everyone, particularly those from marginalized communities. Allison elaborates on MGB's unique approach, viewing its mission as providing healthcare and as a catalyst for improving equity of outcomes for patients and the communities it serves.
 
Topics covered include:
Community health
Bridging the digital divide
Equity in maternal health
United Against Racism (MGB’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion statement)
 
About Allison
In her role at MGB, Allison works to eliminate longstanding inequities in patient care and outcomes. She is a maternal-fetal medicine subspecialist, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at Harvard Medical School and is the Frederic D. Frigoletto, MD Endowed Chair in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Massachusetts General Hospital. She received degrees in biology, public health and medicine from Harvard University, where she also completed residency training in obstetrics and gynecology and fellowships in maternal/fetal medicine and the Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy. She previously served as the vice chair for quality, equity and safety for the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Mass General.
 
About Mass General Brigham
Mass General Brigham is an integrated academic health care system, uniting great minds to solve the hardest problems in medicine for our communities and the world. Mass General Brigham connects a full continuum of care across a system of academic medical centers, community and specialty hospitals, a health insurance plan, physician networks, community health centers, home care, and long-term care services. Mass General Brigham is a nonprofit organization committed to patient care, research, teaching, and service to the community. In addition, Mass General Brigham is one of the nation’s leading biomedical research organizations with several Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals.



Mass General Brigham
https://www.massgeneralbrigham.org/
 
United Against Racism: https://www.massgeneralbrigham.org/en/about/diversity-equity-and-inclusion/united-against-racism