Innovaccer Launches a Free, One-of-its-Kind Tool to Help Providers Determine the Impacts of Social Determinants of Health (SDOH)

Berkeley,California, May 3, 2017 -Innovaccer Inc., a Silicon Valley-headquartered healthcare analytics company, launched a free tool, the Social Determinants of Health Portal, designed to help providers understand and monitor the impacts of social determinants of health on patient population across every county and work towards achieving better health outcomes.

The Social Determinants of Health portal incorporates authentic data brought in from multiple validated sources, spanning over the past six years and describing the state and growth of social determinants for over 3,000+ counties in the United States. The integrated and deeply-researched data is presented on a national, state, as well as on county level with color-coded line charts, heat maps, and bar graphs.

The social determinants of health have been known to affect a person’s health, access to care, cost incurred, and the outcomes. Out of more than 300 million people living in the U.S.; 13.5% people are below poverty line, a significant portion of them without health insurance- making social determinants an accountable factor in a person’s overall health. As healthcare moves towards targeted, value-based care delivery, it’s important for providers to understand social determinants and gain momentum into designing critical parts of care delivery.

With value-based reimbursement bringing a mindset shift in how healthcare will be delivered, it is paramount that providers try to preemptively identify and address the gaps in care. The healthcare industry is looking for more and more ways to understand how care delivery is affected by environmental and social factors with the aim to learn more about the scope of improvements and continually strive towards value-based, patient-centric care. The Social Determinants of Health portal helps providers figure the impacts and the performances of the best and the poor performing social determinants for every county and use them to generate patient-centered care plans.

“The role of healthcare is not just to cure the sick and provide care but to find out the underlying causes for illness and address the conditions that make people sick. We realized that simply handing out medication isn’t enough and there’s need to deal with the real problem, namely addressing the social determinants of health,” remarks Abhinav Shashank, Co-Founder and CEO. “Physicians can incorporate the insights from the Social Determinants of Health portal in their day-to-day practice, getting appropriate resources and support from partners in the community, and find out what’s available to assist patients in dealing with  their social circumstances.”

Innovaccer’s Social Determinants of Health portal has been created to help various members of the community- physicians, payers, care coordinators, patients, and many others to monitor and address the most persistent issues in the healthcare industry. The tool provides average risk score prevailing in a county with an indication of how risk-prone or healthy that county is. The county-wise healthcare spending is graphically depicted, with a projection illustrating the near-future spending in the county.

Additionally, Innovaccer’s Social Determinants of Health portal can also be leveraged by any healthcare system or an accountable care organization that wishes to drill down further to an individual level and understand the effects of social determinants on every patient by providing additional data, and make an informed choice with the aim to realize strategic value-based reimbursement goals.

Around the web

The tirzepatide shortage that first began in 2022 has been resolved. Drug companies distributing compounded versions of the popular drug now have two to three more months to distribute their remaining supply.

The 24 members of the House Task Force on AI—12 reps from each party—have posted a 253-page report detailing their bipartisan vision for encouraging innovation while minimizing risks. 

Merck sent Hansoh Pharma, a Chinese biopharmaceutical company, an upfront payment of $112 million to license a new investigational GLP-1 receptor agonist. There could be many more payments to come if certain milestones are met.