"Medical profession is a lifestyle full of commitment and dedication, but not at the expense of the physicians' health & burnout" — Adam Tabriz, MD.

Social Determinants Of Health Demands More Coordinated Effort

The Majority Of Physicians Realize The Importance Of Addressing Social Determinants Of Health To Improve Patients' Health Outcomes, Yet Few Have The Power To Do So!

In the environment and epoch where healthcare leaders strive to promote a person's health, addressing factors other than clinical indicators is becoming more necessary. Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) comprise a set of those elements.

One can name many reasons and put forward thousands of justifications and validity as to why and how better access to health education, affordable medical care, and medication can help improve quality of life and reduce healthcare costs. Furthermore, we can invariably agree that to achieve health equity; we must effectively improve social determinants of health. Nevertheless, the mission will only turn the corner if we lay the foundation for a system that helps physicians and all stakeholders work towards that goal.

Addressing Social Determinants of Health, because it expands beyond the traditional healthcare space, requires a new mindset from physicians' perspective and modern logistics infrastructure by the healthcare entirety. That is because the conditions in which individuals are born, grow old, live, and work or other factors they live in necessitates reaching out to orthodox medical practices.

Physicians eventually need to partner with various domains and organizations to tackle socioeconomic status, education, neighborhood, physical environment, employment, social support networks, and access to healthcare. That is, unless they accept to concede to the loss of independent medical practices and practice according to non-medical leaders' decisions.

Most Physicians Value Social Determinants Of Health, Yet Lack Resources To Accomplish That Goal

According to a survey report published by McKinsey & Company, 87% of physicians surveyed reported Social Determinants of Health as a somewhat high-priority initiative they must take into account. However, only 27% claimed they have the necessary resources and faculty to address Social Determinants of Health.

Not surprisingly enough, even those who stated being capable of addressing Social Determinants of Health majority had at least one element with which they felt less confident in each capability.

Based on the report, 70% of the medical community and physicians have invested over one million dollars in addressing Social Determinants of Health. The investment was through various avenues, including donations and grants.

The medical community's investment in Social Determinants of Health was in various elements, from transportation and health literacy to childcare support and housing stability.

Community and patient need drive physicians' typical choice of investment area. Their probable intent also depends on the feasibility of supporting these scopes and their capabilities.

One thing worth noting is that it is clear whether investment areas have the most significant impact. Furthermore, a breakdown of total physicians' investment size on Social Determinants of Health is less than 1% of their total revenue.

Even though 72% of medical communities stated having adequate capacities to screen patients for basic unmet needs based on their SDoH (Social Determinants of Health), they still needed standardized screening procedures, analytics, and a coordinated care model.

Those who asserted carrying out the screening process also needed more support and resource coordination, incorporating SDoH screening into quality-of-care measures. They also needed to catch up in using predictive analytics to identify patients at risk for unmet basic needs, tracking SDoH metrics, and partnering with a vendor to identify unmet basic needs of the population.

The survey carried out by McKinsey & Company also reveals that only one-third of physician practices have some form of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to track the impact of handling Social Determinants of Health.

Recent research has confirmed that employees of provider systems face unmet basic needs; for instance, nearly 20% of healthcare support workers (roughly one in five of all those employed in the industry) face food insecurity.

A recent McKinsey survey on health equity in the workplace also realized significant unmet primary employee and staff needs. That means employees with one or more unmet basic needs are more likely (2.4X) for missed work time of over six days and, as a result, have missed receiving ought physical healthcare.

While addressing patients' unmet basic needs is essential, it is also for the employees. Despite that need, only 39% of physician practices are confident about which unmet needs they should focus on to help their employees.

The key to handling Social Determinants of Health and unmet patient and basic employee needs comes with a financial demand. That requires comprehensive financial analysis and articulating the return on investment on addressing SDoH. These indicators include improved reimbursement for SDoH interventions, increased data sharing across payers, providers, communities, and patients, and improved data and analytics capabilities to monitor unmet basic needs, track impact, and inform care.

McKinsey & Company report outlines various tactical actions physicians, and medical practices can take to meet patient needs based on their Social Determinants of Health. These include linking unmet basic needs to crucial priorities, organizing for success, collecting data to inform interventions, making informed financial commitments, developing a referral and support infrastructure, measuring outcomes and sharing successes, convening, and leading external SDoH activities.

Physicians Need To Do More Towards Health Equity But struggle Less To Meet The Basic Patient Needs.

Meeting Basic patient needs by addressing Social Determinants of Health and the individual determinants is the cornerstone of quality health, health equity, and lower healthcare costs. And more and more physicians are acknowledging that significance.

There is one primary difficulty despite the evolved wisdom among the medical community around Social Determinants of Health and continues stride to bank on its practical application. That extra administrative workload is associated with addressing unmet basic needs on top of the already busy physician's call of duty.

Without a doubt, reaching health equity and meeting social needs that contribute to healthy living is necessary. Nonetheless, one can only anticipate doing so with appropriate resources and amenities.

The fast-paced emergence of digital technologies and heavy-handed healthcare policies to achieve health equity have left physicians in a vacuum that is about to fill with an overwhelming workload.

The technology rush driven by poor usability and the medical community has exposed physicians to burnout.

Physicians first must accept control and take responsibility for their technology domain, changing from pure self-reliance to a teamwork mode that extends outside their discipline. That is if they intend to maintain the independent medical practice, stay competitive, satisfy insurance reimbursement criteria, and meet the basic needs of their patients by addressing Social Determinants of Health.

Only in a collaborative, transparent, hybrid healthcare network of multidisciplinary players can physicians seamlessly and effortlessly meet the contemporary systems benchmarks. That system is Cyber-physical-human System or network. (CPHS)

References

1. McKinsey & Company. "How Providers Are Meeting Patients’ Basic Needs — and Where They Could Do More." Accessed September 13, 2022. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/how-providers-are-meeting-patients-basic-needs-and-where-they-could-do-more
2. TABRIZ, D. A. "Is Health Equity Achievable?!. As Healthcare Administrations Worldwide… | by Dr. ADAM TABRIZ | ILLUMINATION | Medium." Medium, July 4, 2022. https://readmedium.com/is-health-equity-achievable-22687c8d8056?source=search_post---------1----------------------------
3. TABRIZ, D. A. "The Socioeconomic Impact of the Social Drivers of Health | ILLUMINATION-Curated." Medium, July 15, 2022. https://readmedium.com/the-socioeconomic-impact-of-the-social-drivers-of-health-bb5c389da834?source=search_post---------2----------------------------
4. TABRIZ, D. A. "Population Health and Its Current Challenges | by Dr. ADAM TABRIZ | ILLUMINATION | Medium." Medium, September 1, 2021. https://readmedium.com/population-health-and-its-current-challenges-8d1a35efaf3c?source=search_post---------0----------------------------
5. TABRIZ, D. A. "The Modern-Day Solo Medical Practice Needs More than Just a Technology | DataDrivenInvestor." Medium, August 29, 2021. https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/the-modern-day-solo-medical-practice-needs-more-than-just-a-technology-ed5a23bfcf13.
6. TABRIZ, D. A. "Is Health Equity Achievable?!. As Healthcare Administrations Worldwide… | by Dr. ADAM TABRIZ | ILLUMINATION | Medium." Medium, July 4, 2022. https://readmedium.com/is-health-equity-achievable-22687c8d8056.
7. TABRIZ, D. A. "Patient Engagement Amidst Modern Challenges | ILLUMINATION-Curated." Medium, August 12, 2022. https://readmedium.com/patient-engagement-amidst-modern-challenges-f35349dcfcde.
8. TABRIZ, D. A. "Physician Burnout | DataDrivenInvestor." Medium, August 18, 2020. https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/advanced-technology-combined-with-the-human-touch-can-ease-physician-burnout-6dc2fd25762e.

Related Articles

Triumph Over Busy Medical Practice Deal With Busy Private Medical Practice Or Risk Losing Independence!

The Need for Personalization of Medical Practice Model

The Power and Potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare

Watch This piece on Youtube!