Pandemic and social unrest highlighted long-standing disparities; addressing social determinants of health is a primary approach to advancing health equity
Cerner today announced a new solution, Cerner Determinants of Health, designed to help providers address healthcare inequities. Identifying social risk factors such as housing instability, transportation barriers and employment help fill fragmented gaps in health and social care. Cerner Determinants of Health is a dashboard and supporting set of tools, integrated into the Cerner electronic health record, to help clinicians pinpoint disparities and suggests goals and resources within the patient’s care plan to help target intervention opportunities.
“Remarkably, studies show that non-clinical factors can impact as much as 80 percent of a person's overall health.1Since our announcement at Cerner Health Conference last year, we’ve worked to help clinicians, care managers and leaders understand and address social risk factors across patients and communities,” said Kevin Seabaugh, vice president & Health Network general manager, Cerner. “We are energized to hear from clients who are embracing our innovative solutions to help remediate this 80/20 imbalance and further advance health equity efforts.”
A key differentiator of Cerner Determinants of Health is its ability to identify community-level vulnerabilities and a patient’s social needs. The dashboard within the technology uses combined geospatial, public data and patient clinician insights to provide a view of the conditions in which people live. This allows organizations to provide targeted outreach through community programming. This is exemplified by Cerner client Northern Light Health, who is using the crucial insights to provide help better care at the intersection of a patient’s health and social care needs.
“Addressing health equity and access to care issues is a critical need for us,” said Dr. April Giard, vice president and chief information officer, Northern Light Health. “We can’t truly provide patient-centered, comprehensive care without understanding social risk factors our patients are experiencing. Through use of screening tools and the determinants of health dashboard, care managers are able to engage and build a trusting relationship with patients to identify and intervene on their social needs. Furthermore, we plan on leveraging the dashboard to pinpoint and prioritize areas of vulnerability and create plans to address social barriers for better health across our service lines.”
Additionally, Jvion, a leader in prescriptive intelligence and clinical artificial intelligence (AI), has formed a new collaboration with Cerner to integrate its AI-powered insights on social determinants of health and behavioral health into Cerner products and platforms. This relationship will help provide Cerner clients with a more concise way to identify and address social and behavioral health factors patient risk, while offering context and clinical guidance to adopt for improved health outcomes.
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