ACO Leverages Cloud Platform to Tackle Health Equity, SDOH Barriers

New Jersey-based accountable care organization Shore Quality Partners will incorporate Spatially Health’s cloud-based health equity platform to flag and tackle social determinants of health (SDOH) barriers that affect the ACO’s patient population.

Shore Quality Partners is comprised of over 200 healthcare providers and 42,000 Medicaid patients, and the ACO will implement Spatially Health's Equity Equalizer platform to assess each patient’s SDOH needs. From there, the press release indicates that the tool will recommend personalized interventions to address those needs and health equity obstacles.

The approach is designed to bolster patient engagement while optimizing medical management and improving health outcomes for patients. The platform can also adapt to each new patient dataset to ensure high levels of precision and recommendation quality, according to the press release.

"Having SDOH data that is local, focused, and actionable is our reason for working with Spatially Health so that we can better serve our patients. By knowing the challenges our patients individually face, we can better develop responses including referrals to social service agencies, better ways of delivering care, and better clinical outcomes. Actionable data can help us improve patients' lives," said Cliff Frank, CEO and founder of Shore Quality Partners, in the release.

The tool also includes functionalities to meet Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) compliance standards, measure cost implications associated with SDOH barriers, and mitigate risks while improving care quality within the context of those barriers.

"We are excited to embark on this partnership, which demonstrates how our platforms can have a transformative impact on progressive risk-bearing organizations and advance the cause of health equity. In joining efforts with Shore Quality Partners, an Accountable Care Organization comprised of more than 200 of the area's finest physicians, Spatially's technology will enable them to more effectively identify barriers to health equity and allocate resources to patients who require the most care," said Hillit Meidar-Alfi, co-founder and CEO at Spatially Health.

Recently, many ACOs have tapped data analytics- and artificial intelligence (AI)-based solutions to improve care for their patients. However, efficiently gathering data and tracking patient journeys to bolster care quality and address financial risk requires that ACOs select the right tools and strategies to reach those goals.

Last month, HealthITAnalytics interviewed Shawn Bassett, vice president for the North Region of Collaborative Health Systems, and Sheila Magoon, MD, executive director of Buena Vida y Salud ACO and South Texas Physician Alliance, about how data analytics can help support high-quality care delivery and effective healthcare dollar spending.