Using Technology to Engage Vulnerable Health Populations

Could you win a game just sitting on the bench? Perhaps, but only with an awesome team and coach. Could you achieve victories repeatedly, win the championship, and the MVP award? Quite unlikely. To succeed in any area, we know you must be fully engaged and actively participate. The same is true for our health. As healthcare professionals, we may help our patients achieve those wins; however, we know patients’ own engagement and participation is key to achieving sustained positive health outcomes. I had the pleasure of participating in a recent panel hosted by the eHealth Initiative (eHI) on The New Era of Healthcare - Patient Engagement and Consumerism where we discussed how to meaningfully engage vulnerable populations and the important role that technology can play.

As pharmacists, we often measure patient engagement in the form of adherence to a prescribed medication regimen. When patients are non-adherent, it often means they may not achieve the desired therapeutic outcomes, which can lead to worsening health or complications. Thus, it is important to understand why patients are non-adherent and find ways to keep patients on therapy. Many times, the drivers of non-adherence are related to social determinants of health (SDOH), especially ones associated with economics and financial stability. However, SDOH can extend beyond these financial factors and may encompass all aspects of a patient’s life.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines SDOH as conditions in the places where people live, learn, work and play that affect a wide range of health and quality-of life risks and outcomes. In this new era shaped by a pandemic, providers view SDOH now more than ever as critical components of how we provide care. Like many organizations participating on the eHI panel, AllianceRx Walgreens Pharmacy is focusing on understanding what data are essential to help uncover and address our patients’ needs by developing in-house products and programs, or by partnering with other organizations such as payers and those with community-based resources aimed at social solutions.

In addition to understanding the data needed, my fellow panelists and I discussed the challenges of correlating these insights with existing clinical or claims data to ensure the findings are actionable. Because SDOH does not impact every patient to the same degree, a one-size-fits-all model will not apply. The healthcare ecosystem is therefore moving to a more personalized and patient-specific model, which has proven to have positive clinical outcomes.

A more tactical approach related to engagement is communication. Data mining and efforts put toward developing solutions based on gathered actionable intelligence will not be effective if we can’t reach the patient. COVID-19 led to the much-needed explosion of telehealth and digital tools that expand ways to communicate with patients. The industry has learned telehealth services are more than a convenience; they enable patients who are immobile or who do not have readily-available transportation or childcare services to have access to a provider.

Now that we have climbed the steep portion of the adoption curve for telehealth and other digital tools such as text messaging, we need to further tailor our modes of communication to the individual patient. Interestingly, this again further highlights the need for SDOH data and a holistic approach to prevent inadvertent disparities in how providers deliver care. Although advancing technological modalities will undoubtedly help numerous patients impacted by varying SDOH factors, not all patients will have the necessary hardware or the knowledge and skills to navigate different applications and portals. Thus, we at AllianceRx Walgreens Pharmacy are also mindful in our design approaches to leverage technology that is simple, affordable and equitable.

In light of these critical learnings, I am encouraged by the work my colleagues and fellow panelists are undertaking. I am also appreciative of the work the eHealth Initiative is tackling to increase awareness of SDOH; develop resources for the health care industry; and forge the patient-centric, consumer-facing and data-driven solutions necessary to better engage patients. These initiatives will undoubtedly lead to many wins toward improving patient outcomes. I look forward to advancing AllianceRx Walgreens Pharmacy’s products and services in this endeavor for making health care more equitable for all.

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