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   1
   
   CHANGING U.S. HEALTH CARE FOR GOOD

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   2
   
   WHY EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE IMPACTS HOW HEALTHY YOU ARE

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   3
   
   DELIVERING COHESIVE CARE WITH DATA

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   4
   
   A CHOREOGRAPHER WITH A CHRONIC CONDITION

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   A SECOND CHANCE WITH A SECOND OPINION

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   BUILDING A LIFE WHILE BATTLING CHRONIC DISEASE

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   THE STORY BEHIND THE WHOLE PERSON CARE REVOLUTION

Doing our part to take care of the whole person

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TREATINGTREATING
THETHE
WHOLEWHOLE
PERSONPERSON

Inside the diverse technology, data analytics
and treatment coordination solutions
that are defining the future of health care.
Scroll

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There’s no doubt that covid-19 is a national emergency. Yet this reality often
belies a critical fact: America’s health care challenges are deeper and more
enduring than a viral pandemic. Although the country spends more per person on
health care than its peers, its outcomes are poor by comparison. Around 60
percent of Americans have at least one chronic disease—the highest burden among
developed Western nations. These conditions, which include diabetes, high blood
pressure, asthma and obesity, account for 7 out of 10 deaths each year. These
individuals with more than one condition, or polychronic patients, often require
treatment that is particularly complicated to manage. It’s also costly; health
care spending for polychronic patients is eight times that of healthy people.

> Health care is very complex, you have multiple different actors...all trying
> to work together to provide services to patients and members.
> Steve Griffiths, senior vice president and chief operating officer at Optum

Part of the issue is that the system hasn’t always been oriented towards
addressing the full range of patient needs. Health care stakeholders all share a
similar goal: the delivery of comprehensive whole-person care, an approach that
considers the full range of factors that determine health, such as socioeconomic
circumstances, behaviors, medical history and more. Whole-person care is
particularly important for polychronic patients. Yet too often there are
systemic barriers to the type of true collaboration and communication that is
necessary to provide cohesive treatments for individuals. Though unintended,
these challenges—poor information system inoperability, for example—hamper the
ability of stakeholders to make good on their ambition to offer whole-person
care.

Select ICON to view INFO


WHAT DETERMINES OUR HEALTH?

behaviors
environment
genetics
medical
socioeconomic


BEHAVIORS

Individuals have agency in their own health. Actions like smoking cigarettes,
avoiding exercise and failing to adhere to prescribed medical treatments can
affect health outcomes.

close icon


ENVIRONMENT

Where a person lives has a huge impact on health, determining their access to
care facilities, food options and proximity to pollution.

close icon


GENETICS

Inherited diseases, such as cystic fibrosis, and hereditary predispositions to
certain conditions can significantly affect individual health.

close icon


MEDICAL CARE

What happens in a hospital or doctor’s office still matters. Illness diagnoses,
surgical procedures and pharmaceutical treatments all impact patient outcomes.

close icon


SOCIOECONOMIC

Housing insecurity, unequal access to education and material poverty contribute
to health-related vulnerabilities among people who live in low-income
communities.

close icon

“Health care is very complex, you have multiple different actors—hospitals,
primary care, specialty care, pharma companies, medical device companies,
insurance companies, labs—all trying to work together to provide services to
patients and members,” said Steve Griffiths, senior vice president and chief
operating officer at the health care services company Optum. “But it doesn’t
come together as seamlessly as it should, which leads to well-intentioned but
suboptimal care delivery for patients.”

The question then becomes: how do we fix it?


BIG DATA MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE

Reinventing the health system begins with data and analytics. The health care
system generates a lot of information about people and populations; yet these
insights aren’t always shared cohesively. It’s a gap that companies like Optum
are trying to fill.

“We are actively pulling together all of the data streams to work together to
make work flows more transparent and enable better decision-making,” said
Griffiths. “We need a system that uses all available data for a holistic
perspective of a person, that remembers them and is looking out for their
interests.”

Click on cards to reveal info


WHAT EXACTLY DO WE MEAN WHEN WE TALK ABOUT
DIFFERENT SOURCES OF HEALTH CARE DATA?

 * clinical
   
   Clinical data may refer to two things—information gathered over the course of
   patient care or data from a clinical trial.

 * claims
   
   claims data refers to all information that’s filtered through insurers,
   including diagnosis details and treatment costs.

 * patient-reported
   
   patient-reported data refers to information that is generated by patients
   themselves.

 * population health
   
   population health data refers to information related to the health outcomes
   of broad demographic groups.

Benevera Health is an example of this innovation in action. The organization
uses the Optum Care Coordination Platform to centralize diverse clinical, claims
data and patient-reported data to help care managers better understand and treat
patients. The service has helped Benevera reduce client emergency room visit
rates by nearly 60 percent.

Data-informed solutions are driving transformation in pharmacy care services, as
well. Pharmacy services are the touch points for most health care consumers. In
fact, roughly a quarter of Americans use three or more prescription drugs. “One
of the most frequent places that patients engage the health care system is
through the pharmacy benefit,” said Dr. Sumit Dutta, chief medical officer for
OptumRx, the company’s pharmacy care services division.

> We need a system that uses all available data for
> a holistic perspective of a person, that remembers them and is looking out for
> their interests.
> Dr. Sumit Dutta, chief medical officer for OptumRx

Advanced analytics can ensure these consumers receive effective and personalized
treatment. OptumRx, for instance, is collaborating with Optum Enterprise
Analytics, to develop a data analytics platform that consolidates all medical,
pharmaceutical and clinical data for members in one place. The data can then be
leveraged by health advocates, nurses and pharmacists to guide care. This
platform enables programs such as Medication Therapy Management, in which
pharmacists proactively check in with certain high-risk patients to review their
medications. “Coordination of pharmaceutical care that the patient receives in
the hospital and in the outpatient setting is really essential,” said Dutta.

HEAR HOW OPTUM IS DELIVERING WHOLE-PERSON CAREHEAR HOW OPTUM IS DELIVERING
WHOLE-PERSON CARE


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How can digital innovation contribute to more cohesive patient care?

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What is the role of pharmacies in whole-person care?

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How can analytics fix a fragmented health system?


REIMAGINING HOW PATIENTS ENGAGE WITH PROVIDERS

Transforming the patient experience—specifically efforts to enhance
communication between people and the system stakeholders they interact with—is
another key piece of whole-person care. Technology and access are key to this.
We’ve seen this like never before in the past few months with telehealth. Before
March, the availability and usage of telehealth was uneven. Yet since the
pandemic began, over 40 percent of Americans have relied on the service to
connect with providers. This shift could have profound benefits for patients.
For example, a 2017 study found that telemedicine reduced mortality and hospital
admissions among individuals with heart failure.

Yet telehealth isn’t the only example of how the system is transforming to
deliver whole-person care. Now more than ever, patients and providers can stay
connected through digital capabilities and remote monitoring, notes Dr. Sonia
Samagh, Optum’s national clinical lead for digital health. “Messaging, texting,
video calling and using phone applications to connect with each other are a part
of our lives already,” she said. “We use those same technologies to create those
same connections throughout our health care system and the care journey.”

drag slider to see change


GROWTH IN TELEHEALTH BY YEAR

Telehealth visits accounted for

0.15%

of total medical claims

May 2019May 2020

These tech advances build on a more basic commitment to establishing
comprehensive support structures for consumers. Case or care managers, for
example, work directly with individuals to help navigate the complex web of
providers. They improve health outcomes by bringing together information from
different sources, spending time getting to know patients and considering the
specific challenges individuals face accessing care. In one pilot program
spearheaded by a Boston-based organization, the utilization of care managers led
to a 20 percent lower hospitalization rate and 13 percent lower rates of
emergency department utilization.

> Whole-person care is an understanding of what it means to be human, and caring
> for that humanity with compassion, respect, and empathy.
> Dr. Sonia Samagh, national clinical lead for digital health at Optum

Programs like these, from digital technologies that improve the patient
experience to data analytics platforms that help providers make care decisions,
are indicative of a true transformation in health care—one that is changing
everything about what it means for individuals to interface with the health
system. Elderly people are better able to access resources while high-risk
patients are receiving more personalized care. Across the board, individuals are
empowered to understand and contribute to their own treatment decisions. Taken
together, these systemic shifts offer the promise of health care that is both
more affordable and delivers better outcomes.

In the coming years, stakeholders like Optum will continue to lead this
burgeoning movement—guided by the simple ethos that a patient must be placed at
the center of care.

“Whole-person care is an understanding of what it means to be human, and caring
for that humanity with compassion, respect, and empathy,” noted Samagh.
“Together we’re stitching together the system so it serves the whole person.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


MORE STORIES FROM REAL PEOPLE BENEFITING FROM WHOLE-PERSON CARE

Previous
The story behind the whole person care revolution
watch»
Changing U.S. health
care for good
read»
Why every aspect of your life
impacts how healthy you are
read»
Delivering cohesive
care with data
read & watch»
A choreographer with
a chronic condition
watch»
A second chance with
a second opinion
watch»
Building a life while
battling chronic disease
watch»
The story behind the whole person care revolution
watch»
Changing U.S. health
care for good
read»
Why every aspect of your life
impacts how healthy you are
read»
Delivering cohesive
care with data
read & watch»
A choreographer with
a chronic condition
watch»
A second chance with
a second opinion
watch»
Building a life while
battling chronic disease
watch»
The story behind the whole person care revolution
watch»
Next
 * 1
 * 2
 * 3

Building a life while
battling chronic disease
watch»
The story behind the whole person care revolution
watch»
Changing U.S. health
care for good
read»
Why every aspect of your life
impacts how healthy you are
read»
Delivering cohesive
care with data
read & watch»
A choreographer with
a chronic condition
watch»
A second chance with
a second opinion
watch»
Building a life while
battling chronic disease
watch»
The story behind the whole person care revolution
watch»
Changing U.S. health
care for good
read»
Why every aspect of your life
impacts how healthy you are
read»
Delivering cohesive
care with data
read & watch»
A choreographer with
a chronic condition
watch»
A second chance with
a second opinion
watch»
Building a life while
battling chronic disease
watch»
The story behind the whole person care revolution
watch»
 * 1
 * 2
 * 3
 * 4
 * 5
 * 6
 * 7

Doing our part to take care of the whole person

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