PRHI Continues Learning Sessions on Social Determinants Screening

The HealthChoices Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Northeastern Pennsylvania Learning Collaborative session was held Wednesday, July 12 at the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel in Scranton focusing on the social determinants of health (SDOH).

The PCMH Learning Network aims to support the PCMH providers and Physical Health MCOs in identifying and acting on improvement strategies towards the common PCMH aims and measures, and developing an internal capacity to continuously learn, adapt, and improve.

Allison Knepp, LPN, PCMH Educator/Nurse Manager, Family Practice Center, gave a presentation on "Family Practice Center's SDOH Screening and Follow-Up Process," and Dr. John Bulger, DO, MBA, chief medical officer, Geisinger Health Plan, presented on "Increasing Access to Community Services in Response to SDOH Needs." Mae Reale, MA, health education specialist, Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Robert Ferguson, MPH, JHF's Chief Policy Officer, and Jennifer Condel, SCT(ASCP)MT, manager of Lean Healthcare Strategy and Implementation at JHF facilitated the workshop "Patient-Centered Language for SDOH Screening," exploring how to use key message, use motivational interviewing principles to craft key messages, and how to ask patients for feedback on the messaging and use the "go and see" quality improvement tact to continuously improve.

Condel, Ferguson, and JHF Program Specialist Pauline Taylor, CQIA also facilitated a discussion about "Dental Health to Inform Future Regional Sessions" to determine what preventative dental services are currently provided, billing for these services, referrals, collaboration with dental providers, barrier to implementing topical fluoride treatment, and more.

The Community Action Poverty Simulation (CAPS) was led by Debra Youngfelt, BS, MCHES, CTTS, executive director, Northeast Pennsylvania Area Health Education Center. The two-hour immersive experience designed to create awareness among participants of the struggles and challenges people at the bottom rung of the economic ladder face on a daily basis. Participants were assigned to "families" who do their best to survive week-to-week over a simulated one-month period. 

PCMH Southeast Learning Collaborative was held virtually July 20. In addition to the standard PCMH report outs that occur at all the PCMH regional learning sessions, southeast will have 2 presenters (Julian Xie, MD, MPP, Senior Healthcare Innovation and Evaluation Manager, Benefits Data Trust and Rebecca Boova-Turner, MS, RD, LDN, Healthcare Partnership Manager, MANNA) talk about Opportunities to Utilize Community-Based Organizations Services and have a discussion about preventative dental practices.

Michael Baer, MD, CPC, plan medical director, AmeriHealth Caritas, a physician who role played the physician in the poverty simulation, said he was unhappy that no one visited the physician during the simulation because the families were so busy trying to live their lives and survive that their health was not even on their radar.