As SSM Health continues its work in population health, Tim Johnson, MD, Vice President of Clinical Integration, encouraged an audience of health care professionals to “be patient” with themselves and their organizations as the industry makes the transition from fee-for-service care to value-based care.
Johnson, who leads the population-health work at SSM Health, spoke at Healthcare Innovation’s Midwest Summit last week in St. Louis. Other panelists in the discussion included Thurston Smith, PhD, chief information officer of Swope Health; and Li Ern Chen, MD, chief population health officer for Catalight.
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In their session, called “The Social Determinants of Health and the Path Forward in Population Health Management,” Johnson said SSM Health is in a fortunate position because there is buy-in for value-based care throughout the layers of the organization. “If your senior leaders aren’t all in, it’s a little difficult,” he said. “But we actually set a system goal that’s related to social determinants of health, and the board has been supportive as well.”
Yet, as with any new innovation, the transition has been careful and deliberate. Johnson said providers and care teams naturally want to help their patients when a need becomes apparent. “However, if we are implementing processes to identify social determinants of health needs, but not giving care teams the ability to address those needs, we are potentially causing moral dissonance, which can lead to burnout and dissatisfaction for the provider and erosion of trust for the patient.”
Providers, he said, want patients to share details about their home life, whether it involves living in a food desert, not having access to reliable transportation, or living in an abusive situation – but they also want to help them resolve or improve those situations.
In addition, “When we identify social determinants of health, we often learn that we need to have some type of behavioral health intervention,” he said, noting that SSM Health has embedded virtual behavioral health assistance into its primary care settings.
Despite the challenges, the work in population health is worth it, Johnson said.
“When I think about why I went into medicine, and why most of us did, helping individuals was the main reason. I can’t tell you how rewarding this work is.”
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