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Building Trust in Privacy-Preserving Data Ecosystems

As the regulatory landscape continues to evolve, Datavant’s state de-identification product offers an innovative tool for privacy officers and data custodians alike. By addressing both state-specific and HIPAA requirements, companies can stay ahead of regulatory demands and build trust across data partners and end-users. For life sciences organizations, this can lead to faster, more reliable access to the datasets they need to drive research and innovation while supporting high privacy standards.

As life sciences companies increasingly rely on SDOH data to drive insights, the need for privacy-preserving solutions grows. Data ecosystems like Datavant’s, which link real-world datasets while safeguarding privacy, are critical to driving innovation in healthcare. By integrating state de-identified SDOH data, life sciences can gain a more comprehensive view of patient populations, uncover social factors that impact health outcomes, and ultimately guide clinical research that improves health. 

The Power of SDOH Data with Providers and Payers to Close Gaps in Care

Both payers and providers are increasingly utilizing SDOH data to enhance care delivery and improve health equity. By incorporating SDOH data into their strategies, both groups aim to deliver more personalized care, address disparities, and better understand the social factors affecting patient outcomes.

Payers Deploy Targeted Care Using SDOH Data

Payers increasingly leverage SDOH data to meet health equity requirements and enhance care delivery:

• Tailored Member Programs: Payers develop specialized initiatives like nutrition delivery services and transportation to and from medical appointments.
• Identifying Care Gaps: SDOH data helps payers identify gaps in care for underserved communities, enabling strategic in-home assessments and interventions.
• Future Risk Adjustment Models: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) plans to incorporate SDOH-related Z codes into risk adjustment models, recognizing the significance of SDOH data in assessing healthcare needs.

Payers’ consideration of SDOH underscores their commitment to improving health equity, delivering targeted care, and addressing disparities for vulnerable populations.

Example: CDPHP supports physical and mental wellbeing with non-medical assistance

Capital District Physicians’ Health Plan (CDPHP) incorporated SDOH, partnering with Papa, to combat loneliness and isolation in older adults, families, and other vulnerable populations. CDPHP aimed to address:

• Social isolation
• Loneliness
• Transportation barriers
• Gaps in care

By integrating SDOH data, CDPHP enhanced their services to deliver comprehensive care for its Medicare Advantage members.

Providers Optimize Value-Based Care Using SDOH Data

Value-based care organizations face challenges in fully understanding their patient panels. SDOH data significantly assists providers to address these challenges and improve patient care. Here are some examples of how:

• Onboard Patients Into Care Programs: Providers use SDOH data to identify patients who require additional support and connect them with appropriate resources.
• Stratify Patients by Risk: SDOH data combined with clinical information identifies high-risk patients, enabling targeted interventions and resource allocation.
• Manage Transition of Care: SDOH data informs post-discharge plans, considering social factors to support smoother transitions and reduce readmissions.

By leveraging SDOH data, providers gain a more comprehensive understanding of their patient population, leading to more targeted and personalized care interventions.

While accessing SDOH data offers significant advantages, challenges can arise from:

• Lack of Interoperability and Uniformity: Data exists in fragmented sources like electronic health records (EHRs), public health databases, social service systems, and proprietary databases. Integrating and securing data while ensuring data integrity and confidentiality can be complex, resource-intensive and risky.
• Lag in Payer Claims Data: Payers can take weeks or months to release claims data. This delays informed decision-making, care improvement, analysis, and performance evaluation.
• Incomplete Data Sets in Health Information Exchanges (HIEs): Not all healthcare providers or organizations participate in HIEs. This reduces the available data pool. Moreover, varying data sharing policies result in data gaps or inconsistencies.

To overcome these challenges, providers must have robust data integration strategies, standardization efforts, and access to health data ecosystems to ensure comprehensive and timely access to SDOH data.

SDOH data holds immense potential in transforming healthcare and addressing health disparities. 

With Datavant, healthcare organizations are securely accessing SDOH data, and further enhancing the efficiency of their datasets through state de-identification capabilities - empowering stakeholders across the industry to make data-driven decisions that drive care forward.