Millbank Report on Overcoming Barriers to Investing in Social Determinants of Health

A new report from the Millbank Memorial Fund discusses the opportunity for states to address the social determinants of health – the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live and age, including factors such as income support, education, transportation and housing – and their contribution to health and well-being. The report identifies the barriers to states making overall budget and policy decisions that optimize their population’s health and looks at how Vermont, Rhode Island, Kentucky and San Diego County are “moving upstream” and investing in social services to prevent downstream health care problems.

Help with Understanding the Final Medicaid Managed Care Rule

In April, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released the final Medicaid managed care rule, the first update to Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) managed care programs in a decade. While the rule won’t be implemented until July 1, 2017, stakeholders are digging in to better understand the rule’s implications. Three sources of information on the final rule are: a summary from CMS itself; a fact sheet from Community Catalyst; and a video produced by Health Management Associates.

New NEJM Catalyst Report on Patient Engagement

A recent report published in NEJM Catalyst discusses the results of a patient engagement survey conducted with health care executives, clinician leaders and clinicians from around the country on the topic of patient engagement. Among the key findings from this survey was that while most respondents believe that engaging patients in their health and with the health system is important, low rates of engagement appear to be the norm. At the same time, respondents recognized that tools for measuring engagement are far from optimal and need to be further developed.