By MLPB staff:
Jeff Gilbert, Partnership & Project Manager and Rebecca Kislak, Law & Policy Consultant
June 14, 2024
MLPB’s Aging and Health-Related Social Needs Learning-and-Action Lab was a two-phased initiative to inform and improve clinic-based health-related social needs (HRSN) screening, referral, and problem-solving strategies impacting older adults in Rhode Island. Through generous funding from the Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island Community Health Fund (BCBSRI’s advised fund at the Rhode Island Foundation), and with support from the Care Transformation Collaborative of Rhode Island (CTC-RI), the Lab explored how the screening experience of RI-based older adults (age 55 and over) can be enhanced, and how care teams and insurers can be more responsive to patients’ goals.
We issued a Phase 1 report last year, and we are excited to announce the release of the Phase 2 Report.
We know that providers are under growing pressure to collect data on patients’ health-related social needs and to do so in increasingly shorter visits. The result is often a rushed, depersonalized experience. The first phase of the Lab centered on the perspectives of Rhode Islanders with lived experience and non-medical professional expertise to identify key priorities. In the second phase, the Lab integrated members of clinical practices and identified four insights and concrete recommendations to improve HRSN screening, referral, and problem-solving:
One of the most striking takeaways of the MLPB Learning-and-Action Lab is just how much both patients and providers had similar experiences. In short: both groups take issue with the increasingly depersonalized health care experience, and know its negative impacts are felt even more acutely by older adults.
Older adults want to be included in the decision making about their choices. Older adults need to feel that they can trust their care team before they open up about topics that might be hard to talk about or where they feel their autonomy may be put in jeopardy. In the words of one participant:
The Lab’s lessons are critical for older adults in Rhode Island, but in truth the principles apply to patients of any age anywhere. MLPB’s hope is that this report will be another tool to move our healthcare system toward care that is truly attuned to patients’ goals and needs.
