People First: Social Innovation Drives Better Outcomes, Lowers Outlays
California's five-year Whole Person Care (WPC) program was more than a Band-Aid for Medicaid; it delivered systemic change that improved health outcomes in twenty-five of California's counties. It achieved (and continues to gain) better results at a lower cost. Oregon can learn from the social integration components of the WPC model.
Curandi's work aligns with the key WPC concepts in its focus on achieving social health through dedicated local integration of human and social service providers.
Why it matters: The failure of social systems, both local and national, creates unstable and costly consequences downstream.
Healthcare and education have become more complicated and expensive.
Social problems create anger, chaos, and budget crises.
Effective government and equitable policies are more complicated to attain.
Law enforcement must deal with problems outside their scope of expertise and unintended consequences.
The impact cascades to business, limiting society's engine of prosperity.
What WPC demonstrated is local social innovation supporting healthcare. The same will be valid for education, business, and government.
California and Oregon are similar. The medical management fundamentals of California Medicaid are not that different from those of Oregon. Both seek system integration and depend on sophisticated coordination to improve care. They use information technology and data sharing to standardize communication and consistent reporting.
What sets California apart begins with local social innovation coordinated by county government in fifteen participating counties. Every county is different and allowed to design its approach to meeting the overall goal.
Marin County was among the fifteen counties that chose to coordinate their social services. Their target population was homeless or at risk of homelessness and high utilizers of medical services. Local control and program design provided a better and more productive operational understanding of everyone they served within their social context, leading to better results.
To support housing results, Homeless Management Information System Coordinated Entry Data was integrated with a community-wide system of multi-disciplinary coordination, resulting in an enhanced, longitudinal version of wrap-around services. This separate, locally integrated focus on social health resulted in better healthcare at a lower cost. See the infographic here for a summary of the program and specific results.
An important reality is that county government has a long-term interest in the social welfare of its people that is hard to replicate in organizations designed primarily for physical health. It is hard because every company has a core perspective from which it operates, and there are limited benefits possible by broadening the mission to include radically different views and principles.
Local human and social services support of social health has greater clarity, and clarity of purpose has powerful leverage to deliver a tangible return on investment to people and their communities.
Curandi's focus is human and social service integration. While WPC was about healthcare delivery, Curandi's focus is human and social services. Better integration and support of social health helps everyone.