OAHHS Hospital Voice Fall/Winter 2019

13 Fall/Winter 2019 Additionally, Kaiser Permanente has a scholarship program that’s part of a larger education initiative, and it uses patient navigators to help patients find their way to social services they need. That can mean childcare so a parent can make it to medical appointments, assistance with rent or food, legal challenges, or other services. Kaiser Permanente also has a social needs screening process, which asks all patients who come into the hospital 10 questions to find out if they’re having any challenges at home. Field said knowing that information can be helpful in getting people the services they need beyond healthcare. “We can stitch you up and patch you up and send you home, but if you are on the edge of being evicted or can’t get food or you’re in jeopardy of losing your job, we need to be able to find a way to help with that, too,” he said. That’s where KP’s Thrive Local program comes in. In its first stage, the program found KP creating a centralized directory of social services that providers can refer patients to when they’re in need. In December, the health system, partnering with the care coordination software company Unite Us, will launch a full-on network that will integrate with KP’s electronic medical record system so that a provider can directly and easily refer a patient to a specific social service agency. Field said the program, which could someday expand across all of Oregon, even beyond Kaiser Permanente, aims to broaden the concept of community benefit outside its traditional boundaries. In fact, KP has even renamed its focus on community benefit to community health as a way to better represent what its efforts are aiming to achieve. “We envision our work as broader than community benefit,” he said. “This goes beyond that. We’re trying to improve the health of the whole community.” “I think there’s been an effort to be a little more proactive to think about how the money we invest in communities is going to have a long-term impact.” Rebecca Tiel