By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    Health
    Healthcare organizations are operating on slimmer profit margins than ever. One report in August showed that they are even lower than the beginning of the…
    Show More
    Top News
    bowl of vegetable salad
    Raw Foods: benefits and harms
    November 9, 2021
    pros and cons of the keto diet
    Read This Before You Follow the Keto Diet
    May 18, 2022
    spinal cord injuries
    4 Potential Causes of Spinal Cord Injuries (and How to Seek Compensation)
    May 25, 2022
    Latest News
    Managing Your Health After a Worksite Accident
    December 10, 2023
    Biohazard Cleanup: The Importance of Proper Disposal and Containment
    December 2, 2023
    Medicare Helps Seniors, and People with Disabilities & ESRD
    November 27, 2023
    The Link Between Allergies and Sinusitis & Strategies for Relief
    November 27, 2023
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
    Policy and Law
    Get the latest updates about Insurance policies and Laws in the Healthcare industry for different geographical locations.
    Show More
    Top News
    Why People Suffering from Chronic Pain Should Move to States that Legalized CBD
    December 31, 2018
    Why Preventative Care Is More Important Than Ever
    June 26, 2020
    4 Reasons Why Medical Device Compliance Matters
    May 22, 2020
    Latest News
    The Role Of Second Opinions In Medical Errors
    December 10, 2023
    Urgent Care in Downers Grove: Meeting Community Health Care Needs
    December 10, 2023
    Automation in Pharmacovigilance: A Double-Edged Sword
    November 15, 2023
    What Does Science Say About Modern Health Practices?
    November 12, 2023
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: We Need to Measure What Counts, Not What We’re Paid to Count
Share
Sign In
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
Have an existing account? Sign In
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > Policy & Law > Global Healthcare > We Need to Measure What Counts, Not What We’re Paid to Count
Global HealthcareHealth ReformPublic Health

We Need to Measure What Counts, Not What We’re Paid to Count

patientcommando
Last updated: 2014/07/16 at 9:04 PM
patientcommando
Share
8 Min Read
socap
SHARE

socapA couple of weeks ago I attended the SOCAP Health Conference held at the New York Academy of Medicine in NYC. It was an inaugural gathering meant to kickstart a financial market that values health.

socapA couple of weeks ago I attended the SOCAP Health Conference held at the New York Academy of Medicine in NYC. It was an inaugural gathering meant to kickstart a financial market that values health. With sponsors such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), the Kresge Foundation, the Federal Reserve Bank and the CDC it promised to be a compelling discourse on applying social finance to one of the major challenges of our time.

It was not what I expected. I was expecting a marketplace for entrepreneurs and investors of all kinds – angels, vc’s, etc – people who understand that risk is the price you pay for opportunity. Instead I found a much more inhibited crowd. Big financial institutions who are risk averse. Big public health concerns who face massive issues yet are limited by restrictive regulations and funding sources. Big foundations who are inherently limited by their vision and mission. It was not heavily populated with daring young men and women willing to risk all for the benefit of mankind.

I was hoping to hear some radical thinking, exploring the possibilities of social finance to nurture disruptive innovation. My attention was captured when the VP of RWJF called for “cataclysmic” change. While her language was strong the commitment though appears to be more muted. Their strategic direction is focused on prevention, not remediation, with an emphasis on children.

What I did hear is that health is almost the forgotten child when it comes to social finance, comprising only 5% of impact investments. I heard about the need to learn each others’ vocabulary as though these 2 industry sectors were meeting for the first time

It took me some time as well to comprehend that the focus was on health, not healthcare. This distinction is not a subtle one and not so obvious to me as someone so immersed in health care and its delivery. This led to some extraordinary discussion and many compelling comments.

In his summary statements at conference end, David Erickson, Senior Researcher Federal Reserve System, emphasized the need to recognize the impact of the social determinants of health on the quality of population health finally confessing “America can’t afford poverty anymore.”

Federal Reserve analyst Ian Galloway led a spirited panel about one of the more talked about financial mechanisms – the Pay for Success Social Impact Bond. In terms of the intersection of wealth and health, this panel was illustrative of the divergent, but not diverse nature of many of the stakeholders. Christina Shapiro, VP Goldman Sachs was quite clear that only proven, evidence based interventions that are measureable would be considered. Capital flowing into social impact bonds is not risk based capital. Social impact bonds may have the potential to unlock a lot of capital for social good, but no one should mistake that money being available for social experiments.

So there’s still a disconnect between the needs of non-profits and government agencies to finance the development of innovative, outcome altering programs. That is the daily challenge facing NFP’s.

Antony Bugg-Levine, CEO NonProfit Finance Fund, an org that provides financial assistance to NFP’s, described how program providers are so restricted to the outcome measures defined by their grant criteria. Then with deep emotion he described the core challenge in developing a new model of the relationship between money and health, “We need to measure what counts not what we’re paid to count.”

When it comes to patients, people living with chronic illness and large consumers of health care services, I felt like a voice in the wilderness. I did not meet anyone from a large national health charity. They may have been there but I didn’t meet them. Patients need treatments and systems that can deliver effective care. For a country that has by far the highest healthcare costs in the world among 11 industrialized countries that needs to find methods to control costs and improve systems, it appeared for the 50% of the population over the age of 45 living with one or more chronic illnesses, there wasn’t an interest in improving access or quality of life despite the fact that this cohort will continue to grow as a percentage of the population.

That even this apparently low level of innovation didn’t consider the needs of this population was distressing. These people are consuming the bulk of the services with real needs that are clearly not fully addressed at costs so inflated as to be ridiculous given the outcomes. And nowhere in this ground breaking conference did I hear discussion about this problem.

There was an excellent presentation by Noora Health, a non-profit that trains family caregivers in India to care for patients at home post-surgery. Their mission was to improve outcomes, reduce readmissions and post-op complications. They succeeded at this. I didn’t hear any sideline conversation about “how do we empower our populations to be able to self-manage more effectively and reduce the burden on the system”. Hopefully a savvy impact investor recognized the opportunity to partner with Noora to sell the service to large health systems in USA.

I also didn’t find a large cohort of individual impact investors. I’ll accept the thesis that health is too scary an industry in general although you would think that a $2.7 trillion industry would offer a few opportunities. Clearly the venture capital marketplace is focused on health IT applications looking for the massive financial returns of traditional vc investments. That hasn’t yet been translated into a social finance definition. Traditional vc’s care less about social returns leaving that as either a government or institutional responsibility.

While I didn’t get what I expected, and various aspects of the unexpected certainly agitated me, the fact that these discussions were happening and the desire for a new discourse on the future of health – not health care – I found exciting and enriching. If a federal reservist can express the need to eliminate poverty as society’s responsibility then there’s hope for future generations. We need all kinds of discussions, not just the one focused on an individual’s needs. This launch pad bringing together the health and finance sectors may not have in itself been disruptive, but it offers the potential for disruptive innovation in the future that’s going to make a difference for future generations. I’ll be watching closely to see how they finally decide what measure they use to decide what counts.

Sign Up For Daily Newsletter

Be keep up! Get the latest breaking news delivered straight to your inbox.
By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.
patientcommando July 16, 2014 July 16, 2014
Share This Article
Facebook Twitter Copy Link Print
Share
Previous Article CMS penalties CMS to Begin Implementing Payment Penalties Tied to Patient Outcomes
Next Article patient data Consumer Generated Data: Your “Data Exhaust”

Stay Connected

1.5k Followers Like
4.5k Followers Follow
2.8k Followers Pin
136k Subscribers Subscribe

Latest News

get second opinion to avoid medical errors
The Role Of Second Opinions In Medical Errors
Medicare December 10, 2023
mental health technology
Providing Mental Health To Your Local Community with Technology
Mental Health December 10, 2023
urgent care
Urgent Care in Downers Grove: Meeting Community Health Care Needs
Health care December 10, 2023
weight loss
3 Simple Tips for Quick Weight Loss
Weight Loss December 10, 2023

You Might also Like

Modern Health Practices
Medical Innovations

What Does Science Say About Modern Health Practices?

November 12, 2023
Home Health Worker
Health care

Guarding Your Health – 6 Essential PPE Investments for the New Home Health Worker

August 31, 2023
conducting Clinical Trial
Global Healthcare

5 Tips for Conducting a Clinical Trial

July 26, 2023
Healthcare Providers
Global Healthcare

How Preventative Care Benefits Healthcare Providers

July 23, 2023
Subscribe

Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!

Follow US
© 2008-2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?