I just finished an excellent meeting with the Mental Health America Board of Directors. I’m grateful to learn from such passionate leaders from across health care and business sectors, who have a common dedication to improving mental health for all. We heard from three affiliates (in Michigan, Buffalo, New York, and Florida) who shared stories of their communities in crisis - the result of historic and perpetual racism, disparities in access, lack of resources, and recent and ongoing violence. As ever, I learned about the strength and resilience of communities, of the deep need for resources and better coordination of systems to ensure people receive care in the midst and aftermath of crises, and of the sustained level of trauma that we continue to ignore and its impact on the mental health of our poorest and most underserved Americans. As I read over the articles below about trends in value-based care and health equity, I’m reminded that the real test of our policies are the stories from the "front line." The outcomes that tell us we’re spending our resources wisely don’t require a clinical trial or a fancy economic model. Those outcomes are defined by people with lived experience: Am I safe in my community? Can I access health care (which by the way includes mental health) where I need it, when I need it, from people that look like and understand my culture and my needs? Are there supports to ensure that I can afford that care, including for non-medical costs that may be essential to my health and access? I continue to see our willingness to be distracted by the new: new medicines, new digital health and delivery strategies, new facilities, new codes, new labels, new data. What’s often missing is the first-person, lived experience of patients, families and communities that are increasingly damaged by our failure to act. There is growing action to bring these voices to the front of our inquiry about what can improve health and quality of life. It’s time for all the actors with the power — money, education, position, data — to firmly establish that lived experience is the highest expertise in the room.

The Innovation and Value Initiative (IVI) recently published a data brief focused on health equity following a series of interviews with stakeholders through the Health Equity Initiative (HEI). Building upon a 2021 public dialogue series addressing the importance of health equity and current insufficiencies, IVI notes that there were “two common themes about needed change.” 

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will soon require researchers and companies seeking approval for late-stage clinical trials to submit a plan for ensuring diversity among trial participants.

The role that real-world evidence, and the data that feeds into it, play in the clinical trials arena is changing. For many years, drug developers and regulators have collected real-world data (RWD) on adverse events linked to newly approved medicines. However, this data has not played a significant role in developing or executing pre-approval clinical trials.

Organizations that seek to achieve diversity, equity, and inclusion as measurable outcomes know the importance of metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in their efforts. DEI metrics allow organizations to better understand and operationalize their challenges, hold their leaders and other stakeholders responsible for making progress, and experiment with targeted interventions to reduce inequity.

A large and compelling body of evidence suggests that social circumstances—including income, education, food, housing, neighborhood conditions, and social connections—strongly influence health.

Managed care is the dominant delivery system for Medicaid enrollees. With 72% of Medicaid beneficiaries enrolled in comprehensive managed care organizations (MCOs) nationally, plans have played a key role in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and are expected to work with states in conducting outreach and providing support to enrollees during the unwinding of the continuous enrollment requirement.

As the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) makes more moves to advance health equity, there is a greater focus on collecting better data and using it to take action, explained Dora Hughes, MD, MPH, chief medical officer, CMS, during the keynote speech at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s Patient Advocacy Summit, held December 2, 2022.

One in five Americans will experience major depressive disorder in their lifetime, and many will not find relief from current therapies. But now researchers have identified an unexpected source of the problem: inflammation.

A growing number of health care organizations around the world are using the systematic measurement of health outcomes that matter to patients — and the costs required to deliver those outcomes — as a catalyst for innovation and continuous improvement.

Momentum Health Strategies

Jennifer L Bright, MPA

(703) 628 - 0534

jennifer@momentumhealthstrategies.com

www.momentumhealthstrategies.com

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