Valued Voice

In collaboration with the WHA Information Center (WHAIC), the WHA quality team presented its third in a four-part social determinants of health (SDOH) webinar series on July 27, delivering valuable information to help hospitals and health systems improve health outcomes in their communities. This series has drawn over 218 registrations from 115 different facilities to date.
 
The third webinar of the series featured Children’s Wisconsin Director of Care Integration Jacqueline Whelan. The discussion centered around Children’s emergency department food insecurity screening and support program, as well as a discussion on key areas for social needs screening and support enablement and sustainability. This journey to sustainability began with planning in October 2020 with grants for cafeteria gift cards. They then moved on to the emergency department grassroots food insecurity screening. Following the steps of the Children’s emergency department team, they collaborated with the Family Resource Center leadership to implement follow-up outreach and iPad screening. In July 2022, new baseline screening has reached 60%+ of patients within the Medicaid HMO and Children’s Foundation. Children’s has partnered with internal resources, community resources and the Children’s Community Health Plan to help develop a wholesome family resource center. The impacts have spread across the family and care team with whole person care, with patients feeling “heard,” building trust, providing teachable moments, resulting in big and small wins. A recording of this webinar is available here.
 
The fourth webinar in this series is scheduled for Oct. 26, 2022. This session will provide another unique case study from Fort HealthCare and an introduction to WHA Silver-level Corporate Member, UniteUs. Detailed information and registration can be found here.
 
The first webinar, The Journey to a Healthier Wisconsin – Setting the Stage for SDOH Z-Code Data Capture: Part I, featuring Gloria Kupferman of the American Hospital Association, and the second webinar, The Journey to a Healthier Wisconsin – Tales from the Trenches, Part 2, featuring Bellin Health’s SDOH journey, can be found on WHA’s On-demand Learning Center.