I hope to inspire others both inside and outside the organization. To be a servant leader.
In Phoenix, and Tucson with larger populations, and more
services are available. What can rural and medium size towns do in their own communities to assist with social determinants of health? How can the Providers help in these areas? As I mentioned earlier, it’s about leadership and integration, and what I believe whether it’s a large community or a small communi- ty versus an urban community, it’s all about leaders in those com- leaders, or community based organizations, it’s about stepping up, taking risks, i.e., similar to what we have done on the housing side. Understanding that this is impactful, addressing social determinants - ly have to be a health insurance company, it doesn’t have to be strict- ly on the shoulders of a hospital or fall on the shoulders of a large employer or fall on the shoulders of the County Government, it has to fall on everyone’s shoulders. It truly takes a village, but you need leaders to step up to help and organize it. To push it forward you need somebody to serve as that integrator, it doesn’t matter if you are in a rural setting or an urban setting, you need the conveners, and you need the integrators, pushing the message forward, that this is important. At the end of the day, this is about building a healthy community, and a healthy community is a strong community, and in to step up and inspire others to collectively work towards the good.
Where do you see healthcare next year, and five years from now? You are going to see more and more of this notion around address- ing the social determinants of health, because it so impactful. You’re going to see more health insurance companies, more large hospital systems, and practices, better understand the impact and aligning the incentives for providers to be more proactive when it comes to meeting social determinants. And again that can be that integrator, that convener, that connecting resources, because there are resources out there. And you are going to see more and more of that as the pro- vider community, the business community, your large employers, say like a Yavapai County or a Northern Arizona University, think of the large employers in the rural areas, many of their employees not necessarily impact what we call the extremely low income indi- viduals, it impacts all of us. You are going to see more awakening around that and more innovative approaches around housing. We have to scale it. Transportation is a huge issue, think about that issue, especially in
a rural area, it’s hard enough in the Phoenix and Tucson areas, but think about rural you just exacerbate the issue of transportation chal- lenges for the low income and that one’s a very tough one to crack.
You are going to see more and more attention and awareness, and innovative innovations come out around this, and again, you are go- ing to see related to that this notion of adoption of trauma-informed care, meaning the trauma we have experienced in our childhood im- pacts our health outcomes as we get older and that’s the whole notion behind trauma-informed care. What trauma-informed care means around, which traditionally has been based on you going to a doctor, and a doctor asks you what’s wrong with you? Well I broke my arm. Trauma-informed care changes that question to what happened to you not only now, but in your lifetime. I broke my arm because I was trying to get to the bus stop, tripped over the curb to try to get to my…you see where I’m going with that. That’s trauma-informed care, better awareness how these social factors are impacting health outcomes, and the provider community understanding that and re- sponding accordingly. You are going to see more and more of that. intelligence come through in the health care space. Primarily when - formation from member’s diagnoses, and coordinating and billing healthcare companies, updating electronic health records. You will
Have medical codes been developed to be used for social de- terminates? We are already moving down that path. We have an endorsement
from the American Medical Association to add these social determi- nant codes. Now it’s a matter of getting our provider community and community based organizations as well to capture this information and get it out there and get it into health information exchanges. So that’s part of it, the other part is, again, reinforcing that recognition of the impact of social determinates and incentivizing and encourag- ing providers to do what they can to help connect those individuals and understand that there might be a lot going on behind why they broke their arm.
Name some of your favorite places to visit in Arizona? Why? I grew up here, and my Wife is a native, so we both grew up in Arizona. Anywhere to enjoy the beauty of our state, whether it’s northern or southern, the beautiful Sonoran Desert, of course the higher elevations, okay so maybe we are partial to the higher eleva- tions because we live in Phoenix. Get out of the heat during the sum- we went to Walnut Canyon and that was just absolutely beautiful and amazing. We love learning about the history, we love the high elevation, the mountain, the scenery, fresh mountain air so to speak. surrounding areas, the history, absolutely fascinating. And you can read about it, but until you until you go to the various museums or sites, such as Walnut Canyon, reading about it doesn’t do it justice.
NOVEMBER 2019 I ARIZONA’S OWN MAGAZINE I 9
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