Humana Inc. has learned a lot about Louisville over the past year it knows our major health problems are diabetes, behavioral health and respiratory conditions, and it’s starting to understand why.
And now, the Louisville insurance company is focused on fixing those problems. It’s part of Humana’s Bold Goals campaign, aimed at breaking down barriers for people seeking care and improving the health of the communities it serves by 20 percent by 2020.
This week, the company released a full year progress report on the initiative, which initially is focusing on a few key markets, including San Antonio, Tampa Bay and Louisville. The report outlines what Humana has learned and how it’s working with partners in those communities on projects that could improve health.
Humana announced the goals in April 2015 and spent a lot of the first year figuring out what health problems the communities needed to be fixed. It held town halls and sent out a population questionnaire intended to gauge the overall health of the community of the community.
The questions were based on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “Healthy Days” model, which now is being used to assess the progress of the initiative. The baseline was 11.5 unhealthy days in 2015, but Humana wants that number to be 9.2 in 2020.
Using what they’ve learned
Now that Humana knows what the problems are, it can work to solve them in the next five phases of the initiative: Trust building, participation, behavior change, lower costs for care, and improved health.
“Impacting community health requires a highly integrated, strategic approach that’s based on addressing not just clinical factors, but behavioral and lifestyle ones attributable to unhealthy decisions,” CEO Bruce Broussard said in a news release. In an oped he cowrote for Forbes, Broussard said Humana has adopted the Bold Goals initiative as its “overall North Star.”
Once it knew what the problems were, Humana started looking for partners.
In Louisville, the company has begun working with more than 60 partners on projects to boost health here, including Mayor Greg Fischer’s Healthy Hometown Movement.
Humana also has been testing several new diabetes programs here, and says it has seen a 15 percent increase in one type of therapy in the diabetes population. It has partnered with Air Louisville in an effort to reduce asthma and educate city leaders on its environmental triggers. That organization uses smart asthma inhalers to track trends in respiratory conditions in the community.
In San Antonio, the company launched a pilot grocery store program that rewards members for buying healthful food. And in Tampa Bay, the company partnered with Feeding Tampa Bay to make healthful foods more available to those who need them.
As part of this effort, Humana also has been working with physicians to push the value based model of reimbursement, which pays based on outcomes.
“One of the most significant areas of progress we’ve seen is the growing number of physicians embracing the value-based reimbursement model,” Humana’s chief medical officer, Dr. Roy Beveridge, said in the release. “When physicians move into value-based agreements, it’s the health of the population they serve that determines how they’re reimbursed, and that’s going to help this holistic approach.”
What’s next?
In the next year, Humana will work on those other stages, including building more trust through town halls, advisory boards and community partnerships.
The company already has seen progress among its employees, who are on track to see their health improve 20 percent by 2017. Over the past few years, they’ve lost weight and lowered their blood pressure and their risk for diabetes.
Humana has used its employees as a test pool for healthimprovement efforts, such as the HumanaVitality wellness rewards program. About 8,000 employees tested that program over three years, and Humana says they had fewer sick days and emergency room visits, among other benefits.
Date: May 18, 2016