Case Study & Use Cases
Building a customized vulnerable map for the health foundation of South Florida
COVID-19 is a massive health and economic crisis very much affecting Americans at the local level.
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Use Cases
Health Foundation of South Florida: Mapping Health and Racial Disparities of the Pandemic
The Health Foundation of South Florida wanted to improve its management of health risks that underserved communities of Miami-Dade and Broward counties face, especially with the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic. Spatially Health customized its Local Vulnerabilities Scoring and Mapping specifically for the Health Foundation to identify populations beyond arbitrary ZIP code boundaries that are vulnerable to health problems because of prevalent social, racial and economic disparities. This customized and scalable tool helps the Health Foundation target where testing sites, educational outreach and other mitigation strategies will have the greatest impact on these vulnerable communities, and it measures outcomes, too..
Identifying Referral Networks and Patterns for Health Plan Administrator
A national health plan administrator sought an analytical tool for mapping locations and relationships between primary care physicians and specialists and between specialists and hospitals. Using its understanding and indices of the Spatial Determinants of Health that affect referrals, Spatially Health developed a customized tool that identifies, graphs and maps referrals patterns and their associated costs. This tool helped the health plan administrator design a high-quality, high-performance and expanded provider network that controls costs and improves the member experience.
Developing a Modern Data Warehouse for Healthcare Stakeholders
Provider Network Solutions (PNS), like other healthcare stakeholders, had been using a traditional data warehouse to manage its data. It needed a tool that offers advanced reporting and sophisticated analytics to capture business intelligence and promote data-driven growth. Spatially Health developed a next-generation data warehouse to help PNS extract, organize and use its data to report on key piece of business and to improve its business workflows, develop new business models and support its network of providers and health plan customers. Spatially Health’s data warehouse separates data storage from computational tools, creating a more flexible and inexpensive way to perform calculations that guide sound business decisions.
Market Analysis for a Management Services Organization
A growing Management Services Organization (MSO) spent countless resources continuously and manually evaluating new markets in which to establish primary care clinics. Spatially Health built a customized dashboard and map interface for the MSO by targeting specific ages of the MSO’s desired patient populations, information about prevalent chronic conditions, PCP accessibility within a radius of 20 minutes of drive time and other variables of interest to automatically calculate a Spatial Risk Score for each market it wants to evaluate. This risk score is responsive to any address. With this calculation, the MSO can easily make informed decisions about where opportunities exist for at markets need its services.
Evaluating New Markets for a Health Plan
A nationwide health plan administrator wanted to evaluate growth opportunities for its services in different markets and have the ability to compare key data points across markets. Spatially Health provided a solution by creating an instrument that enriches client data with county-level data to focus on Medicare and age-in populations. The tool also uses data and spatial analysis to identify the number of and locations of primary care physician practices, targeted population segments, member-to-population ratios and other valuable information to assign a weighted score to prioritize those areas being considered for new business.
Analyzing New Care Delivery Models
A Management Services Organization and health plan administrator anecdotally recognized geographic areas that had high utilization rates for healthcare services that were resulting in high costs. Spatially Health used these clients’ claims data and its proprietary understanding of the Spatial Determinants of Health to create maps and indices showing that the high costs and high utilization rates were linked to certain providers. The insights gained from these tools helped drive the development of an alternative care delivery model to lower costs and utilization rates.
Pinpointing High-Risk Areas for COVID-19 Mitigation
To help healthcare stakeholders, governments, public health officials and emergency managers mitigate the impact of COVID-19, Spatially Health developed the COVID-19 Local Vulnerabilities Map, which reveals areas most vulnerable to a virus outbreak. The map uses a vulnerability score — calculated with verifiable data for known risk factors, demographics, population density figures and the number of congregant care facilities in a geographic location — to identify where an elevated risk for the virus to emerge and spread exists. Stakeholders use this information to develop scalable prevention and mitigation strategies, prioritize and coordinate the deployment of resources and testing sites, and plan for a safe return to business and a reopened economy.