Health Net Innovation on Display at AHIP Conference

Date: 04/04/23

On March 14, 2023, the AHIP Medicare, Medicaid, Duals & Commercial Markets Forum was held in Washington D.C. More than 500 health care experts from throughout the United States took part in the conference. They gathered to learn about the latest ideas, solutions and rising trends currently changing healthcare. Health Net Vice President of Quality Management, Catherine Misquitta was a featured speaker.

Catherine was a panelist in a session titled, Improving Data Standards to Advance Health Equity. She and other experts offered up their thoughts on how to further advance data to better align reporting standards. At issue: deciding the correct, most accurate way to gather and interpret health equity data.

As of now, different regulators have their own set of standards on how Race/Ethnicity (R/E) should be grouped. And, in some cases, group details did not account for specifics. (e.g. grouping 'Asian' together with 'Pacific Islander').

Catherine explained how her team built in-house methods to enhance the data. And, how they formed user-friendly dashboards to find disparities across diverse segments of the public.

Health Net teams learned to use raw (R/E) data and group it based on the reporting standards specific to the regulator. Disparity dashboards were created to allow users to segment quality outcomes by member traits. They can then tailor the report to meet any and all governing and reporting standards.

Plus, Health Net trained its Health Equity and QI staff to review the raw data. And, trained them how to find the differences that may be hidden due to general groupings.

One dashboard, (Healthcare Effectiveness and Data Information Set – HEDIS) is a tool that allows Health Net to detail HEDIS outcomes by using 23 possible segments. Users may choose their segments using more than one at a time – such as 'R/E and Age'.

As a result of starting this HEDIS Disparity Dashboard in 2019, the QI/HE departments have partnered to target health gaps among racial and ethnic groups.

Catherine also noted that despite the work of her team, issues still exist. Good disparity studies need steady reporting specs across companies, governing agencies, etc. Plus, plans being steadfast and true to the cause should be the main focus as members age with them, or across varied plans.

A lot of work has been done to close health equity gaps, but much more needs to be achieved. One thing is for sure, Health Net, Catherine and her team will keep striving to set the standards of progress.