Abra Kelson Discusses Screening Measures to Highlight High-Risk Patients Who Need Assistance

There are a lot of different ways for identifying patients that might have barriers to care or might be considered as high-risk, says Abra Kelson, MSW, LSWA-IC, medical social work supervisor, Northwest Medical Specialties.

Transcript

How are social determinants of health being addressed? What is your role as a social worker to help in this area?

At Northwest Medical Specialties, we have a lot of different ways for identifying patients that might have barriers to care or might be considered as high-risk. So we screen every patient for distress. That would include practical concerns, emotional, spiritual, physical. We screen every person for depression. We also have Jvion … which is an AI [artificial intelligence] tool that helps identify people who may be at higher risk. Our case managers are constantly monitoring for hospital admission.

Along with that our authorizations department, our financial counselors are looking at insurance and cost of care and so people who may be underinsured or not insured, those are coming to the service right away.

All of these tools help us identify where people might have needs or might be struggling right off the bat. So people are going in and able to intervene right at the start.