Grapevine Health Blog

The Emergency Department Is Healthcare’s One-Night Stand. Are We Ready To Address It?
Hit and quit it. This taboo phrase signifying a one-night stand may make one a bit uncomfortable, yet most can’t look away.

Got Trust? We Are Ignoring A Vital Predictor Of Engagement In Care
Trust is foundational to engagement in care, yet it is largely ignored in our conversations about health care transformation.

U.S. Health Care Transformation: Thwarted By A Glaring Omission?
While scrolling news headlines, a ticker for a recent Washington Post blog caught my attention. The article included discussions about our national shifts toward value-based health care, but as with many articles on this topic, it was devoid of the patient perspective.

Scarcity In Digital Health Innovation For Medicaid Populations: Is Help On The Way?
Despite nearly $600 billion spent annually in Medicaid programs, investment to spur digital health innovation for Medicaid patients pales in comparison to those for self-paying and privately-insured health consumers. Why is this?

Social Determinants Of Health: Holy Grail Or Dead-End Road?
Lack of convenient access to healthy food is among the social determinants of health (SDH) now so feverishly discussed as if they were the Holy Grail for improving health outcomes among the poor. But improvement is unlikely without also addressing other social and cultural challenges.

Trust is the missing ingredient health care engagement. Let’s show up.
We believe there is power in sharing health care stories as a strategy to improve community health literacy and engagement in care. We also believe showing up and getting proximal to those we serve is the best way to build trust.

Three reasons your app won’t work: Learning from underserved end users
App users from low-income communities are not hard to reach. Understanding their perspectives on engagement requires face time, intentional listening and openness to designing solutions that incorporate the solicited information.

Underserved Populations Have Access To Technology- Why Is No One Investing in Them?
A recent report highlights $5 billion in digital health investments thus far in 2019, but most of these investments will not reach underserved populations. Most investors first prioritize financial opportunity over building health tools for the poor. But there is another reason.

Want to achieve health equity? Focus on health literacy
Health literacy in the United States is abysmally low, and its connection to health outcomes is a strong one. People with limited health literacy are more likely to have chronic conditions, higher rates of hospitalizations and skip preventive exams.
For more thoughts from Grapevine Health, please see Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick’s blog on Forbes.com and follow us on social media!
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