Grapevine Health Blog

Trust is foundational to engagement in care, yet it is largely ignored in our conversations about health care transformation.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.