New Report Outlines Opportunities and Strategies for Achieving Health Reform Goals in California

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 30, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A recently released report, "Opportunities for Whole-Person Care in California," produced with support from the Blue Shield of California Foundation, details how California can achieve the goals of lowering costs and improving health by tailoring care to the specific needs of patients. Too often, people with the greatest health and mental health needs experience fragmented systems that leave gaps in their care and don't respond to social issues--such as housing instability--that undermine their health and wellbeing. Based on substantive interviews with health care safety-net leaders in California and nationally, John Snow, Inc. (JSI), a public health research and consulting firm, presents innovative practices and key steps that can be taken to coordinate care, incorporate a focus on social and economic conditions, and create necessary financial incentives and flexibility to move toward a system that efficiently serves the whole person.

The Whole-Person Care framework was developed based on years of research as well as recent in-depth interviews with leaders in 5 California counties representing 43% of the state population, on the question of how to reorient our health system from one that reactively provides services to one that more actively partners with patients and communities on achieving health. Leaders from health, behavioral health and social services sectors, many of whom are quoted in the report, believe the framework is a helpful way to organize reform efforts at local and state levels. The report includes specific recommendations for actions that local leaders and stakeholders can take together as well as state policies that can accelerate change. As Rachel Tobey, Director of JSI's San Francisco office and lead author on the report, said, "This is an exciting moment: Medi-Cal expansion and other health policy changes have galvanized local and state leaders to rethink how traditionally fragmented systems can work together in new ways on behalf of California's low-income and vulnerable populations."

Read more about the report: Opportunities for Whole-Person Care in California

Contact: Rachel Tobey: 415.400.0003 or Penelope Riseborough: 617.482.9485

SOURCE John Snow, Inc.