Utah's Alliance for the Derterminants of Health Initiative: A Conversation with Mikelle Moore (September 27th)

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Despite the fact social circumstances and environmental factors account for approximately 20% of an individual's health status, twice that of medical care at approximately 10%, social circumstances or social determinants of health are frequently unaddressed by health or medical care providers.  This is largely because medical care providers are neither trained to provide social service supports such as housing and transportation nor compensated for doing so.   As a result persons left with unmet health-related social needs suffer more disease burden leaving them to over-utilize or seek comparatively more health care services, for example ED visits, - or services that could have been avoided had their health-related social needs been initially addressed.      

During this 24 minute conversation Ms. Moore begins by noting the current state of Medicaid expansion efforts in Utah.  She proceeds to explain Intermountain's reasons or motivations for creating the Alliance, she provides an overview of the Alliance's programming activities in Ogden and St. George that will address, for example, housing, transportation, food security and behavioral health services related, in part, to interpersonal violence, the initiative's relation to Intermountain's Medicaid insurance plan, SelectHealth, to the Medicare program's Accountable Health Communities demonstration, and what the Alliance's evaluation will measure in tracking the initiative's progress or success.  

Ms. Mikelle Moore is the Senior Vice President for Community Health at Intermountain Healthcare.  Her work is moreover focused on prevention and population health.  Prior to her current position, she served as Administrator of the LDS Hospital.  She joined Intermountain as an Administrative Fellow in 1998, serving as Assistant Administrator and Operations Officer in the Central Region.  She is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives and serves on the national Advisory board for the Association for Community Health Improvement. She is also active on other not for profit boards and community initiatives.  Ms. Moore earned her MBA in health services administration from Arizona State University and her undergraduate degree in physiology from the University of Arizona.  

For more information on the Alliance go to, e.g., https://intermountainhealthcare.org/blogs/topics/transforming-healthcare/2018/07/new-alliance-seeks-to-address-the-social-determinants-of-health/.