Stuck On Social Work

I am trying to gain a deeper understanding of how “big data” can have impact on mental health care. An article posted by Bill Bunting about how “big data” was helping better understand the needs of caregivers sheds some light on this. I shared my enthusiasm about this on twitter ..

That's exactly what @NarrativeDx does

— CancerGeek (@CancerGeek) May 19, 2016

Andy Delao (aka @CancerGeek) is one of my favorite people on social media who also introduced me to this week’s tool, NarrativeDx …

The narrative is a critical part of the work we do as practitioners. What is even more important is listening to feedback. After seeing a healthcare provider one time or many times, one is often given a questionnaire about how they thought the service went.

I always wondered what happened with these. If this type of quality assurance interests you, check out this weeks’ tool. NarrativeDx has ways to craft these questionnaires or collect any feedback you generate. They give examples including using surveys, compliant forms, social media, physicians rating sites, etc.; then give you both aggregate and real time feedback on these sources. They use natural language processing to instantaneously analyze for themes your organization can take action on . For a brief intro on how this works check out their introductory video…

According to co-founder, Senem Guney, NarrativeDx originated out the need to assist healthcare organizations better understand data from standard health care surveys (i.e HCAHPS and CGCAHPS). A deeper understanding of this data has helped many facilities save money and improve quality.

If you already are collecting data about patient satisfaction in any way, NarrativeDx will take these and develop actionable insights on this data. The use of natural language processing has the potential to catch something a typical “scale of 1-5 questions” asked (although they could probably analyze those too).

They currently work with large hospital systems but are willing to explore any spaces that might benefit from this service. In New York State this might be a useful tool for the Patient Centered Medical Homes being developed. Accountable Care Organizations and non-profits might benefit form this as well. As value-based care slowly looms this would be a wonderful tool to get insights on where to direct services.

For more information check out the NarrativeDx website or contact them directly.

On May 26 and 27 2016, The White House hosted the first ever #HackFosterCare event. This was to gather various stakeholders to examine how technology can assist in improving foster care. The White House and other government agencies seem to be sponsoring more of these events.

I cut my social work teeth in foster care and foster care prevention. Despite not being there I wanted to keep up with what was happening. So I followed another hashtag on twitter (are you picking up this theme in my posts lately 😉 ).There were great idea’s for apps and technology to provide education, engage youth, recruit/retain foster parents, and facilitate communication.

Putting my prevention hat on, it is often difficult for providers in various disciplines to communicate. My wish would be to work on technology that can improve communication between systems prior to foster care placement. As things get more computerized there is little or no reason that Families, Child Welfare, Mental Health, Substance Abuse, and other nonprofit child serving agencies can collaborate better via technology.

Technology has the potential to prevent placement but also decrease length of stay. Things like secure SMS and telehealth can bring families and providers closer together.

This is my wish but find out what others came up with by clicking on the below links of my summary of tweets of this two day event…

How would you hack foster care?

Also keep the conversation going at HackFosterCare.org