North Carolina’s COVID-19 Support Services Program: lessons for health policy programs to address social needs
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Series Title(s):
- Issue brief (Milbank Memorial Fund)
- Author(s):
- Bleser, William K., author Huber, Katie M., author Cook, Hannah L., author Whitaker, Rebecca G., author Masand, Jasmine, author Zheng, James J., author Nohria, Raman, author Lyn, Michelle J., author Saunders, Robert S., author
- Contributor(s):
- Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, issuing body. Milbank Memorial Fund, issuing body.
- Publication:
- New York, NY : Milbank Memorial Fund, March 2022
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Community Health Services COVID-19 Social Support Social Work North Carolina United States
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services launched its COVID-19 Support Services Program in August 2020 to address multiple pandemic-related social needs in counties with COVID-19 hot spots in four target regions of the state. Lessons from the COVID-19 Support Services Program can inform other states’ and payers’ efforts to address social needs, as well as North Carolina’s soon-to-launch $650 million Healthy Opportunities Pilots, which will pay for and provide social services through Medicaid managed care programs. To study the COVID-19 Support Services Program, we interviewed its administrators and frontline providers across the program’s ser vice regions and partnered with one of the program’s largest grantee organizations to analyze survey data. We offer key recommendations to health policymakers (e.g., state health officials, commercial payers) creating or administering health policy programs to address social needs in local populations; our findings are also relevant to frontline implementers of such programs. Key recommendations include: (1) Building the capacity of historically underfunded community-based human service organizations to handle both a larger service demand and surges in demand (2) Creating timely communications and feedback channels for all levels of social service providers (3) Employing community health workers, who have skillsets and experience straddling both health and social services (4) Partnering with local leaders and “community quarterbacks” to achieve maximum reach and equity (5) Leveraging technology designed for two-way referral and tracking between health and human service providers (6) Meeting the technical assistance needs of a complex program that involves many different social support services administered by providers with dissimilar processes and cultures.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (17 pages, 1 unnumbered page))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 9918453688306676 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/9918453688306676