Software developer Unite Us is collaborating with public health information exchange Healthix to improve drivers of health for New York City and Long Island. The collaboration will provide the technology infrastructure to integrate healthcare and social care systems to address unmet needs for services such as food, benefits, housing, transportation assistance, and more within New York City.

Drivers of health, such as access to food, benefits and housing, have been shown by studies to affect as much as 80% of health outcomes, with medical care affecting only around 20% of health outcomes.

The move comes as New York State is amending the 1115 Medicaid Waiver to prioritise integration of social care and health care into the NYS Medicaid programme. This will help enable community-based organisations, behavioural health providers, and other small practitioners to use data-driven insights to inform their practices and interventions.

Unite Us and Healthix are already collaborating in large social care networks with Public Health Solutions, which provides resources directly to New York City’s most underserved populations.

The city aims to improve health equity across New York’s underserved populations through integration of health and social care systems.

Social care networks like Public Health Solutions’ WholeYouNYC connect people to community resources and services such as food assistance, housing and shelter, and individual and family support with real-time, measurable outcomes data. These networks also enable policymakers to understand the impact of standardised outcomes for social care interventions, which, combined with clinical outcomes from HIEs like Healthix in New York State, provide a more complete picture of community health.

The shared vision and aligned approach between Healthix and Unite Us for NYC and Long Island, particularly for the most underserved populations, allows outcomes-focused collaboration to support community members’ health and overall wellness while eliminating systemic barriers to care.

“Our partnership with Healthix is a natural fit, and the need to collaborate across healthcare and wellness services has never been greater,” said Dan Brillman, CEO and Co-Founder at Unite Us. “We are aligned on a shared mission of improving the lives of individuals across NYC and Long Island by supporting community-led systems of care, building trust in these communities in the same way that trust is facilitated between patient and provider, and adequately and accurately capturing the whole picture of a person’s health.”

“We welcome the opportunity to partner with Unite Us to help better establish a holistic level of care when it comes to providing our customers with key information both inside hospital walls and outside into the community,” said Todd Rogow, President and CEO at Healthix. “The Unite Us software will create a seamless and convenient way for our customers to access a network of health and social care providers who will connect them to available, community-based resources that provide other levels of care, like housing, employment, and behavioural health assistance.”

“It is essential to establish a single technology ecosystem and roadmap for the region that is compatible with the requirements for healthcare-community partnerships. The technologies that Healthix and Unite Us offer support interoperability and critical case management, closed-loop referrals, and population health capabilities,” said Lisa David, President and CEO at Public Health Solutions.

There is growing momentum for health and social care network integration in the United States. A number of states have launched health and social care network integration initiatives. These include: the Massachusetts Health Connector, a health insurance marketplace for individuals and families that also has a social services navigator programme that helps connect to social services; the California Integrated Care System (ICS), a statewide network of health care providers, social service providers, and community organisations, still in early stages of development; and the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers, a community-based organisation to improve the health of residents of Camden, New Jersey, which incorporates a number of initiatives integrating health care and social services including a home visiting programme for pregnant women and a case management programme for adults with complex health needs.