Humana’s Predictive Models

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Summary of Presentation: 

Humana is working to address social determinants of health and health related social needs in communities. This presentation relates to that work through the lens of our work in loneliness, which is a core focus of Humana’s membership base. Humana was interested in evaluating loneliness because they wanted to evaluate if it was a key driver of unhealthy days. But data is core to this work and Humana lacked data. To address that lack, Humana has screened tens of thousands of members with a standardized screener, the UCLA screener set. Humana can use this to validate a predictive model developed through a whole set of holistic data, including community data, clinical claims data, and consumer data. Questions include: Are people widowed? Do they live alone? Do they have cars? 

 

This helped Humana develop a holistic picture. A triumvirate of the clinical, the community, and the consumer data helped Humana discover that a startling number of its Medicare Advantage Plan membership was predicted to be lonely based on a loneliness score. Nearly a third of them are lonely and almost 10% of them are severely lonely. Those members who are lonely or severely lonely have twice the average number of unhealthy days, representing a huge burden on their quality of life. Humana has sought to address this by using the model to develop different segments of members and understand what their needs might be and how we could address that loneliness. 

 

Humana partnered with a national group called Papa in Tampa, Florida, Papa manages the “Grandkids on Demand”, who are friendly visitors who come to a member senior’s home and helps them with light housework, teach them how to set up their iPad, or play chess with them. . It’s a social rather than a clinical intervention. A learning study found that two thirds of the members offered this service were very interested and wanted to enroll. Preliminarily, over a four month trial, Humana saw a 29% reduction in the loneliness score and a decrease in the number of unhealthy days reported.

 

About The Presenter

Angela Hagan is Associate Director in Humana’s Office of Population Health, where she leads population health insights with a focus on health-related quality of life and SODH social needs. Her team focuses on HRQoL population surveillance and integration into clinical operating models and interventions, SDOH analytics around clinical trend drivers and quality measures, research catalog and agenda, and the public policy environment for SDOH. Previous work at Humana included leading member clinical engagement strategies. Prior to joining Humana, Hagan worked with a variety of nonprofit and education organizations in research and development, marketing, communications and PR functions. An Illinois native, Hagan holds a BA in economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an Master of Public Administration (public policy focus) and a PhD in Urban and Public Affairs from the University of Louisville.