San Antonio's Top Doctors 2020

Dr Sandra Stein: Banner Health Plans Prioritizes High-Quality Care, Member Experience

Sandra Stein, MD, of Banner Health Plans, details how she provides clinical and medical leadership in her role as chief medical officer.

Sandra Stein, MD, of Banner Health Plans, summarized her responsibilities as chief medical officer. She explained that, within her role, she focuses on member experience and providing high-quality care while taking into account behavioral health, social determinants of health, physical health, and health equity.

Stein was a part of the panel discussion at The American Journal of Managed Care®'s Institute for Value-Based Medicine® (IVBM) event held in partnership with BannerAetna on December 12, 2023. The discussion centered around a commentary published in JAMA Network titled "Health Systems and Social Services—A Bridge Too Far?" which stated that health systems should not invest in social determinants of health.

Transcript

Could you please explain your responsibilities in your role of chief medical officer for Banner Health Plans?

We [Banner Health Plans] see ourselves as a community leader as a safety net health system. As my role, I provide clinical and medical leadership and, really, a multi-pronged, very broad strategy. As we're very focused in the community, we look at making sure we provide integrated and innovative care. Our integrated lens is very broad; we think about behavioral health, physical health, social determinants of health, and health equity that are absolutely critical.

My key areas end up looking at the utilization management of care, which really looks at, basically, the right services, at the right place, at the right time for our members or patients. Also, the highest quality of care, so we're ensuring that our members are getting evidence-based services and that they have quick access to those services because, certainly, there are issues with the capacity within the system.

We want to make sure member experience is as easy as possible. We all know that health care can be hard, and our mission is making health care easier so life can be better. That's one of my key focuses, and we certainly want to make sure that our providers are doing just that, focused on providing care and reducing that burden associated with provision of care.

In addition to that, we really want to focus on keeping our members as well as possible. How do we provide education? How do we support nutrition? How do we support relaxation? Exercise, innovation, technology, are absolutely critical. We learned about that during COVID; health care will never be the same, really leveraging traditional services with technology and other forms of innovative in-home care.

Banner Health

Valet service returns to North Colorado Medical Center

April 13, 2022 at 9:02 a.M.

After a two-year hiatus, due to the pandemic, North Colorado Medical Center (NCMC) in Greeley has resumed valet services. Valet service is provided through a partnership with Towne Health, a...

Dr Sandra Stein Shares Takeaways From BannerAetna IVBM

According to Sandra Stein, MD, of Banner Health Plans, the event highlighted the significant influence of social determinants of health on health care costs and outcomes, emphasizing the shift in focus from traditional medical care to addressing crucial factors like housing, food, transportation, and utilities for positive health outcomes.

Sandra Stein, MD, chief medical officer of Banner Health Plans, shared what she enjoyed most about and what she learned from The American Journal of Managed Care®'s Institute for Value-Based Medicine® (IVBM) event that took place in Phoenix, Arizona, on December 12, 2023, in partnership with BannerAetna. Stein was a part of the IVBM panel discussion centered around a commentary published in JAMA Network titled "Health Systems and Social Services—A Bridge Too Far?" which stated that health systems should not invest in social determinants of health.

Transcript

What were your biggest takeaways from the IVBM?

My biggest takeaways are that we really all know now that about 80% of the costs and outcomes associated with health care are driven by social determinants of health, sometimes referred to as health-related social needs.

This is so different from when I went to medical school, when I did my training. The thought then was that I learned how to provide good care, and if my members or patients had access to that care, they were most likely to have good outcomes. Now, we know there's a tremendous amount of literature supporting that housing, food, transportation, and utilities, all of those things are absolutely critical to positive health outcomes. For example, even if we have somebody that has the best care, they're in an inpatient unit, they're doing really well. If they get discharged and they're homeless, the outcomes are likely to be very poor for very obvious decisions and very obvious reasons.

One of the things that was fascinating is the group in the room was very diverse from a health care perspective, but for the most part, the themes and viewpoints were the same, and that really impacted me. There was agreement about the importance of health-related social needs and that this is a community issue. What really inspired me about this event was these diverse groups came together with that level of understanding, and we left with a call to action, which is a really hard thing to do with this diverse group. We need to address this from a community, from a health care perspective, to overall have a positive impact.

Reference

Glied S, D'Aunno T. Health systems and social services—a bridge too far? JAMA Health Forum. 2023;4(8):e233445. Published online August 4, 2023. Doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2023.3445

---