What You Should Know:
– Geisinger inks a partnership Aunt Bertha to launch a
new social care platform, Neighborly for Pennsylvania residents.
– Powered by Aunt Bertha, Geisinger’s Neighborly platform provides residents in Pennsylvania the ability to easily search and connect with organizations that provide social services including food, housing, childcare, transportation, utility assistance, healthcare, financial assistance, and other needs.
Geisinger, one of
the nation’s largest health service organizations has announced a partnership
with Aunt Bertha, a
search and referral platform of social service organizations to support the
launch of Geisinger’s new social care platform, Neighborly.
Growing Importance of Social Determinants of Health
Social
determinants of Health – such as where people live and work – play a
significant role in a person’s overall wellbeing. Ensuring individuals have
access to the proper social care services is key to any healthcare effort – yet
navigating the web of providers and coordinating care for patients is often a
challenging process. That’s why Geisinger is now partnering with Aunt
Bertha to help healthcare providers streamline the process of connecting
patients with vital social services.
How Neighborly Works
Powered by Aunt Bertha, Geisinger’s Neighborly platform
provides residents in Pennsylvania the ability to easily search and connect
with organizations that provide social services including food, housing,
childcare, transportation, utility assistance, healthcare, financial assistance
and other needs. The platform also helps social care providers more easily and
effectively coordinate care for clients in need of multiple forms of social
assistance. With Aunt Bertha’s technology, organizations can now provide a
simple and easy path to refer patients to free and reduced-cost services in
their local communities. Since 2015, nearly 130,000 Pennsylvanians have used
Aunt Bertha to connect to social services.
Why It Matters
Currently serving more than 3 million residents throughout
central, south-central, and northeastern Pennsylvania — as well as counties in
southern New Jersey — Geisinger has long been a leader in defining strategies
for addressing social determinants of health (SDoH) such as where individuals
live, work, and socialize. After exhaustive research into the social care
landscape and all available solutions over a two-year period, Geisinger
selected Aunt Bertha to create their new community resource network. After
initially planning for a community-by-community rollout of the platform across
an 18-month timeline, the healthcare provider realized it needed to rapidly
accelerate its deployment in the wake of COVID-19 and its impact on
Pennsylvania communities. With Aunt Bertha’s experience and understanding of
the social care landscape in Pennsylvania, as well as its extensive nonprofit
network that was already in place in Pennsylvania, Geisinger was able to move
swiftly from a pilot in Lackawanna County to a social care platform available
to every community in just 18 days.
Pilot Phase Results
Following the launch of the platform’s pilot phase in March
this year, more than 2,400 neighbors have been able to connect with, and
benefit from, social care providers on Neighborly in just a 4-month period.
Even in its early stages, the platform is changing the way Geisinger cares for
its patients, serves its members, and partners with the community. Search data
on the platform provides new insights on the services Pennsylvanians need the
most, uncovers coordination gaps that currently exist, and guides the
allocation of resources.
“Neighborly opened its doors in March amid a global pandemic with a laser focus on making it easy for our neighbors to connect with the resources they need close to home,” said Brian Ebersole, Senior Director of Springboard Health at Geisinger, “the partnership with Aunt Bertha was the right choice for our communities and our organization.”
