A FHIR-side Chat: How HealthEdge® and Unite Us Are Powering Whole-Person Care Through Seamless Integration

Hi, everyone, and welcome to our fireside chat series, where we sit down with leaders across the health care ecosystem to talk about the role of interoperability, EHR integration, and community collaboration, empowering more connected person centered care. We appreciate you all being here today and for bearing with us through some schedule changes. We’re excited to get into our discussion.

I’m Rachel Eager from Unite Us, and today I’m joined by Jennie Giuliany, senior director of clinical sales solutions at HealthEdge.

Hi, thank you, everybody, for letting me come and talk today.

Great. Well, I just want to talk a little bit about HealthEdge and the wonderful work that they do. HealthEdge is a leading provider of care management solutions, and Unite Us is transforming how health care and community care connect. Through this partnership, payers and providers can more effectively address medical and nonmedical drivers of health to deliver seamless whole person care at scale.

And as I mentioned, I’m joined by Jennie from HealthEdge. Jennie Giuliany is a subject matter expert with 25 plus years of experience across the health care industry. In her current role at HealthEdge, Jennie helps prospective and new customers understand how Guiding Care supports complex business processes and enables them to meet regulatory demands and deliver coordinated member care. She also works with partners to optimize their use of the Guiding Care application and to improve member health outcomes.

Welcome, Jennie, again, and thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you. I appreciate being here.

Awesome. And where are you joining us from, Jennie?

The cold and foggy Pacific Northwest.

And I am all the way on the East Coast, and I can say that it’s always very cold here. It’s all that dreary winter weather. I’m looking forward to some sun.

I know. Me too.

So if anyone’s joining us from anywhere sunny, let us know in the comments. Let’s get through some of these questions. To start us off, can you share a bit about HealthEdge and your role there?

Yeah. So HealthEdge is an industry leading software and services company. We primarily work with health insurers and provider organizations. I support the care portfolio of products, which includes Guiding Care. And Guiding Care is a care management and population health platform.

Awesome. Well, speaking of Guiding Care and some of the work that Unite Us does, I just want to talk through the fact that there is growing recognition that addressing drivers of health is key to improving outcomes. What do you think is fueling that momentum, and how does HealthEdge approach helping your customers take action on those insights?

It’s a good question. I think those of us working with safety net populations have long understood the significant impact social determinants have on overall health. I think, though, as you noted, this awareness is now spreading across the broader health care ecosystem. And not only are we seeing the impact we deliver to our members, but through data, we’re now able to demonstrate measurable outcomes and quantifiable impact. So I think the world is taking notice.

Very true. I agree with that. And a lot of the work that Unite Us is focused on, last year into this year, is very much based on that data driven approach.

I think that’s something, when we talk about our integration together, which enables payers to connect their members to community based resources directly from within HealthEdge’s care management platform, it’s really important that we keep some of that at the forefront.

So can you tell us more about what inspired this partnership and what types of common challenges your team aims to solve with this integration?

Sure. We all know the pressures of health plans and health care right now, and health plans are really facing a lot. They have a lot of regulatory requirements that keep changing, financial constraints, staffing shortages. So with all of that, the question becomes: how do we stay efficient while we still deliver great care and make sure members get the support they need?

And that’s why we’ve partnered with Unite Us and integrated their capabilities right into Guiding Care. This integration helps to streamline operations and gives care teams the tools that they need to connect members to the right resources quickly and effectively. Any way in which we can bring help to members quicker and get them the help that they need is just going to help improve their health outcomes.

Absolutely. So I think that’s such an important point, Jennie.

Next, we want to talk at a high level: what does this integration practically look like from a user’s point of view? And what does it enable those payers, providers, and care managers on the front lines to do?

So Unite Us is fully embedded within our platform. Care managers don’t have to jump between multiple systems. As soon as a need is identified by any member of the care team, whether that’s from an assessment or the provider working with the member, or even the members themselves within our digital member engagement tool, the system will guide the end user to Unite Us to find and connect the member with the right services.

And because it’s all tied to the care plan, the entire care team can see what’s happening and coordinate seamlessly. So really, again, streamlining that, making it look like one system, reducing that barrier and that issue with different systems trying to connect to each other. It’s just seamless.

Yeah, that’s awesome. And I don’t think we can talk about seamless integrations without talking about interoperability. So that’s going to be my next question for you. How do integrations drive better health care outcomes for individuals through interoperability standards like FHIR?

So I’m sure there’s a lot of buzz going around about FHIR. And I am a nurse, but I’m going to put on my tech hat for a second here and just say that interoperability standards like FHIR are really going to change the game when it comes to making health care data useful.

So instead of data sitting in silos, FHIR gives us a standard language so that we can actually talk to each other. And what that means to us in the care management world is that care teams can get the right information at the right time, whether that’s coming from an EHR, a CAP system, or a care management tool.

And because FHIR supports real time data exchange, it’s not just about sharing the information, it’s about acting on it quickly. And when you can do that, you can improve coordination, close those gaps in care, and ultimately drive better outcomes for members. And you can do that quicker and seamlessly.

Yeah. And that’s what really matters: the member, the individual who’s in front of a payer or provider and how they’re being cared for.

So I think that pulls into the question of who stands to benefit most from this integration.

That’s a good question. I think, taking a step back, financial strain is touching everybody right now. Not just the populations that we traditionally think of, but members across every line of business. And so I think that’s why this work matters so much.

Every time we help a member access resources that improve their health, we’re doing more than solving a problem or changing lives. It’s a ripple effect. Better outcomes for members, financial stability for health plans, and greater job satisfaction for care managers. When we connect people to what they need, everyone wins. And that’s the kind of impact that transforms health care.

Absolutely.

So let’s talk really quickly about our partnership and how you see partnerships like this helping the industry move toward more equitable and efficient whole person care. You touched on a lot of that in your previous answers, Jennie, but I just want to bring it back to the fact that we have this partnership and that we’re providing that seamless solution together to ensure that folks are able to get the care that they need.

Yeah, and I think that’s the term: together. Partnerships like this really are essential for moving the industry forward toward more equitable, efficient whole person care. There’s no single organization that can address all the factors that impact health.

So by working together, we break down those silos and create a connected ecosystem where clinical care, social services, and community resources come together. This means that members get the support that they need not just for medical issues, but for housing, food, transportation.

And it helps boost efficiency by streamlining workflows, and it delivers whole person care by treating more than just the symptoms. We’re addressing the root cause of those health outcomes.

Absolutely.

So let’s talk about the future a little bit. What’s next for HealthEdge and Unite Us as this collaboration scales? Do you want me to go first, Jennie, or do you want to?

Please go ahead. I’ve been doing a lot of talking.

Yeah. So let me talk a little bit about Unite Us’ goals and priorities.

First is something Jennie has talked about a lot during this: continued focus on whole person care, making it easier for care teams to see the full picture of an individual’s needs and act on them in real time. Seamless solutions, ensuring there are good touch points for providers and payers and everyone in the health care ecosystem to address a patient’s needs.

Next, another theme that has come out throughout this conversation is the importance of standardization. Standardizing social care claims terminology is critical for enabling provider reimbursement and accurate reporting of social care referrals. We’re excited to continue to align on the Unite Us side with national data standards to ensure that we’re all working from a common framework.

And then finally, a data first approach. Especially around rural health coming up this year, with new rural health initiatives arising, hospitals are really asking the question: where do we start to look into gaps in our community?

Unite Us offers an analytics first approach to close gaps in access. We see integrations such as our integration with HealthEdge as a critical component of making sure that various systems and partners are seamlessly connected and able to see the full picture to identify care gaps and areas of opportunity.

So I’ll hand it over to you, Jennie, to talk a little bit about your team’s goals.

So I think we’re absolutely aligned with what our goals are to what Unite Us’ goals are. And coming from a rural area myself, I think the biggest thing is, as you said, expanding that access: looking at those resources, encouraging our clients to work with Unite Us to expand those different community resources within their area and get better data, as well as better analytics.

Where can they do the most good? And where can they increase that data sharing as much as they can to get the help that members need?

For sure. So I think that’s a good goal to end on and bring us to my final question. What’s one takeaway you hope health care leaders remember from today’s conversation?

Partnership. The takeaway is partnerships. How we integrate community and health care solutions can drive whole person care and improve outcomes at scale. I think that would be my one takeaway.

For sure. I think that’s a great word to end on.

Well, Jennie, I just want to thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your perspective. It’s exciting to see how partners like HealthEdge are leading the charge in helping payers and providers deliver more connected community centered care.

And thank you to everyone watching this LinkedIn Live. If you’re interested in learning more about how Unite Us can integrate with your care management solution to connect people to care in the community, please connect with our team at uniteus.com to continue the conversation, and we’ll see you next time. Thanks, all.

Thank you, Rachel. Thank you, everybody, for joining. Appreciate it. Bye, everyone.