Health outcomes and access to care in the US can vary widely—even for workers employed by the same company and offered the same insurance plans.

These disparities are partly driven by social determinants of health (SDOH), or factors such as geographic location, financial security, and access to food and housing that contribute to health outcomes. With these trends in mind, many employers have started working with their health plans to address health inequities and gaps in care within their employee populations.

For multinational employers, this might look like establishing a global minimum standard so workers receive similar benefits, no matter the country in which they’re based. If companies have employees based across the US, they can dig into data from their insurance partners to better understand how specific populations are utilizing their benefits, experts told Healthcare Brew.

How SDOH factors affect equity. A recent white paper from UnitedHealth Group and the Health Action Council (HAC), a coalition of employers and union groups, found that where US employees are based can have a significant impact on employer health costs.

Keep reading here.—CV

It’s the 21st century. We have 3D printing, blockchain, e-readers—sophisticated tech galore. The experts at Philips believe it's about time we apply sophisticated tech to the world of patient monitoring.

The key is centralizing mission-critical systems at the IDN level. What does that look like in practice? A health system that centralizes patient monitoring software and can deploy a single instance across the entire network of health facilities.

With its end-to-end monitoring solution, Philips helps care teams by providing ways to monitor and acknowledge alarms remotely. It also provides monitoring at bedsides, at the central station, and on caregivers’ smartphones.

That allows clinical teams to access patient data from more locations across the health system and gives them confidence that their patients are receiving the care they need.

Learn more about what’s possible for patient monitoring.

Google and Microsoft are working together—and it’s not on a chatbot or new virtual reality glasses for cartoon paper clips.

The Biden administration announced on June 10 that the two tech giants have committed to making their cybersecurity services and training more easily available to rural hospitals—facilities that the executive branch noted can suffer greater disruptions from healthcare-related cyberattacks, in part because their remote locations make diverting care more difficult.

• Microsoft. According to a same-day announcement on its site, the company will give “nonprofit pricing and discounts for its security products optimized for smaller organizations, providing up to a 75% discount,” along with free cybersecurity training, assessments, and—for at least one year, the company says—Windows 10 security updates.
• Google. The White House said that Google will “provide endpoint security advice to rural hospitals and nonprofit organizations at no cost,” as well as a pilot program designed to help rural facilities “develop a packaging of security capabilities that fit these hospitals’ unique needs.”

Spokespeople for the two companies were not available for comment at the time of publication.

Who qualifies? There are 1,800 to 2,100 rural hospitals in the US, according to the White House. (A tool from the Rural Health Information Hub can help you find them.) Microsoft announced its measures specifically for independent critical access hospitals and rural emergency hospitals.

Rural vs. urban: An April American Hospital Association report used hospital data from 2017 to 2022 to conclude that 48% of rural hospitals “consistently experienced negative operating margins from patient services prior to and during the Covid-19 pandemic.” Consulting firm Kaufman Hall reported in February that “the lowest performing 20% of rural hospitals are, in fact, generating much lower margins than their urban counterparts this year.”

Keep reading here.—BH

Make monitoring make sense. There’s a smarter way to approach patient monitoring. Philips provides end-to-end patient monitoring solutions that centralize systems at the IDN level. This allows for standardized alarm configurations, digitized wave strips that are stored in the ERM, and more. See what else is possible.