Embracing a holistic, human-centered approach to health care

At Sentara Health, our mission is “to improve health every day.” Thus, our aim is to impact the overall health of people and communities, not just help individuals when they’re sick. That requires us to focus on a person’s human condition first and understand all their unique life dynamics, not just their disease state. Our goal is to improve a person’s life versus just preventing death.

Thus, our focus and methodologies must shift. How does the individual think? What motivates them? What are the human conditions that cause them to be activated and engaged? The magic happens when you use a human-centered approach to impact disease management and long-term wellness by focusing on an individual’s “dis-eases” of life in a manner that works best for them.

As Sentara, we strive to create high quality, equitable, and innovative models of care delivery. That means embracing human-centered care for all.

To achieve this, we are adjusting our approach from a solely physiologic model to one rooted in addressing human motivations, conditions, and behaviors.

Instead of solely educating people on their health conditions and disease states, we seek to activate and engage them in their health journeys. That means providing resources and connections to help them lead healthier lives every day. That also means addressing their motivations—in other words, helping them help themselves. This is part of a wider movement toward person activation and engagement.

What does it mean to activate and engage? Consider an obese woman who was embarrassed when she couldn’t ride a roller coaster with her grandson because the safety bar wouldn’t fit over her. She and her care team made it a goal for her to be able to ride the roller coaster the following summer. This methodology created “the hook” for the woman.

That “hook,” which was the driving motivator, activated and engaged this individual. The next summer, she sent her care team a picture of herself sitting on the roller coaster with her grandson.

To fully activate and engage people, we need to transform how we deliver our services. One way we are doing that is through our Sentara Community Care initiative, which brings personalized, human-centered care to the neighborhoods where our Medicaid, underinsured, and uninsured community members live through new brick-and-mortar clinics. These neighborhoods include health deserts that have been historically underserved.

In addition, because we’re unable to have brick-and-mortar locations everywhere, we have rolled out Sentara Mobile Care vans and pop-up clinics that deliver primary care directly to communities, eliminating transportation barriers and time constraints.

With this kind of outreach, we hope to address gaps in care for our most vulnerable community members right in the neighborhoods where they live, work, and play, and to do so in a manner that works for them.

Another way we are embracing human-centered care is by addressing the social drivers of health. These determinants, which include housing, financial literacy, food insecurity, and transportation, directly impact 80 percent of our health and well-being.

Through partnerships with a variety of community organizations, we now offer complementary services at our Sentara Community Care clinics and other locations. These services enhance access to vital resources and meet the pressing needs of our communities, i.e., treat their “dis-eases” of life.

Services include food and nutrition assistance, cooking and health education, healthcare navigation, substance use resources, education and career training, transportation assistance, housing assistance, domestics and community violence assistance, and financial literary services.

Sentara’s goal is to keep people activated and engaged in their health journeys even when they aren’t in critical need. Maintaining that is the key to building healthier communities and long-term wellness.

About the author

Dr. Asher is dedicated to fostering clinical effectiveness and cultivating a culture of excellence in the delivery of clinical services across the continuum of care, serving both individuals and communities on their health and wellness journeys. He discussed human-centered care in a Becker’s Hospital Review webinar that aired on September 25 titled, “Person-centered care model design: The key to transforming healthcare operations.” You can access the webinar here.