AcademyHealth always puts on an insightful, productive Annual Research Meeting, and this year was no exception. Waymark’s Data Science team, led by Sadiq Patel and Bhairavi Muralidharan, were in attendance, presenting two research studies focused on reducing acute care utilization among patients receiving Medicaid.

In addition to presenting, the team was thrilled to spend the event learning about new methods, research, and collaborative dialogues happening in health services research. Here are the top takeaways they came away with:

AI in Healthcare

On display was a solid showing of the many ways AI can be leveraged to better serve patients and clinicians.One study compared a reinforcement learning AI algorithm that sent adaptive text message reminders to standard text reminders, and found that patients with diabetes and depression who received the adaptive text message reminders had on average 500 more steps per day.

Another study tested the impact of AI documentation software for generation of a preliminary clinical note while ‘listening’ to the conversation between a clinician and patient; approximately 45% of clinicians reported a positive experience as well as a reduction in documentation time. The Waymark Data Science team was also able to actively partake in this conversation, discussing a key question with other experts: How can we use AI to minimize administrative tasks enabling care workers to be more patient-facing, and more importantly how do we measure AI’s impact on patient outcomes?

Impact of SDOH Interventions

The Waymark team also had the opportunity to join conversations about the positive impact of addressing social determinants of health (SDOH). One study reported that using the onsite food pantry at a hospital where Medicaid patients could receive nutritious foods was associated with a 7.3 percentage point decrease in the likelihood of ED visits compared to those patients with no access. Another study found that patients receiving housing support demonstrated a decrease in ED visits and inpatient admissions.

Thank you to AcademyHealth for putting together such a great event, and thank you to the Waymark Data Science team for the work you’re doing to advance the evidence base in Medicaid care delivery!