The Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) has established four strategic goals in its Comprehensive Quality Strategy1 to improve care for Medi-Cal beneficiaries. These goals focus on member engagement, health equity, early interventions, and whole-person care. At Violet, we recognize the important role that data-driven insights and culturally competent care play in achieving these goals.
By using our provider and network analytics, we’re helping health plans address specific challenges outlined in the DHCS strategy. This approach allows us to make meaningful progress in improving health outcomes for diverse communities.
Below, we’ve outlined how Violet’s solutions align with selected objectives for each strategic goal, highlighting our commitment to supporting health plans in their efforts to deliver high-quality, equitable health care.
Strategic Goal 1: Engaging members as owners of their own care
DCHS health equity objective
Improving member experience
Many Medi-Cal members, especially in communities of color and rural areas, face barriers to accessing care, including limited broadband for video visits and fewer providers in-network. Additionally, the diversity of Medi-Cal's membership isn’t matched by provider demographics or cultural competence at the provider, plan, or state levels.
How Violet helps
- Network Inclusivity Analytics
Violet’s Network Inclusivity Analytics reveal the percentages of BIPOC, LGBQ, and TGNC-inclusive providers within each service area. This gives network managers a clear view of access gaps for communities of color and other groups experiencing health disparities.
- Violet Benchmarks
Violet has adopted the framing of cultural competence as a measurable and improvable clinical skill that isn’t solely dependent on a shared background between provider and patient. By benchmarking providers, Violet offers a transparent and real-time assessment of inclusivity within the network, helping ensure an adequate number of BIPOC, LGBQ, and TGNC-inclusive providers to serve Medi-Cal’s diverse members.
Strategic Goal 2: Keeping Families and Communities Healthy
DCHS health equity objective
New initiatives that support prevention and primary care
- Leverage value based payment initiatives to increase member engagement with primary care, and to support primary care transformation to achieve improved health outcomes.
- Proposal in the FY22-23 California State budget for $400million in Equity and Practice Transformation payments to address gaps and disparities in children’s, maternal, and behavioral healthcare and support population-health infrastructure development at the provider level.
- Develop a Vaccines for Children (VFC) strategic plan with CDPH to ensure that there is a comprehensive effort to maximize the catch up of vaccines, distribute vaccines and support family engagement.
How Violet helps
- Verified Inclusive Organizations: Incentivizing value over volume
Violet is actively collaborating with equity-driven health plans, such as Rocky Mountain Health Plan (RMHP), to advance health equity through value-based payment structures. By incorporating Violet Benchmarks and the Verified Inclusive Organization designation, RMHP has established clear standards that ensure participating providers demonstrate cultural competence and inclusivity. This allows RMHP to align enhanced reimbursement incentives with provider organizations that meet benchmarks for BIPOC, LGBQ, and TGNC inclusivity, contributing to a more equitable provider network.
Through these efforts, Violet empowers health plans to meet health equity goals while driving improved patient outcomes and engagement in primary care.
- Clinical training: Support population-health infrastructure development at the provider level.
Violet offers health plans targeted, equity-focused clinical training programs that can be sponsored for provider organizations. Our curriculum tackles disparities in BIPOC, LGBQ, and TGNC communities, across maternal health, children’s health, and behavioral health care, embedding social determinants of health across every training module.
- Clinical training: Promote vaccine equity
Violet’s Vaccine Equity educational collection is part of a broader preventive care training suite designed to address critical immunization disparities across age groups.
This educational collection is designed to promote behavior change and impact the following measures:
- Childhood Immunization Status (CIS)
- Immunizations for Adolescents (IMA)
- Adult Immunization Status (AIS-E)
- Flu Vaccinations (FVA, FVO)
This course equips clinicians with the knowledge to address vaccine disparities across age groups, focusing on historical mistrust, misinformation, and access barriers.
Strategic Goal 3: Providing Early Interventions for Rising Risk
DCHS health equity objective
Continuing efforts to support the treatment of hypertension, diabetes and asthma, and address disparities within these populations; and focusing on new initiatives to address disparities in chronic disease management through the Health Equity Roadmap.
How Violet helps
- Clinical training: Diabetes education
Our diabetes-focused training courses encompasses the evolution of diabetes care, key principles of comprehensive care, strategies for developing culturally competent treatment plans, and effective management of chronic conditions and comorbidities.
Our data demonstrates that providers engaged with Violet’s training are not only enhancing their skills but also positively impacting patient outcomes.
Our independent research shows that providers upskilling with Violet exhibited the following:
- 20% higher depression screening rates per clinician for patient population
- 16% boost in hypertension control per clinician for patient population
- .4% improvement in diabetes management per clinician for patient population
Strategic Goal 4: Providing Whole Person Care for High-Risk Populations
DCHS health equity objective
Increase language access and enhance cultural competency
In order to promote equity among families being served through California’s HCBS programs, DHCS has proposed additional investments for vital document translation, coordination, and streamlining of interpretation and translation services, and implementation of quality control measures to ensure the availability, accuracy, readability, and cultural appropriateness of translations.
How Violet helps
- Violet Benchmarks: Reliable collection of provider SOGI/REaL data
We benchmark provider cultural competence by leveraging proprietary claims analytics alongside providers’ self-reported educational and professional experiences, cultural backgrounds, language skills, self-efficacy, and personal aspirations for inclusivity. This comprehensive and dynamic provider record serves as a trusted source of truth, shared across payers.
Health plans can seamlessly integrate this data via our API into any network adequacy or care coordination software. This integration facilitates better assessment of language proficiencies within the network and streamlines culturally-responsive care coordination efforts.
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