LHS Program: COVID-19

Contributing to the fight against COVID-19

Since the onset of COVID-19, the LHS Program has been supporting Kaiser Permanente's rapid response to the pandemic in a variety of ways:

• We're informing an emerging Kaiser Permanente Washington plan to use data to determine whether members are delaying care during the COVID-19 pandemic and to develop programs to prevent negative health outcomes members might be experiencing due to delayed care. Learn more in this Q&A with Emily Westbrook, MHA, who leads operations for the LHS Program.
   
• We're working closely with leaders across Kaiser Permanente Washington to understand, improve, and evaluate the virtual care delivery system of the future that has emerged from our rapid COVID-19 response. Learn more in this Q&A with LHS Program Director Katie Coleman, MSPH.
   
• We're conducting an evidence review to inform Kaiser Permanente National's COVID-19 testing strategy. And, since the onset of the pandemic, LHS partner Paula Blasi, MPH, a research associate at KPWHRI, has been doing daily COVID-19 literature scans to inform Kaiser Permanente's high-priority efforts and support rapid decision making. 
   
• Using predictive analytics, the LHS Program provided Kaiser Permanente Washington care teams with information that estimates health risk among Medicare members. This allowed clinic staff to prioritize outreach efforts to our most-vulnerable seniors, many of whom have multiple chronic conditions, ensuring that they know how to get care. (This effort was based on previous predictive analytics work for flu vaccine outreach.) We were able to then quickly expand this work to include outreach efforts to non-Medicare members with complex medical and social needs and other chronic conditions. 
   
• We are mounting a similar outreach effort in mental health care, using a novel algorithm to identify which patients are at greatest risk of self-harm so they can be connected to services. We also are looking into proactive outreach to patients who have had recent virtual visits for pain and who are at risk of inappropriate opioid use.
   
• With the new era of virtual care brought on by the pandemic, we are moving as quickly as possible to adapt elements of our Integrated Pain Management pilot program for a vitual environment.