Healthcare in the U.S. is a big business, and due to that, significant factors result in the type of healthcare the everyday American will receive. But in regard to Social Determinants of Health, better known as SDOH, plays a crucial role in overall healthcare. Investment in SDOH is equally vital to its improvement. Per Health Care Transformation Task Force, SDOH makes up 75 percent of the health outcomes people have access to.
Investing in SDOH is of utmost importance in making the best and most significant changes to healthcare. From an investor standpoint, what does that look like?
On the latest "Healthcare Rethink" podcast, host Brian Urban talked to John Gorman, an SDOH investor, about the effects that costs and money have on healthcare. But more importantly, how equity and return on investments are achievable.
Urban and Gorman talked about:
1. Gorman’s background in healthcare and investment
2. Some of the issues that prevent eliminating poor healthcare
3. The types of solutions and programs Gorman implemented to address SDOH
"Let me just say from the outset, Brian, I freaking hate that phrase [SDOH]. It's just four fancy words for poverty and racism… I wanted to find a way to help make a business imperative out of investments in alleviating poverty and racism in healthcare. Because what wasn't lost on me was that 60 to 80 percent of what we spend on healthcare in this country is attributable to poverty," said Gorman.
John Gorman is an SDOH investor who worked for the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) before it was renamed Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). He attended Oberlin College and created the first-ever SDOH venture capitalist group, Nightingale Partners.
