A Guilford County resident facing immediate eviction because her home was condemned last week was able to find housing with the assistance of Guilford County Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Division and NCCARE360.
With implementation starting in January 2019, NCCARE360 is a new statewide platform designed to make it easier for health and human service providers to send and receive secure electronic referrals, seamlessly communicate in real-time and securely share client information and track outcomes.
“The previous system was effective in its day, but now with a more comprehensive effort addressing the social determinants of health, we needed a more robust system than we had in the past,” said Merle Green, Guilford County Health Director. “Using NCCARE 360, we were better able to connect a resident in a crisis situation to services that she needed immediately.”
The Guilford County Public Health Division submitted the resident’s referral through NCCARE360’s pooled referral feature, which distributed the information to three different housing agencies. Within two hours of submitting the referral, one of the agencies (the Salvation Army) accepted the resident, enrolling them in a shelter and housing program.
NCCARE360 is the first statewide coordinated care network and is designed to serve as North Carolina’s core infrastructure as the state transitions to whole person health and health systems. Along with Alamance and Rockingham, Guilford County is part of NCCARE360’s initial soft launch. NCCARE360 will be available in all 100 North Carolina counties by the end of 2020.
NCCARE360 is a public-private partnership between the NC Department of Health and Human Services and the Foundation for Health Leadership and Innovation to address the non-medical drivers of health, like access to healthy food, safe and affordable housing and well-paying jobs to improve health and decrease health care costs.
The platform is open to all North Carolinians, health systems, payers, and providers. It includes a robust, integrated resource database, website, call center, and care coordination platform for clinicians, social workers, care coordinators, families and others to connect people to the community resources they need. For more information, go to https://foundationhli.org/programs/#nccare or https://www.ncdhhs.gov/about/department-initiatives/healthy-opportunities/nccare360.
