Unite Us, the enterprise technology company providing the digital infrastructure to power the integrated health and social care ecosystem, brings health care and social service agencies together to benefit the health and well-being of their clients in Texas and across the country. The Unite Texas network continues to grow in more regions and across all populations, with plans to expand in the Greater Austin area in 2022.
Unite Us builds coordinated care networks of health and social service providers who work across sectors and send and receive secure electronic referrals. They track a person's total health journey and report on the tangible outcomes across all the range of services provided. Ultimately the network supports a centralized, cohesive and collaborative ecosystem across communities.
"Unite Us is the only end-to-end solution for social care, creating an efficient system of care within the community to improve health. Unite Us brings together cross-sector partners in health care, government, social care, and the local community to build a coordinated care network for people to get the care they need when they need it," said Brian An, Growth Marketing Manager with Unite Us. “The solution establishes a new standard of care that identifies and predicts social care needs in communities, manages enrollment of individuals in services, and leverages meaningful outcome data and analytics to drive community investment further.”
Unite Us was founded in 2013 by Dan Brillman, an Air Force reserve pilot, and Taylor Justice, an Army veteran. As they transitioned from active duty to civilian life, they experienced firsthand the complexity of navigating a fragmented health and social services system. They understand how that has a negative impact on health, and they think about what that means for other people.
“Unite Us has partnerships with community-based organizations and healthcare partners across the country who understand the value of connecting health and social care to improve overall whole-person health. They understand if we improve social determinants of health, it is advantageous for a healthcare organization to reduce cost and build healthier communities. Unite Us believes that health lives in the community, and we want to see greater collaboration across the health and social care sectors to elevate social care to the same level of health care,” An said.
Since its inception, the organization has grown to operate in 44 states and over 3,000 counties, with new networks forming and partners joining every day. The Unite Texas network is currently available for 44% of the total state population, and will offer 100% coverage by the end of 2022. Unite Us supports partners who deliver services such as housing, mental and behavioral health, transportation, education, employment, legal, food and benefits assistance.
“With community-based organizations providing services, time becomes an issue. They might have a list, a binder, some spreadsheet directory of their different services. Some service requests that come through their doors do not exist on that internal list, so they must research. What often happens is it takes longer and longer to get folks connected to the services they need. In contrast, with Unite Texas, partners save time with the platform and can focus on meeting the needs of the individual. We are seeing examples across the country where the time to close referrals has gone from 14-15 days down to two days. We want to enhance care for clients who need help, so they don't have to share their stories repeatedly,” An said. “Our solution allows partners to securely track the activity timeline in the client care journey, then use that closed-loop system to know exactly when services were received. That enhances the care for an individual, and as a result, the data helps organizations and communities bring in more resources for their programs.”
Unite Texas has teams working across the state who oversee customer success, community engagement and network health. Their teams work cross-functionally to identify what services are currently on the network in any given area. Unite Texas works to identify organizations providing services and get them on board; if a service is underrepresented, the team works to get them on the network. We must have a robust, coordinated care network in communities to ensure they can access the vital services of Texas residents.
All community-based organizations and social service providers are welcome to join the network at no cost. Unite Us’ community engagement teams on the ground work closely with local CBOs both in Texas and other communities around the country. Among the organizations connected with Unite Texas are the Alamo Area Council of Governments, the Institute for Veterans and Military Families, the University of Houston College of Medicine, CareAllies and the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute.
To learn more about Unite Us, visit uniteus.com, to read about the mission and values, request a demo, connect with a local team, or join a network.
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