God’s Love We Deliver partners on Innovative Medical and Social Care Collaboration that Projects $320,000 in Annualized Medicaid Savings

God’s Love We Deliver is excited to announce the amazing progress we have made with our partners in the  Food and Nutrition Services Bundle, a project funded by NYC Health + Hospitals/OneCity Health. We know how critical nutritious food is in an individual’s care. When people have the right food for their condition, it saves healthcare costs by keeping people out of the hospital, healthy and happy in their homes. This project streamlines referral processes by ensuring doctors and healthcare providers are sending a referral to the food and nutrition provider that best meets the client’s needs. Just six months into this year-long project, our partnership projects an annualized healthcare savings of $320,000 for those enrolled in services to-date. This estimate is based on current research in the field of food and nutrition services.

As a provider of medically tailored meals, as well as medical nutrition therapy, God’s Love has developed close relationships with healthcare and hospital systems across New York City. It is through our experiences receiving referrals and working with hospitals, as well as the experiences of our partners, that we came to collaboratively develop this project. The Registered Dietitian Nutritionists at God’s Love led the creation of the assessment and risk stratification tool – the first of its kind in the country. This tool was embedded into innovative, compliant Unite Us technology, allowing partners to assess for food insecurity, refer to the proper food intervention and track our outcomes and data in order to ensure effectiveness.

What we know from our project so far, is 71% of patients screened reported a need for emergency food. In addition, on average, partners tracked 1.9 referrals per person. This means that multiple providers were needed to address the patient’s food needs, which is precisely why we engaged in this process, to ensure that patients received the food support they needed. It is God’s Love We Deliver’s mission to serve those who are too sick to shop or cook for themselves, but we know that not everyone needs medically tailored meals. This project ensures that those who come to us truly need our services and, if not, they are referred to the provider that best fits their needs.

God’s Love We Deliver is thrilled with the results of our project so far and we look forward to continuing this important work with our partners.

President & CEO, Karen Pearl says, “This collaboration breaks down silos between acute care settings and the community by effectively leveraging technology to make sure hungry individuals do not fall through the cracks of the system designed to help them. The nutrition risk stratification tool is groundbreaking, ensuring that people get access to the right food for their situation. It formalizes practices that our Nutrition team has been engaged in for years and responds to an expressed need from the healthcare community.”