Today, a groundbreaking environmental health impact initiative was announced to assist those most vulnerable to extreme weather events, which can exacerbate existing chronic conditions.
Initially, the initiative will focus on extreme heat events by providing timely excessive heat alerts and tailored outreach to at-risk patients. This fall, it will expand to support patients susceptible to reduced lung function, asthma, and cardiac issues due to high levels of air pollution. According to the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s Fifth National Climate Assessment, excessive weather events are becoming increasingly common and severe.
“Extreme heat kills more Americans each year than all other weather events combined. Beyond fatalities caused by heat strokes, extreme heat can worsen chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,” said Dr. Dan Knecht, a practicing physician and vice president and chief clinical innovation officer for CVS Caremark®, a division of CVS Health. “Most heat-related deaths are preventable with outreach and intervention. We are proud to introduce a new capability that advances our efforts to find innovative ways to deliver personalized health care to consumers.”
Initially available to members of Aetna®, a CVS Health company, with plans to expand to MinuteClinic® and CVS Pharmacy locations, the initiative combines advanced environmental data analytics—which provide real-time, highly localized forecasting on air quality, wildfires, weather, and other environmental factors—with a patient’s medical and pharmacy data.
This proactive approach allows Aetna care managers to contact vulnerable patients with personalized recommendations up to seven days before an extreme weather event. Interventions include directing patients to CVS Health’s resources, such as Oak Street Health clinics available as cooling centers, health services at MinuteClinic locations, medication management at CVS Pharmacy, and more. Care managers rely on several resources, including CDC clinical guidance documents, when making clinical recommendations to at-risk patients.
During the first two weeks of the initiative, care managers have connected with hundreds of at-risk patients across more than 20 states, directing some to cooling centers and checking in with vulnerable patients post-hospital care to provide guidance on minimizing heat exhaustion. Anticipated outcomes include improved health, reduced medical expenditures, and fewer in-patient stays and emergency department visits.
