Software developed at Purdue aims to streamline social service referrals
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A software platform designed by three Purdue University professors is helping primary care case managers connect patients with a variety of social services.
Known as Bridges, the software is linked to Indiana 211, a division of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration designed provide Hoosiers with help from thousands of health and human service resources in their communities.
Nicole Adams, a clinical associate professor of nursing at Purdue who helped develop the software, said the platform will soon be enhanced after more data is collected from users.
In an interview with Inside INdiana Business, Adams referred to the software as an electronic version of a social worker’s three-ring binder.
“It has a 100% customizable database within it that the user builds themselves, and that allows them to be able to manage which social service organizations they want to refer people to,” Adams said. “It also includes a screening tool that is kind of a universal social determinants of health screening tool to help them kind of sort in which of those organizations they want to refer someone to.”
Adams developed Bridges along with Nan Kong, professor of biomedical engineering, and Baijian Yang, professor of computer technology.
The software was originally developed for the federal Health Resources and Services Administration competition in 2023, in which the Purdue team placed second out of 134 competitors, earning a $100,000 prize. The administration said the software “streamlined the screening and social-service referral process.
Adams said the software is particularly beneficial to Federally Qualified Health Centers, which typically serve vulnerable populations. In addition to connecting people with needed resources, Bridges allows case managers to set follow-up reminders to check in with their patients to find out if the services they referred the patients to were helpful.
“Our software system also tracks where they’ve been referred and if they get the service they need,” Adams said. “Once we have enough data collected, we can use machine learning to continually improve the recommendations of services for individual clients. Using all that data, the system will continually learn which services should be assigned first to get the biggest improvements and best health outcomes.”
Adams said feedback from the case managers using the software will also help improve Indiana 211’s database.
“We’re working on additional links with [Indiana] 211, so that eventually, when our purchase users make a change, that data will refer back to 211. So they get a constant stream of updates, making their database up to date and really robust.”
Indiana 211 Director Tara Morse said Bridges has become an extension of the service.
“We promote equity, and we connect the people of Indiana to health and human service resources through highly skilled navigators, continuous community collaboration and a robust community database and technological innovations,” Morse said in a news release. “Indiana 211 aims to be the ‘source of truth’ by providing the most accurate resources possible. The Bridges project provides additional access to these resources.”
Looking ahead, Adams said the team is hoping to gather more feedback from users on how the Bridges software can be improved and provide more data back to Indiana 211. Long-term, she said the goal is to expand the software nationally.
“If I want to look at how social determinants of health influence the outcomes of people with diabetes, I can’t find data to do that analysis,” Adams said. “Bridges will first gather this kind of data throughout Indiana and then expand nationally. The software gives us the potential to create the first national-level, unique data set on social determinants of health.”
Currently, Bridges is made up of the three professors and has a contract with software team at Purdue that built out the platform. Adams said they are looking to grow the team with more folks in software development, data analytics, and marketing.