SCAN’s PATH Program Wins Hearst Health Prize

SCAN, a nonprofit healthcare company that operates SCAN Health Plan, has been awarded the 2025 Hearst Health Prize for its Patients at Their Home (PATH) platform, which supports the work of primary care clinicians who treat senior patients in their homes, in nursing homes, and in assisted living facilities.

The Hearst Health Prize is an annual competition that showcases data science programs making a health impact. Chuck Tuchinda, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Hearst Health, presented the award on May 28 at the UCLA Health Data Day Symposium. 

SCAN Health Plan serves more than 300,000 members in California, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, and New Mexico. Independence at Home, a SCAN Health Plan community service, provides services and support to seniors and their caregivers. Since 2020, SCAN has launched four mission-aligned medical groups, including Healthcare in Action, Welcome Health, Homebase Medical and myPlace Health, each of which focuses on meeting the needs of older adults.

PATH integrates data from sources such as EHRs, claims history, and health risk assessments to create a comprehensive and holistic view of each patient. The platform analyzes this data to generate an individual risk score, prioritizing and weighting specific factors based on the 4Ms of geriatrics, an evidence-based framework used to support high-quality care for older adults. This information is synthesized to provide clinicians with a complete view of their patient panel, stratified by medical acuity, and to optimize the routing and scheduling of patient visits. 

“Launched in 2023, PATH is now a standard component of care protocols and is used by over 65 clinicians serving over 6,000 patients across SCAN’s operations,” said Vinay Kulkarni, chief information officer at SCAN, in a statement. “The platform has contributed to meaningful time savings for clinical and administrative teams as well as improved outcomes for patients.”

In a statement, SCAN Vice President of Primary Care Gabriel Waterman, M.D., M.B.A., stated, “In a traditional brick-and-mortar ambulatory practice, patients call in to request a visit or schedule a follow-up. In our model providing home-based primary care, a clinician could enter a senior living facility with over 100 patients and must be able to identify who needs to be seen immediately and which visits can be deprioritized. PATH helps clinicians make informed decisions about where to invest their time while also ensuring each patient gets the care they need when they need it.”

“While many systems perform risk stratification, PATH is unique in that it allows clinicians to customize their view based on a range of inputs, incorporating actionable recommendations to guide effective treatment decisions for higher-risk patients,” added Anthony Nguyen, M.D., chief executive officer of Welcome Health, in a statement. Welcome is SCAN’s medical group that provides primary care to older adults.

“By identifying patients in real time as they’re leaving the hospital or the nursing home and prioritizing their care, we’ve been able to achieve an industry-leading 7.5% readmission rate, Waterman added. “This has had a significant financial impact but most importantly we’re keeping people healthy by ensuring the right patients are receiving the right care at the right time.”

“Our partnership with Hearst Health originated to recognize impactful data science initiatives. We aim to inspire further advances by showcasing approaches like PATH, that have proven to be effective and show applicability to transform outcomes in other areas of care,” said Alex Bui, Ph.D., UCLA professor and co-director of the UCLA Center for AI & SMART Health, in a statement.