Abstract
Background: “Social determinants of heath” (SDHs) are nonclinical factors that profoundly affect health. Helping community health centers (CHCs) document patients' SDH data in electronic health records (EHRs) could yield substantial health benefits, but little has been reported about CHCs' development of EHR-based tools for SDH data collection and presentation.
Methods: We worked with 27 diverse CHC stakeholders to develop strategies for optimizing SDH data collection and presentation in their EHR, and approaches for integrating SDH data collection and the use of those data (eg, through referrals to community resources) into CHC workflows.
Results: We iteratively developed a set of EHR-based SDH data collection, summary, and referral tools for CHCs. We describe considerations that arose while developing the tools and present some preliminary lessons learned.
Conclusion: Standardizing SDH data collection and presentation in EHRs could lead to improved patient and population health outcomes in CHCs and other care settings. We know of no previous reports of processes used to develop similar tools. This article provides an example of 1 such process. Lessons from our process may be useful to health care organizations interested in using EHRs to collect and act on SDH data. Research is needed to empirically test the generalizability of these lessons.
In this issue
Jump to section
Related Articles
Cited By...
- Variation in monitoring: Glucose measurement in the ICU as a case study to preempt spurious correlations
- Implementation of Social Isolation Screening and an Integrated Community Resource Referral Platform
- Food Insecurity Screening in Safety-Net Clinics in Los Angeles County: Lessons for Post-Pandemic Planning
- Food Insecurity Screening in Safety-Net Clinics in Los Angeles County: Lessons for Post-Pandemic Planning
- Mise en œuvre dinterventions sociales en soins de sante primaires
- Implementing social interventions in primary care
- Using ICD-10-based Social Determinants of Health Categories to Assess Patients Risk for Acute Care Utilization
- A Practice-Based Research Network (PBRN) Roadmap for Evaluating COVID-19 in Community Health Centers: A Report From the OCHIN PBRN
- The Impact of Social and Clinical Complexity on Diabetes Control Measures
- Primary Care Is an Essential Ingredient to a Successful Population Health Improvement Strategy
- Adoption of Social Determinants of Health EHR Tools by Community Health Centers
- Living in "Cold Spot" Communities Is Associated with Poor Health and Health Quality
- In This Issue: Opiates, Tobacco, Social Determinants of Health, Social Accountability for Non-Profit Hospitals, More on PCMH, and Clinical Topics