Participant Feedback and Quotations on Theme 3, “Recommendations for Screening and Interventions for Health-Related Social Needs,” from Focus Groups Conducted from September to October 2022 in a Primary Care Setting at a Texas Academic Medical Center
| Subtheme | Quotation |
|---|---|
| Workflow and process | “[Physicians] don't have to be the ones to do [screening] because we're just asking questions. It’s not about medicine, it's about their life, and anyone can ask questions about someone’s life.” |
| “[Patients] should also understand that you are trying to help them, not just have a checklist in front of you. So I don't think, an environment where a medical assistant or somebody at the front door with the checklist… I don’t think it would work.” | |
| “Is [screening] happening? Yes, it’s happening. How is it happening? Sporadic.” | |
| “I don’t feel like it’s as instinctive for us to do [screening] unless it’s on our radar or there’s some specific forms or something that we have to do.” | |
| “Everybody has to go through this [screening] process.” | |
| Resources/Actions | “They do have food pantries in certain areas that do service Galveston County as a whole, but it’s just the point of being able to get there, too.” |
| “If you really wanted to do this well, each clinic has to have a [on-site resource coordinator]. It really, really does.” | |
| Patient-centered approach | Teams need “to know the difference between when a patient is venting and when a referral is necessary, because sometimes a patient is just venting.” |
| “I don’t want to offer something that they will never qualify for, they will never get, they will never receive…It’s like giving them Christmas and then taking it away.” | |
| Teamwork | “Not to teach [medical students and residents] to go be social workers, but to teach them that there are resources out there so that they don’t just think life is helpless for this patient or hopeless for this patient.” |