By Janet Campbell (Epic), Chair, EHR Association Social Determinants of Health & Health Equity Task Force
A patient’s risk within social determinant of health (SDOH) domains is typically assessed by social care or healthcare professionals through either conversation or use of standard screening questionnaires or validated testing instruments. The challenge, however, is a lack of consensus on which specific domains should be assessed for patients, and how they should be assessed.
(more…)Posted by EHR Association on May 14, 2024
https://ehrablog.org/2024/05/14/recommendations-for-capturing-social-determinants/
By EHR Association SDOH & Health Equity Task Force
Global Health Equity Week, October 23 – 27, 2023, is a week of action that seeks to spotlight the transformative capabilities of health information and technology in reshaping healthcare, reducing health disparities, and improving access to healthcare for all communities. As part of its mission to improve the quality and efficiency of care through innovative, interoperable health IT adoption and use, the EHR Association continues to appeal to lawmakers and national regulators in support of expanding access to telehealth, addressing social determinants of health (SDOH), and increasing interoperability between healthcare providers and community-based organizations (CBOs).
(more…)Posted by EHR Association on October 24, 2023
https://ehrablog.org/2023/10/24/global-health-equity-week-bridging-healthcare-disparities-through-technology-and-policy-advocacy/
By Toni Wilken (Meditech), Vice Chair, Quality Measures Workgroup
Creation of the proposed Addressing Social Needs (ASN) electronic quality measure (eCQM) supports the important goal of addressing an unmet need in patient care by helping to improve screening and coordination with local and community-based resources. However, the EHR Association has identified several issues with the measure as proposed by its developer, Yale New Haven Health Services Corporation–Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE), which we shared recently in our response to CORE’s call for comments.
ASN eCQM
Briefly, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) engaged CORE to develop a re-designed measure to evaluate how well hospitals were screening for and following up on the social needs of their patients. The result was the ASN eCQM, which is designed to measure screening of patients for social needs within four domains – food insecurity, housing insecurity, utility insecurity, and transportation insecurity – as well as if an intervention activity is performed.
(more…)Posted by EHR Association on August 14, 2023
https://ehrablog.org/2023/08/14/scoring-is-a-primary-concern-with-cores-proposed-asn-ecqm/
By Janet Campbell (Epic), Chair, SDOH & Health Equity Task Force
Recognizing an important opportunity for the EHR Association to be a proactive leader in the burgeoning and increasingly critical field of social determinants of health (SDOH) and health equity, the Association has kicked off its recently established SDOH & Health Equity Task Force.
EHRs have revolutionized the healthcare industry and even how care is delivered. But the practice of addressing social risks and delivering care equitably varies widely across organizations. Thus the role of the EHR – and therefore the role of health IT developers – remains largely undefined. The potential for EHRs to advance SDOH and health equity is significant, including the proactive collection of demographic and determinant data, segmenting quality reports to uncover disparities, and facilitating prompt closed-loop community-based organization (CBO) referrals.
(more…)Posted by EHR Association on July 2, 2023
https://ehrablog.org/2023/07/02/sdoh-and-health-equity-task-force/
Developer and Community Perspectives
By EHRA Public Policy Leadership Workgroup
Health equity and social determinants of health (SDOH) currently play a large role in the national conversation on health care, with the Biden Administration ranking it as one of its highest priorities. Practically, however, these discussions have been underway for years.
SDOH and health equity are a public policy and care coordination challenge, one that health IT can play an important role in resolving. Consider that 80% of health is determined by non-clinical factors. However, there is a wide information gap separating healthcare organizations and the social and community agencies at the forefront of identifying and addressing these socioeconomic needs. Health IT and interoperability standards facilitate the secure, seamless exchange of patient data between these environments to improve population and individual patient health outcomes.
(more…)Posted by EHR Association on October 27, 2021
https://ehrablog.org/2021/10/27/sdoh-and-health-equity-summarizing-the-ehra-congressional-briefing/
EHRA Blog 