Before she treats a new patient, Henna Qureshi, DO, is equipped with more information from the chart than many physicians.
She knows whether the patient and their family have trouble getting healthy food on the table. She knows whether they are experiencing social isolation, or whether their family struggles to find transportation and pay their rent.
That’s because her employer, Inova Health System, gathers, analyzes, and uses data on social determinants of health (SDOH) to improve health outcomes. Armed with that information, Dr. Qureshi is better prepared to help patients with problems that go beyond what they see in the exam room.
SDOH data does more than connect patients to social services organizations that aid with housing, economic security, food, and other needs. Health information (HI) leaders say that understanding SDOH helps guide treatment plans, for example, providing transportation to get necessary procedures and care, addressing social isolation problems that contribute to depression and other mental health issues, and getting healthy food to manage conditions like diabetes.
“It's changed the way I’ve practiced because I get to better know the patient,” says Dr. Qureshi, physician lead for SDOH at Inova Health System. “If you just see patient’s current symptoms or if you’re just thinking of a diagnosis, you're missing so much about that person, including understanding that they have other stressors they’re bringing with them into the visit.”
“Understanding these factors can help us collaborate with patients to create a better plan,” she says. “It has really helped me to know the person as a person.”
Using SDOH Data in Healthcare
Dr. Qureshi will be among the presenters speaking about the importance of SDOH data in healthcare at the Data for Better Health® Virtual Leadership Summit on June 10 from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. CT. The summit is a free virtual event designed to help HI leaders and decision-makers know how to put SDOH data to work in meaningful ways and improve patient care. Registration for the event is available online.
AHIMA launched Data for Better Health to increase awareness of how collecting, using, and sharing SDOH data can improve individual and community health outcomes. Through the initiative, AHIMA is creating tools, resources, and education to support a better understanding of the importance of SDOH data and how it can be used to improve health and healthcare outcomes. The recording from an April webinar on sharing SDOH data to improve outcomes and other resources from AHIMA are available on the Data for Better Health website.
This year, AHIMA issued a member-exclusive resource, “Social Determinants of Health: Identifying Documentation Gaps in Workflow,” to provide an actionable framework for HI professionals, clinical teams, and organizational leaders. The AHIMA resource on SDOH is a call to action that challenges health organizations to elevate SDOH documentation from a box-checking exercise to a core part of care delivery.
At the upcoming Virtual Leadership Summit, healthcare executives, HI professionals, and others from across the country will explore how SDOH data can advance strategy, drive community health, and improve care delivery.
The summit will provide participants with:
- Real-world examples of successful SDOH programs and how they align with organizational goals
- Federal policy updates that help inform staff on how to continue this work
- A better understanding of how HI professionals are leading behind the scenes
- Insights from those who will offer best practices and help strengthen SDOH strategies
Asking Patients about Housing, Food Issues
During the summit, Animesh Sabnis, MD, MSHS, will participate in a panel discussion to highlight the critical role that HI professionals are playing in how organizations collect, use, and share SDOH information. He is director of health equity analytics and strategy for UCLA Health System, where universal social driver screening asks about financial challenges, housing issues, food security, and other issues. In his role, he works with partners across the health system to implement system-wide solutions for health inequities experienced by patient populations at UCLA Health and beyond.
At UCLA Health, care coordination and case management professionals work with community partner organizations to connect patients to resources. In addition, patients can be referred to an online directory of local resources to help meet their needs.
“If you’re having trouble paying your bills or finding food, that’s difficult to talk about,” says Dr. Sabnis, who also is an associate professor of pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “So we train people to discuss these topics sensitively to get the most accurate information and do that in hospitals, as well as in outpatient ambulatory settings, so that we can have a real understanding about the needs of our whole population.”
HI professionals are a key part of these efforts at UCLA Health, Dr. Sabnis says. For example, they create and build the tools the health system uses to gather such information, making it more efficient to compile information through technology rather than paper tracking.
“We have the opportunity to identify more patient needs that existed previously but weren’t captured, because this has become a standardized process,” he says. “Even if health informatics professionals don’t find themselves in the room with the patient, their work is in the room with every patient.”
To continue making strides in the use of SDOH data, Dr. Sabnis says health organizations should share best practices on gathering and using SDOH data to find solutions that work to help everyone in the healthcare system.
“To me, it’s crucial to share information because the whole purpose of our industry is to improve the health of the whole population,” he says. Events like the Data for Better Health Summit are where that sharing happens.
The Role of HI Professionals
During her discussion at the summit, Dr. Qureshi will talk about why collecting and using SDOH data matters in healthcare. She says HI professionals play an important role with others on the healthcare team as they put information to use on behalf of patients.
“Their work around this has lots of value beyond producing reports, sharing technical data, and creating workflows and processes,” she says. “The information they help us collect allows us to go beyond symptoms on the chart, to change the way we are practicing medicine and change the way care is provided.”
She says that her clinic, Inova Cares Clinic for Children, has been screening for SDOH data long enough now that patients’ families are comfortable giving information and asking for resources.
“They come in and say, ‘Hey, I need connected to a food pantry’ or ‘I need access to transportation,’ “ says Dr. Qureshi, a pediatrician. “It’s meant to be part of the conversation, and now it’s come to the point where they will ask me, which is wonderful. It tells me that people now identify our clinic as their medical home.”
Damon Adams is content production editor for AHIMA.