What does social isolation have to do with my arthritis? Patient and provider views of the implementation of an electronic Social Determinants of Health risk assessment tool

Abstract

Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) are the conditions in which people are born, live, learn, work, and play that can affect health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes. The Institute of Medicine charged healthcare institutions with capturing and measuring patient SDoH risk factors through the electronic health record. Following the implementation of a social determinants of health electronic module across a major health institution, the response to institutional implementation was evaluated. To assess the response, a multidisciplinary team interviewed patients and providers, mapped the workflow, and performed simulated tests to trace the flow of SDoH data from survey item responses to visualization in EHR output for clinicians. Major results of this investigation were: 1) the lack of patient consensus about value of collecting SDOH data, and 2) the disjointed view of patient reported SDoH risks across patients, providers, and the electronic health record due to the way data was collected and visualized.