Exchanging Social Determinants Data to Boost Population Health

Of the countless pieces of information needed to enhance population health, social determinants of health data are among the most critical.

While it’s widely understood that non-clinical factors have a significant impact on patient health, collecting and sharing this information is no small task.

“The biggest challenge to collecting data in the EHR itself is the human resources needed to document the individual social determinants of a patient,” Brian Dixon, director of public health informatics at Regenstrief Institute, Inc. and Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI, said during a recent episode of Healthcare Strategies, an Xtelligent Healthcare Media Podcast.

Listen to the full podcast to hear more details. And don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.

“We ask providers to document a lot of details about the patient's clinical status – their symptoms, diagnoses, and treatment plans. It really isn't fair to ask clinicians to document additional information. The other challenge is capturing those data outside of the clinical domain and identifying the sources that are capturing the data today. Can those data be standardized? And then how do we integrate those data into the electronic health record?”

To broaden access and sharing of social determinants of health data, Regenstrief Institute partnered with the Indiana Health Information Exchange to launch the Indiana Network for Population Health.

“Over time, it has become increasingly clear that clinicians need to both document and understand the social determinants of health. The health information exchange that exists within Indiana today largely focuses on direct patient care,” said Dixon.

“We started to talk about how it was time for us to expand that information exchange to include social determinants data. We came up with the concept of the Indiana Network for Population Health, which integrates social determinants of health data into our clinical data exchange.”

Collecting and sharing patients’ social determinants data will help providers recognize specific ways individuals can improve their own physical health.

“Understanding the context around patients, in terms of their economic situation or their living conditions, can be very helpful in then making precise recommendations to the patient or the patient’s parents,” Dixon noted.

“Providers can better suggest how patients can take steps to not only take their medication to treat their disease, but also how they can make those behavioral changes or other lifestyle changes that impact their overall health and wellbeing.”