Social Determinants of Healthcare

Full Title

The use of data reflecting Social Determinants of Healthcare (SDOH) – the conditions in which people live, learn, work, and play – remains much more limited across healthcare.

Context

HHS Secretary Alex M. Azar II gave a talk at the Hatch Foundation for Civility and Solutions on 2018-11-14 and said

Social determinants of health is an abstract term, but for millions of Americans, it is a very tangible, frightening challenge: How can someone manage diabetes if they are constantly worrying about how they’re going to afford their meals each week? How can a mother with an asthmatic son really improve his health if it’s their living environment that’s driving his condition? This can feel like a frustrating, almost fruitless position for a healthcare provider, who understands what is driving the health conditions they’re trying to treat, who wants to help, but can’t simply write a prescription for healthy meals, a new home, or clean air.

Problems

• HHS spends over $1 trillion a year on healthcare for elderly and vulnerable Americans through Medicare and Medicaid, which far outstrips any other investments the federal government makes in Americans’ well-being outside of healthcare.

Solutions

• At the federal level the costs in healthcare could be reduced by paying more attention to the Social Determinants of Healthcare.
• Since the release of ONC’s 2015 Certification Edition, 72 health IT developers have voluntarily certified 93 unique products to an SDOH-oriented certification criterion. These 72 developers provide technology to approximately half of all office-based clinicians and nearly a third of hospitals[1], which are certified to record, change and access these SDOH data elements in a patient record: