Best Practices for Integrating SDOH Data Into the EHR

Identifying and implementing social determinants of health (SDOH) data into the EHR is critical to finding answers to a state’s most significant issues.

Once identified, SDOH data helps healthcare providers make social services referrals, but the process for doing so using technology is challenging.

“Connectivity remains a challenge,” Dixon continued. “A lot of the focus right now is on generating a summary of care from that encounter and maybe passes it onto the next provider or potentially accessing historical clinical information on the patient. But there is not a lot of interoperability between clinical organizations and non-healthcare or non-clinical organizations.”

Health systems across the country are attempting to implement SDOH data into EHRs and health information exchanges (HIEs). However, most health systems face significant issues, such as interoperability, when implementing SDOH into the EHR.