By - Idaho Health Data Exchange (IHDE), Idaho’s statewide health information exchange, announced it is implementing a search and referral platform for its users to better understand social determinants of health (SDOH) and enhance the exchange of that data.
Furthermore, the platform aims to help IHDE users connect their respective patients with social services.
SDOH, which are the factors that go beyond patient care, impact 80 percent of an individual’s health, IHDE said.
Aunt Bertha, a social care network, aims to connect IHDE’s providers with SDOH data to look for relevant community resources to refer a patient in need.
According to the vendor, it is currently connected to over 2,000 social service organizations throughout Idaho.
“IHDE’s new partnership allows a participant to access Aunt Bertha’s network as they are working in a patient record,” Hans Kastensmith, executive director of IHDE, said in a statement. “This partnership will provide support for a more complete, well-coordinated service through a single access point to an individual’s medical record for referral capabilities.”
With Idaho being a rural state, SDOH data is especially critical to analyze and report on outcomes for both the healthcare system and the community.
Research shows that identifying and implementing a patient’s SDOH into the EHR is crucial to finding answers to a state’s most significant issues. Relevant SDOH data can include tobacco and alcohol use, exercise, access to nutritional food, stable housing, reliability of transportation, and many more.
This partnership aims to provide resources, such as public safety, increased access to health services, availability to healthy foods, access to education, and affordable housing throughout Idaho, while also providing a platform to improve patient care across the state.
Aunt Bertha will provide Idaho-based health systems and community-based organizations with tools and tips to enhance interoperability, said the company.
As noted, SDOH and behavioral data are not easy pieces of data to exchange.
“A lack of consensus on standards for capturing and representing SDOH data creates barriers to its collection and use, as does navigating legal parameters for cross-sector information sharing,” eHealth Exchange officials wrote in a 2019 report.
In fact, SDOH and behavioral health data are the most difficult types of information to share through HIEs, according to the report, and the lack interoperability continues to pose a significant hurdle for health organizations.
“Interoperability remains a major challenge because even though we have datasets available to us through the federal government or through local organizations and local community groups, that data is often not brought into the EHR system,” Brian Dixon, PhD, director of public health at the Regenstrief Institute, said in an interview with EHRIntelligence.
“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.”
Although integrating SDOH to an HIE is challenging, an increasing number of statewide HIEs are accepting this challenge.
In June, Nebraska Health Information Initiative (NEHII), Nebraska’s statewide health information exchange (HIE), announced it is implementing behavioral health data, such as SDOH, into its HIE.
The statewide HIE partnered with Unite Us, a network of social services organizations, to create Unite Nebraska, which aims to connect health and social care providers to enhance care coordination and delivery across the state.
With this partnership, Nebraskans can access nutrition services, employment and benefits, and housing through community-based organizations. The two groups aim to break down existing barriers between clinical and social care providers, enabling them to provide care with trackable outcomes data.
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August 04, 2020 at 08:30PM
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ID Health Information Exchange Implements SDOH Tool - EHRIntelligence.com
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