Identifying Social Drivers of Health and Connecting Patients with Community Resources that Can Help

Recently, Epic Corp. highlighted Houston Methodist’s efforts and notable results, with interviews and quotes by Lisa Stephenson, chief nursing informatics officer, and Aroub Khleif, administrative director, IT ambulatory clinical systems and innovation. Read the article below.

In 2022, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published an updated Framework for Health Equity to further advance health equity, expand coverage, and improve health outcomes for more than 170 million individuals supported by CMS programs. The framework sets a foundation, in part, to eliminate barriers to CMS-supported benefits, services and coverage.

Businessman shaking hands with colleague after meeting in office

Since then, Houston Methodist’s health equity steering committee took action to go beyond the new requirements and use screening data to connect patients with the support they need. Some of the partners we’ve connected patients with include the Houston Food Bank, The Council on Recovery and the Houston Women’s Shelter.

In one year since this initiative began, HM went from screening less than 1% of patients for SDOH to screening more than 37%, well above the Epic community average, and providing a more complete overview of the social factors affecting patients’ health.

Identifying Social Drivers of Health and Connecting Patients with Community Resources that Can Help

In one year since this initiative began, HM went from screening less than 1% of patients for SDOH to screening more than 37%, well above the Epic community average, and providing a more complete overview of the social factors affecting patients’ health.

Click here to read the full article.