Condition, diagnosis, or reason for seeking medical attention.

Data Element

SDOH Problems/Health Concerns
Description (*Please confirm or update this field for the new USCDI version*)

Social Determinants of Health-related health concerns, conditions, or diagnoses.

Examples include but are not limited to homelessness, and food insecurity.

Applicable Vocabulary Standard(s)

Applicable Standards (*Please confirm or update this field for the new USCDI version*)
  • Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT®) U.S. Edition, March 2023 Release
  • International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) 2023

Comment

CMS-CCSQ Recommends expanding SDOH element example domains

Recommendation: CMS CCSQ recommends the inclusion of health literacy, social isolation and transportation insecurity as additional example domains in the definitions for Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) data elements: SDOH Goals; SDOH Assessment; SDOH Problems/ Health Concerns; SDOH Interventions. Additionally, upgrade the SDOH data class from Level 0 to Level 2.

Rationale: CMS CCSQ appreciates the inclusion of health literacy as an example domain in the SDOH Assessment element and further recommends that ASTP/ONC include health literacy, social isolation and transportation insecurity as additional example domains in the definition for SDOH elements, since they are important domains that address social risks and are included in the Gravity Project SDOH elements. The Interoperability Standards Working Group (ISWG) supports ASTP/ONC’s collaboration with Gravity to include International Standards Atmosphere (ISA) pages for all Gravity domains, along with frequent updates to the USCDI SDOH element descriptions to assist implementers.
The World Health Organization estimates that SDOH accounts for 30-50% of health outcomes. In the case of transportation insecurity, patients may miss medical appointments, struggle to access rehabilitation services, or face difficulties with medication adherence, ultimately leading to worsened outcomes and higher healthcare costs. Similarly, social isolation can increase an individual’s risk of depression, anxiety, cognitive and functional decline, and frequent hospitalizations, all of which negatively impact patient outcomes and contribute to higher healthcare costs.  These reasons underscore the importance of including social isolation and transportation insecurity as key example domains for the SDOH data elements, in addition to the currently listed domains.
Therefore, promoting the SDOH data class to level 2 will further advance the goal of standardizing exchange of this data across the continuum of care, as a patient transitions through different health care facilities or settings. 

Supporting DEL data elements:
I. Transportation item – “Has lack of transportation kept you from medical appointments, meetings, work, or from getting things needed from daily living?”
    i. A1250  (IRF-PAI, LCDS, MDS, OASIS).
II. Social isolation item 
    i. D0700  (IRF-PAI, LCDS, MDS, OASIS).
Applicable Standards:
I. Social Isolation 
    i. LOINC code 93159-2.
    ii. Examples of standard codes that represent social isolation would be: 
        1. SNOMED-CT code 625891000000109 - "Social isolation."
        2. ICD-10 code Z60.2, "Problem related to living alone."
   
II. Transportation
    i. LOINC 93030-5  (OASIS). 
    ii. LOINC 101351-5  (IRF-PAI, LCDS, MDS).
Supporting IGs:
I. SDOH Clinical Care for Multiple Domains (v2.2.0: STU 2.2) based on FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) R4 (IG Home - SDOH Clinical Care v2.2.0).
    1. See the following profiles: SDOHCC Condition, SDOHCC Observation Screening Response, SDOHCC Procedure, SDOHCC ServiceRequest, SDOHCC Goal.

NACHC, PRAPARE and Gravity

Social Determinants of Health have been defined as:

 

They are a primary source of health inequities, lead to poorer health outcomes and interfere with a patient’s ability to participate in a health treatment plan. FQHCs have always been leaders in responding to SDOH concerns, as they serve populations with a high burden of unmet social and financial needs, and by definition provide enabling services, including case management, referrals, translation/interpretation, transportation, eligibility assistance, health education, environmental health risk reduction, health literacy, and outreach. These health-related and non-medical services address unmet needs that would interfere with successful participation in a medical treatment plan. Furthermore, health centers respond in a culturally-competent way, with diverse staff, community outreach and mental health and other emotional support tools.

 

NACHC is the co-creator and co-owner of PRAPARE, a national standardized patient risk assessment protocol built into the EHR designed to engage patients in assessing and addressing social determinants of health.

  • While FQHCs have been successful in asking their patients about and responding to SDOH needs, they have struggled to integrate these data into their EHRs and workflows in part because of lack of standardization around the data form and manner and the lack of regular use of structured terminology to describe these data (see Figure 2 below). Standardizing the PRAPARE domains and coding along with the Uniform Data Set (UDS) domains would significantly improve this gap.
  • Further work is needed to fill in similar gaps around essential services and social interventions and we encourage ONC to create a data class for Social Interventions which we would suggest would be used both for Referrals and for Encounters for social services. 
  •  

Addressing SDOH in clinical settings: 

  • To address SDOH in clinical settings we will need to promote content to facilitate improved patient-centered outcomes. To that extent, NACHC has initiated a working collaboration with EHR vendors and Community Health Center partners to improve the collection and operationalization of SDOH data. Our model, highlighted in Figure 3, includes an expansion of the team curating the problem list, coupled with a share care plan between various health care providers. To this extent, we support electronic care plan standards for documentation and interoperability. 

 

Please see attached document for a detailed summary of our comments on SDoH

2022-04-30 NACHC USCDIv3 Letter of Support_0.pdf

Log in or register to post comments