Study Finds Screening for Social Needs Lacking in Hospitals and Practices – The Cardiology Advisor

Social needs including food, housing, utilities, transportation and exposure to interpersonal violence are well known to be linked to health outcomes. In fact, up to 90% of health outcomes are a result of social, behavioral, and economic factors.1 However, few hospitals or practices screen patients comprehensively for the aforementioned factors that affect health outcomes, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open.2

Although most hospitals and practices are not required to screen forsocial needs, many federal programs and national associations are developingtools aimed at identifying patients with social needs. The current study wasdesigned to examine whether practices and hospitals were embracing suchscreening practices.

We believe systematic use of screening is a required first step to attend to social needs and improve health; addressing resource barriers such as time, information, and money, may be a key element in supporting physicians and hospitals in efforts to screen patients for social needs, the authors said.

The researchers used data from the 2017 to 2018 National Survey ofHealthcare Organizations and Systems (NSHOS) to assess screening for foodinsecurity, housing instability, utility needs, transportation needs, orinterpersonal violence in primary care physician practices (n=2190) andnonspecialty acute care hospitals (n=739).

Screening for all 5 social needs was reported by 24.4% of hospitalsand 15.6% of practices; 8.0% of hospitals and 33.3% of practices reported noscreening at all. The most common screening was for interpersonal violence(practices: 56.4%; hospitals: 75.0%); screening for utility needs, such as heat,electricity, and gas was practiced with the least frequency (practices: 23.1%;hospitals: 35.5%).

Federally qualified health centers, bundled payment participants, primary care improvement models, and Medicaid accountable care organizations were found to have the highest rates of screening. Practices located in Medicaid expansion states as well as those with more revenue from Medicaid were also more likely to screen. Academic medical centers represented the most common type of hospital that performed screening.

Practices and hospitals that did not screen for social needs were morelikely to report a lack of financial resources, time, and incentives.

Despite the spotlight on the importance of social needs, there is littleconsensus about responsibility for addressing social needs or the best approachesto the problem, the authors noted.

Anyone in theclinical setting could advocate for practice-wide or systemwide implementationof screening or, if appropriate, they could start screening patients using avalidated tool, noted Laura Binder, a co-author of the study.

References

This article originally appeared on Clinical Advisor

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Study Finds Screening for Social Needs Lacking in Hospitals and Practices - The Cardiology Advisor