Trust and Patient-Centeredness Workgroup: Action Plan to Collect and Use Social Determinants of Health Data in Patient-Centered Clinical Decision Support

This action plan describes critical needs for ensuring the incorporation of social determinants of health factors across the patient-centered clinical decision support lifecycle.

Developed by the AHRQ Clinical Decision Support Innovation Collaborative’s Trust and Patient-Centeredness Workgroup, this action plan identifies five needs and 11 opportunities to support the collection and use of social determinants of health (SDOH) data for patient-centered clinical decision support (PC CDS).

September 20, 2024

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Contextualizing clinical recommendations based on individual social risk factors and health-related social needs is vital for patient-centered care. PC CDS may be strengthened by integrating information about SDOH to provide individualized and holistic care recommendations. While there is agreement that SDOH are important to PC CDS, there is a need to identify opportunities that will advance the use of this information in PC CDS tools to comprehensively address patients’ health-related social needs.

About the Report
Developed through a literature review and key informant interviews with clinicians, researchers, and patient advocates, this action plan identifies needs, key challenges, current efforts, and future opportunities to support the collection and use of SDOH data for PC CDS. The needs include:

Identifying clinical guidelines that incorporate SDOH to develop PC CDS tools
Understanding what SDOH data PC CDS should incorporate
Routinely capturing SDOH factors and establishing PC CDS workflows to support social risk-informed care
Standardizing representation of SDOH data to support data capture and integration for PC CDS development
Measuring the effectiveness of PC CDS tools that incorporate SDOH

How to Use This Report
Clinicians, researchers, health information technology developers, public health experts, federal agencies, and community organizations can use this action plan to better understand the barriers associated with the collection of SDOH data and their use in PC CDS. The action plan also provides recommendations for overcoming them to make care delivery more equitable, impactful, and tailored to the diverse needs of patients.

Suggested Citation: Shah A, Dobes A, Abdulhay L, Desai P, Ancker J, Peterson C, Dullabh P, and the CDSiC Trust and Patient-Centeredness Workgroup: Action Plan to Collect and Use Social Determinants of Health Data in Patient-Centered Clinical Decision Support. Prepared under Contract No. 75Q80120D00018. AHRQ Publication No. 4-0069-7-EF. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; September 2024.