Next Steps
Select each item to learn how to make changes at your facility to better gather and document your patients’ SDOH information.
Stakeholders
Consult groups affected by changes at the organizational-level, including
- Staff, both clinical staff like health care providers and support staff like reception, coders, and medical billers: Collecting and using SDOH information may take more time. Consulting with a team can reduce this burden.
- Patients: Many patients are happy to answer questions about their social circumstances, but not all will welcome it. Consult with patients to overcome these barriers.
- Community organizations: Community organizations are often an untapped resource for valuable non-clinical care that can help patients. Sometimes they’re overwhelmed by demands. Consult with them to figure out who’s ready to work with your facility and who needs extra support.
Organizational Readiness
Even if patients and staff say there’s a clear need and community partners agree to do something about it, your organization may not be ready.
- Perhaps your data collection and screening system still uses paper or your Electronic Health Record (EHR) system doesn’t have an SDOH module. Maybe you don’t have enough staff.
- Consider what data you can gather and what you can do with the data before committing to collecting SDOH. Think about ways to be deliberate and systematic in collecting SDOH information. Maybe consult another facility that collects SDOH data via Z codes. Or form a virtual physician group with other small facilities to pay for more staff or systems.
Training for Personnel
To collect and use SDOH data using ICD-10-CM Z codes, organizations must train both clinical and non-clinical staff. This course is a good introduction.
For more training, consider approaches like asking EHR vendors to run trainings on their specific systems.