Family Physicians Debate Social Determinants of Health

HealthLandscape has long recognized the value of Social Determinants of Health - the idea that socioeconomic and demographic characteristics play significant roles in influencing health outcomes. This idea has been gaining traction over the past few years, with organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention releasing new guidelines on Health Outcomes and Determinants.

In their March/April 2016 issue, the Annals of Family Medicine ran three pieces discussing the integration of social determinants of health into primary care practice.

Alongside our colleagues at OHSU and OCHIN, Dr. Andrew Bazemore and Jené Grandmont represented the HealthLandscape team in the authorship of the main editorial article, "Perspectives in Primary Care: A Conceptual Framework and Path for Integrating Social Determinants of Health Into Primary Care Practice." This editorial discusses the importance of incorporating social determinants of health into the process of care. The article addresses the idea of standardizing the SDoH to be collected at the point of care, in line with the 11 domains recommended by the National Academy of Medicine in their 2014 report "Capturing Social and Behavioral Domains and Measures in Electronic Health Records." Further, the piece begins to explore an integration framework, considering how SDoH might best be used for practice and research.

The follow-up point/counterpoint section features two physicians debating the benefits of placing social determinants of health onto a primary care physician's already overloaded plate. While both writers recognize the value of incorporating patient and community data, opinions differ on what the physician's role in that process should be and how effectively a physician can use that information to help their patients.

It will be interesting to see where these conversations take us in the world of health care delivery, and we're excited to be a part of it.

Want more information about social determinants of health? Visit our Population Health Mapper to explore community characteristics and health outcomes in your area or check out the HealthLandscape Community Vitals API, a powerful tool that allows researchers and others to append extracts of the HealthLandscape community data pool to their de-identified clinical records in order to study the impact of social and behavioral factors on health outcomes.

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Report From Esri User Conference 2015

The Esri International User Conference takes place each summer in San Diego, California. The HealthLandscape application is built on the esri ArcGIS platform, so we regularly attend the conference to discuss our work and to stay current in esri technology and trends. It’s a great opportunity to mingle with other data geeks, learn some new tips and tricks, and see what kinds of new and exciting projects our peers are working on. As always, the agenda was packed full of interesting sessions, educational opportunities, and user group meetings.

This year, I had the opportunity to present two moderated session papers on behalf of the team. Both presentations discussed the importance of looking at patients in the context of their home communities, but from two very different perspectives; public health research and individual practitioners.

Accelerating Data Value Across a National CHC Network introduced the new HealthLandscape Geocode API, which allows organizations to append community and social determinants data to patient-level data: giving them a unique way to enrich their investigations of patient-centered outcomes. Appending these types of data will allow for the exploration of clinical and disease-oriented service areas, hotspots, and coldspots. The Community Context of Health Center Patients focused on how we can use population-based big data and geospatial technologies to understand the social and environmental influences on the health of a physician’s patient panel through the idea of Community Vital Signs - as patient vital signs provide a biometric snapshot of an individual’s health status, community vital signs provide an environmental health perspective. Taken together, we can improve the care that patients are receiving. Both of these projects will be featured as detailed blog posts in the coming weeks.

In addition to our paper presentations, HealthLandscape was once again recognized as one of the top three GIS applications in the User Conference Applications Fair. The HealthLandscape Population Health Mapper builds upon the idea of “Place Matters,” a concept discussed in a recent blog. Users can select county-level metrics from seven categories identified by the CDC as recommended Health Outcomes and Health Determinants, using a slider bar to set thresholds and easily identify counties that perform poorly compared to the national average. We've highlighted this tool on the blog and will be hosting a “Population Health Mapper” webinar on Wednesday, August 19th. Click here to register, or contact us by email for more information.

I always enjoy the time that I spend at the Esri User Conference and I never fail to return home with new collaboration opportunities, new skills, and new ideas. I’m thrilled to take home another HealthLandscape award this year, too.

Jené Grandmont
Senior Manager, Application Development and Data Services
HealthLandscape