HITEQ Resources & Events

Is your health center currently in the process of considering, implementing, or revamping a social needs screening program within your EHR or health IT system? This learning collaborative taught participants about health center promising practices and key considerations to support the successful collection, monitoring, and addressing of social needs data. During the series, participants explored the levels of maturity in the social needs screening implementation process.

The levels of maturity included: 

• Level 1: Coming to Consensus
• Level 2: Implementing a Social Needs Screening Tool
• Level 3: Responding to Positive Screens
• Level 4: Monitoring and Using Data

Participants gained information on concrete strategies and IT solutions that have helped to improve internal systems, such as EHR utilization and care team workflows, and increase their capacity to advance individual and population-level health. The HITEQ Center partnered with the Louisiana Primary Care Association to design this series. Louisiana-based health centers were showcased throughout the series to share their experiences with social needs screening, including successes, challenges, and lessons learned.

Is your health center currently in the process of considering, implementing, or revamping a social needs screening program within your EHR or health IT system? Join this learning collaborative to learn about health center promising practices and key considerations to support the successful collection, monitoring, and addressing of social needs data. During the series, participants explored the levels of maturity in the social needs screening implementation process. The levels of maturity included: 

• Level 1: Coming to Consensus
• Level 2: Implementing a Social Needs Screening Tool
• Level 3: Responding to Positive Screens
• Level 4: Monitoring and Using Data

Addressing patients’ social determinants of health via community resource referrals has historically primarily been the domain of social workers and information and referral specialists; however, community resource referral technology platforms have more recently entered the market. The process surrounding these community resource referrals and the role of technologies within it has not been fully accounted for just yet. Based on focus groups with  healthcare providers, and community organization staff and volunteers from 3 cities in Metropolitan Detroit, the process of community resource referral were described. Findings reveal a deeply "sociotechnical" process (involving interwoven social and technology-based elements). The detailed sociotechnical process revealed were discussed, along with the implications for those currently implementing community resource referrals. The importance of knowledge and skills, personal relationships, interorganizational networks, and data sources such as service directories in the referral process were discussed.

Join the HITEQ Center to discuss approaches to balance patient confidentiality, sensitive situations, vulnerable populations, and meeting the provisions in CURES act and information blocking. How should health centers best prepare themselves and their staff to meet the information blocking provisions and better serve our patient population?

As HRSA BPHC's UDS Modernization, including UDS+, and other granular data reporting programs approach, health centers are at varying levels of awareness and readiness. The HITEQ Center is offering a virtual office hours series to discuss the following:

• The mechanisms of future reporting via bulk FHIR submission.
• The future state where health centers are ready for UDS+ and other patient level reporting.
• Readiness processes for future reporting via bulk FHIR submission, including strong data governance, standardized documentation, and mapping.
• Health IT and data characteristics of future-focused health centers.