Description

Session Description

Many hospitals address social drivers of health (SDOH), yet few have standardized processes across a health system. Beginning in 2023, we implemented a system-wide SDOH screening and referral process at South Florida’s only freestanding children’s hospital that sees over half a million children annually and has a majority Hispanic and Medicaid population. We have thus far screened over 15,000 patients; 40% have at least one need. In this session, we describe efforts to enact this process, including identifying and building relationships with community organizations receiving referrals. We share screening tools, stakeholder education, and evaluation methods and results. We provide a replicable model for other organizations to collaborate on SDOH screening and referral at a large scale. 

Presentation Format

Our breakout session will be multimodal and will maximize audience engagement and interaction as follows: 

• 25 minutes: PowerPoint presentation to share our SDOH screening and referral clinical pathway, displays of our screener, and graphics of our data, and case studies.
  
  
• 5 minutes: Polls to engage audience regarding introductions, familiarity with content and processes in their own organizations/institutions
  
  
• 10 minutes: Guided small group workshopping (2+ people depending on format of seating at session) followed by large group share-out in which participants can brainstorm and plan how to incorporate strategies presented and tackle challenges faced at their home organizations/institutions. Prompts will be provided that are targeted to audience members across different sectors (e.g. someone from a community-based organization may be asked to workshop how to enhance a referral process; someone from a healthcare organization may be asked to workshop staff process education). 

Session Takeaways

• SDOH screening and referral processes can innovatively build off existing functionalities within a healthcare system to be swiftly implemented at the scale of an entire health system.
  
  
• Multidisciplinary collaborations between clinicians, social work, leadership, information technology, and community organizations are essential to the success of a system-wide SDOH screening and referral process.
  
  
• Remaining nimble to learn and adapt on the fly is essential to driving rapid, effective change.