Capturing Social Health Data in Electronic Systems: A Systematic Review

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Public Health
• Social Epidemiology

Background:

• Social determinants of health (SDOH) significantly impact patient outcomes.
• Integrating SDOH data into electronic systems is crucial for comprehensive healthcare.
• Current literature lacks a clear overview of SDOH data integration in electronic systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review the literature on collecting and capturing SDOH data in electronic systems.
• To identify common data types, capture methods, and electronic systems used for SDOH.
• To establish a baseline understanding before a national survey of healthcare organizations.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature review of articles on SDOH and electronic systems.
• Two independent reviewers evaluated articles.
• Abstraction and analysis of five data elements: data type, capture method, structure, standard, and source.
• Inclusion of 42 articles in the final review.

Main Results:

• Neighborhood and community characteristics were the most frequently reported SDOH data domains.
• SDOH data were infrequently found within electronic health records.
• When captured, SDOH data were predominantly manually entered in a structured format.

Conclusions:

• There is a significant gap in the electronic capture and integration of SDOH data within healthcare systems.
• Current methods for SDOH data collection are often manual, limiting scalability and real-time use.
• Further research and technological advancements are needed to effectively incorporate SDOH data into routine clinical practice.