Implementing an EMR-based Health-related Social Needs Screen in a Pediatric Hospital System

There is growing recognition of the need for effective screening methods and delivering interventions to address health-related social needs (HRSN) in hospital systems, but few studies exist on implementing such a wide-scale undertaking. This article describes the implementation and preliminary findings of a phased roll-out of an institution-wide HRSN screening.

We describe the HRSN implementation and data tracking procedures.

During the first 13 months of the roll-out, 62,315 patient encounters from multiple clinics were eligible for screening, and 52,331 (84.0%) completed the screening. Twelve percent of patients had at least one HRSN need, and 3.5% of those had an urgent need and thus received a social work consult.

Implementation of the first phase of an institution-wide HRSN screen resulted in high screening and follow-up rates among those with urgent needs, demonstrating feasibility across different clinic settings.