Parent Perspectives on Electronic Health Record-Based Social Needs Screening and Documentation: A Qualitative Study

Area of Science:

• Pediatric primary care
• Health informatics
• Social determinants of health

Background:

• Social needs interventions improve child health but are not standard in pediatric care.
• Electronic health records (EHRs) can support these interventions, yet parent input is missing.
• Parental engagement is crucial for developing effective EHR-based social needs interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate parent perspectives on EHR-based social needs screening and documentation.
• To identify family-centered strategies for designing and implementing these screening tools.
• To enhance the integration of social needs interventions into routine pediatric care.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative study involving 20 parents from four pediatric clinics.
• Parents completed an existing EHR social risk questionnaire.
• Semi-structured interviews explored acceptability and preferences for screening administration.

Main Results:

• Parents recognized the benefits of social needs screening but raised concerns about privacy and data usage.
• Opinions differed on preferred screening methods: self-administered electronic questionnaires versus face-to-face interviews.
• Transparency regarding the purpose and use of collected social needs data was highly valued.

Conclusions:

• Findings can guide the development of acceptable and feasible EHR-based social needs interventions.
• Clear communication and multimodal delivery methods may improve intervention uptake.
• Future research should involve diverse stakeholders to create truly family-centered and clinically implementable interventions.