FAIRsharing record for: HL7 Social Determinants of Health Clinical Care

This FAIRsharing record describes: Social determinants of health (SDOH) are the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks1. They are increasingly being recognized as essential factors that influence healthcare outcomes. This HL7 Implementation Guide (IG) defines how to exchange coded content using the HL7 FHIR Standard for the following SDOH-focused care activities: screening, clinical assessment/diagnosis, goal setting, and the planning and performing of interventions. This IG addresses the need to gather SDOH information in multiple settings, share that information between stakeholders, and exchange referrals between organizations to address specific social risks and needs, all with appropriate patient consent. In addition, the IG demonstrates how to share clinical data to support secondary purposes such as population health, quality, and research.

This IG was developed by the Gravity Project, which aims to build and promulgate consensus-driven social determinants of health (SDOH) data standards for health and social care interoperability and use among multiple stakeholders. The project and this implementation guide are focused on the U.S. environment. This IG leverages content from the US Core Implementation Guide and binds to US-specific terminology. However, the basic constructs and interaction patterns may well be applicable outside the U.S.

The IG supports the following use cases:
- Documenting SDOH data in conjunction with patient encounters with providers, payers, and community services
- Referring patients to address SDOH needs via an electronic workflow. The referral framework includes support for intermediary organizations to manage service delivery, closed loop feedback to the ordering provider and direct engagement with the patient and their caregivers.
- Identifying cohorts of individuals that have a common relationship to another entity (e.g., covered by the same payer)