A study published in the Annals of Family Medicine reveals that despite improvements in EHR usage, there is still significant room for growth in how social determinants of health (SDH) data is applied in caring for patients.

Researchers collected SDH data on 1,130 patients during the study. Of those, 97-99% of patients exhibited some type of care need related to SDH.

Yet only 19% had an EHR-documented SDH referral. Further, a mere 15-21% of patients with a SDH need reported wanting help fulfilling that care requirement.

“Our results indicate that adoption of systematic EHR-based SDH documentation may be feasible, but substantial barriers to adoption exist,” the authors concluded. “Lessons from this study may inform primary care providers seeking to implement SDH-related efforts, and related health policies. Far more research is needed to address implementation barriers related to SDH documentation in EHRs.”

You can check out the full study here.