Epic’s EHR Optimization Mitigates SDOH, Promotes Care Coordination

The Epic ecosystem continues to expand in pursuit of increasing administrative efficiency and providing higher quality, coordinated care, according to Epic product development lead Seth Howard, who presented in a recent health equity presentation for Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI)’s annual conference.

“It’s been our goal over the past many years to weave together health and social factors into a more patient centric comprehensive health record so we can really start shifting more focus to the social factors,” Howard said.

Howard explained that many groups use Epic’s comprehensive care coordination application, called the Compass Rose Module, to assess patient social determinants of health, enroll patients in community-based programs, and track patient outcomes. The application outlines social determinants of health in patient records just like vital signs or lab results.

“These factors, like access to healthy food and transportation, describe the wider set of the social forces that really influence patient outcomes,” Howard said.

For example, Trinity Health uses the application to recognize patients experiencing food insecurity. Then, the health system connects these patients with nutritious food programs.

Epic also recently worked with Lyft to add rideshare services into appointment scheduling to mitigate transportation as a social determinant of health.

Read the full story on EHR Intelligence.