In early 2021, the Stewards of Change Institute (SOCI) held an online symposium, in partnership with the Stanford University Center for Population Health Sciences, that culminated a yearlong, highly collaborative initiative titled “The National Action Agenda to Advance Upstream Social Determinants and Health Equity” (NAA).

Several recommendations grew out of that event. The prima- ry one was to accelerate health-related progress by modern- izing the archaic processes by which individuals (patients, clients, etc.) provide informed consent for their personal data to be shared across programs, systems and domains.