Article Highlights:

• Based on social determinants of health and health disparities alone, the number of people the US healthcare industry loses is comparable to seeing a 747 airplane crash out of the sky every day, according to Alisahah Cole, MD, system vice president of population health at CommonSpirit Health.
• By now, the topic of social determinants of health and the health equity issues that can stem from them is commonplace. The rise in value-based care contracts have given financial imperative to combat the social issues that impact an individual’s ability to achieve and maintain health and wellness. And that’s not to mention the moral imperative Cole presented. Clinical care interventions only comprise about 20 percent of an individual’s overall health status, while the rest shakes out to things like physical environment, individual behavior that is largely in response to personal circumstance, and social determinants of health.
• And as healthcare faces the moral imperative to address those factors, the social determinants of health, it is essential organizations and individual clinicians do so in a patient-centered way. For one thing, that means crafting a social determinants of health screening and referral system that is rooted in empathy. Clinicians should rid their vocabularies of phrases like “non-compliant” and dig to the root of patient care access and engagement barriers resulting in poor outcomes, Cole advised.

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