Social Drivers of Health Data Utilization: Integrating Healthcare and Community Services to Address Health-Related Social Needs 

Healthcare organizations collect data on social drivers of health (SDOH), only to encounter barriers on how to use these data to address patients’ health-related social needs (HRSN). In response to these barriers, the National Quality Forum (NQF) Leadership Consortium—a body of multistakeholder leaders from NQF member organizations—identified ten actionable recommendations to help healthcare organizations address HRSNs by partnering with community services to connect patients with needed resources. The Leadership Consortium followed a two-year process to identify, refine, and finalize actionable recommendations. The process included the Implementation Collaborative, in which four members of the Leadership Consortium—the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Case Management Society of America (CMSA), Texas Health and Human Services Commission (Texas HHSC), and Phreesia—tested the recommendations across five projects in diverse healthcare settings.