Social Needs Screenings in ED

Andrea Wallace

Status: Completed

Conditions: Social Determinants of Health

Treatments: Behavioral: 211 Referral

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT04630041

00125877

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study will determine whether existing Health Information Technology can be leveraged to 1) implement a universal, patient-centered social needs assessment and referral process during routine Emergency Department care; 2) understand whether linking social needs assessment, community based referral, and health outcomes data may facilitate an understanding of population health; and 3) address the needs and wishes of patients and clinicians.

Hypothesis: Results of this study will provide much needed information to already overburdened hospital systems regarding whether systematically incorporating social needs information and referrals into emergency discharge processes allows for a better understanding of factors placing patients at risk for poor outcomes post-discharge, and whether doing so has potential for enhancing discharge support for a larger patient population seen in emergency departments.

Enrollment: 5,081 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• seen in the UHealth University hospital ED
• ability to use touchpad technology
• ability to communicate via telephone for 211 follow-up

Exclusion criteria

• Non-English and non-Spanish speaking (English nor Spanish need not be the 1st language)
• unable to communicate verbally
• admitted to an inpatient unit or to a skilled nursing facility (vs discharged to a community-based setting where participants are responsible for their own self-care)

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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5,081 participants in 1 patient group

Social Needs Assessment

Experimental group

Description:

Patients in the Emergency Department will complete a social needs assessment screener that may refer them to 211 services

Treatment:

Behavioral: 211 Referral