By Leslie Walker, California Health Care Foundation, December 13, 2019
When a patient goes to the doctor with a serious complaint, what if the cause is not a medical issue? What if someone’s diabetes is spinning out of control because they can’t afford healthy food, or their asthma is acting up because their apartment is moldy?
Unlike an infection or a broken bone, clinicians can’t fix social needs with a simple prescription or procedure. Imagine having a patient who can no longer afford to pay the rent. Do you refer them to a government program? Or to one of the dozens of nonprofits that might help? And how do you find out if any of those programs actually helped?
More health systems are recognizing the role that social factors can play in driving poor health outcomes, and many are taking steps to address them. Recently, 14 leading health systems, including Kaiser Permanente and CommonSpirit Health, announced a collective investment of $700 million to address the “root causes of poor health” in the communities they serve.
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