"Increasing Warm Handoffs: Optimizing Community Based Referrals in Primary Care Using QI Methodology".

Social and environmental factors have an outsized effect on one's health. Children are particularly impacted by the adverse effects of poverty. While social determinants of health (SDH) screening in healthcare settings has proliferated there remain gaps in best practices for screening processes. As research has shown that patient navigation leads to an improvement in unmet social needs and family-reported child health, warm handoffs may be a key factor in assuring that the social needs of families are effectively addressed. Using quality improvement (QI) methods our pediatric clinic worked to increase the warm handoff rate between Community Health Workers (CHWs) and patients with unmet social needs. CHW warm handoff rates increased two-fold over the intervention period. Our results illustrate that QI methods can be used to optimize workflows to increase warm handoffs with CHWs. This is important as health centers work to improve their social needs screening and referral programs.

Integrating Social Needs Screening and Community Health Workers in Primary Care: The Community Linkage to Care Program.

Clinic-based social needs screening has been associated with increased access to social services and improved health outcomes. Using a pragmatic study design in an urban pediatric practice, we used logistic regression to identify factors associated with successful social service uptake. From December 2017 to November 2018, 4948 households were screened for social needs, and 20% self-reported at least one. Of the 287 households with unmet needs who were referred and interested in further assistance, 43% reported successful social service uptake. Greater than 4 outreach encounters (adjusted odds ratio = 1.92; 95% confidence interval = 1.06-3.49) and follow-up time >30 days (adjusted odds ratio = 0.43; 95% confidence interval = 0.25-0.73) were significantly associated with successful referrals. These findings have implementation implications for programs aiming to address social needs in practice. Less than half of households reported successful referrals, which suggests the need for additional research and an opportunity for further program optimization.