Using Health Information Technology to Bring Social Determinants of Health into Primary Care: A Conceptual Framework to Guide Research

Several recent national initiatives have called for increased efforts to integrate social determinants of health (SDH) into health care settings using health information technology (HIT). However, there is limited evidence to guide the implementation of these recommendations in practice. Research is needed to understand what SDH information is most important to collect, how SDH information can be used to inform clinical care and referrals, and ultimately, whether and how integrating SDH screening and action into primary care affects individual and population health. We recently proposed a conceptual framework to illustrate how HIT can be used to bring SDH information into primary care. In this paper, we describe how we are putting this conceptual model into practice within the OCHIN network of community health centers by highlighting examples of ongoing research, identifying knowledge gaps, and outlining a roadmap of future research to move the field forward.