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At UAMS Medical Center in Little Rock, Ark., clinicians are prompted by their electronic health record system to ask patients personal questions about their home life and eating habits. Those inquiries over the past few years helped reduce the hospital’s overall readmission rate to 10% from 13.8% before it began gathering data on social determinants of health—factors that are profoundly linked to overall health.
The issue of trying to manage all of the factors contributing to a person’s health is growing as providers work increasingly under value-based purchasing models and at the same time are expected to reduce the cost of care. But getting already-overworked physicians on board with that is a difficult task.