Organizational Dilemmas in Integrating Medical and Social Care to Improve Health Equity

Addressing #healthinequity generally requires attention to the most marginalized patients, whose #health is often undermined by social, legal and financial challenges. In response, many #healthcare delivery organizations have begun to collect data about health-related social needs and build organizational capacity to address these needs, either “in-house” or through partnerships with community-based organizations. This gives rise to challenging ethical questions: How do we weigh the potential benefits and harms of screening for social needs? And what responsibilities do health care delivery organizations have once they have health-related social need information? How should health care delivery organizations allocate their resources between addressing specific patient needs versus thinking more broadly about community-level social determinants? The panel weighed in on each of these normative questions based on their experiences as #physicians, #researchers and change agents.
Presentation by Monica E. Peek, MD, MPH, MSc, with Marshall Chin, MD, MPH and Laura Gottlieb, MD, MPH as discussants, with Lauren A Taylor, PhD, MDiv moderating. Consortium organized by Charlotte H. Harrison, PhD, JD, MPH, HEC-C. Support provided by the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund at Harvard University.