Health-Related Social Needs Practice Facilitation
Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute
SYSTEM TRANSFORMATION
The Need | The Learning Health System program, led by the Center for Accelerating Care Transformation at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute, partnered with care delivery leaders to facilitate the launch of universal social needs screening and referral to Community Resource Specialists in two primary care clinics in Olympia and Spokane, Washington.
The Approach | Ariel served as the Social Health Practice Facilitator and partnered with clinic leaders, primary care teams, and community resource specialists to implement universal social health screening in their clinics. This included:
Collaborating with the health information technology (HIT) team to implement and improve screening and referral EMR functions
Collaborating with HIT and other team members to develop staff training on workflow and communication
Leading weekly meetings with clinic implementation teams
Collaborating to develop, improve, and use a data dashboard to share performance metrics
Facilitating process improvement and working iteratively to achieve the 80% screening target
The Outcomes | Despite launching social health integration in the worst of the 2021-2022 COVID-19 waves, we achieved our 80% screening target in both clinics. It took ingenuity and determination, but by gosh, we did it!
The Learnings | This was an incredible team to be a part of. After several years working in program leadership roles, Ariel was very excited to serve as a practice facilitator and work directly with clinical teams to support implementation.
