SDOH, Patient Identification Dominate AHIMA Advocacy Summit 2023

By Rachel Podczervinski MS, RHIA, Vice President, Professional Services, Harris Data Integrity Solutions 

When health leaders and policymakers gathered in Washington, DC in April for the AHIMA Advocacy Summit 2023, there were no shortage of health data and health information issues to address – issues with the potential to influence the public policy environment to benefit health information professionals, patients, and communities. 

The line-up for the 2023 Summit was impressive, including AHIMA and health system leadership, as well as representatives from key federal agencies. In addition to providing a high-level understanding of what is going on in Congress and the U.S. government in general, Advocacy Summit speakers shared the obstacles facing the healthcare industry thanks to the deep divides within the House and Senate, which often create stalemates due to the inability to garner enough support from both sides to pass legislation.  

As important as these federal updates were, the lion’s share of our focus was on two key issues: social determinants of health (SDOH) and unique patient identifiers.  

Social Determinants

On the SDOH front, we learned that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is spearheading efforts to collect and analyze this critical societal data – which determine about 80% of a person’s health status – to better inform emergency response at the community, state, and federal levels. This includes collaborating with AHIMA’s Data for Better Health™ program, which provides tools, resources, and education to support a better understanding of the importance of SDOH data and how it can be used to improve health and healthcare outcomes.  

SDOH includes factors such as food insecurity, housing status, and transportation needs that significantly affect quality of life, health, and healthcare outcomes. As noted by AHIMA, when properly collected, used, and shared, SDOH provides valuable insights into various elements that make up a person’s medical and non-medical story, allowing them to collaborate on improving an individual’s’ overall health and wellbeing.  

While we often consider SDOH at the individual level – for example identifying dialysis patients who don’t have reliable transportation so appropriate arrangements can be made to get them to/from treatment to reduce the likelihood of renal failure – it also provides important information into larger community and regional issues, such as access to clean air and safe drinking water. The ability to aggregate this information from disparate sources including community-based agencies and provider and payer organizations is crucial to determining if, when, and how government should intervene. 

Patient Identifiers

The topic of patient identifiers was another primary focus of the Advocacy Summit, including the panel on which I participated, Ensuring Data Quality and Patient Safety by Improving Patient Identification and Matching. Patient misidentification is a chronic and potentially deadly problem, one for which finding a solution has taken on an even greater sense of urgency as the volume and sources of patient data grow exponentially. Patient identification and a clean master patient index (MPI) will also play a key role in adoption and optimization of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies across the healthcare ecosystems.  

As detailed in a recent Harris Data Integrity Solutions white paper, People Matching in Healthcare: Challenges, Impact and Solutions, progress on improved patient identification was made on several fronts last year but we are still a long way from where we need to be when it comes to resolving the issue.  

Several areas were called out for their significant impact on patient data integrity, including growing immigrate and refugee populations where data collection can be problematic in terms of completeness and accuracy. Privacy and identity theft concerns, particularly as they relate to a national patient identifier and broader information sharing, also remain.  

Hill Meetings

The Advocacy Summit culminated with Capitol Hill Day, which gave participants a valuable opportunity to meet with their Congressional representatives to share concerns about policy issues impacting health information. I met with the congressional staffers for Colorado’s Representatives and Senators. All were receptive to our concerns and recommendations, particularly regarding removal of Section 510 from the U.S. House and Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) appropriations bills. 

Whether or not our collective efforts will result in success in the next budget year remains to be seen, but Capitol Hill Day – and the Summit as a whole – was an excellent opportunity for our collective voices to be heard by the policymakers and regulators who can make a difference.