CHAS Director, Jeanne C. Marsh, is participating in a planning process to support a National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine consensus study, Integrating Social Needs Care into the Delivery of Health Care to Improve the Nation’s Health. In January 2017, leadership of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Health and Medicine Division (formerly the Institute of Medicine), approved plans for a study to more closely examine the care models and workforce needs for the healthcare system to adequately address “social needs” – the psychosocial, economic, and environmental factors that influence health outcomes.
An ad hoc committee of experts to be organized by the National Academies will examine the potential for integrating services addressing social needs and the social determinants of health into the delivery of health care to achieve better health outcomes and to address major challenges facing the U.S. healthcare system. The committee will make recommendations on how to expand social needs care services and better coordinate roles for social needs care providers in interprofessional care teams across the continuum of clinical and community health settings in order to optimize the effectiveness of social services to improve health and health care.