Health equity is achieved when people are able to reach their full health potential and receive high-quality care that is fair and appropriate to them and their needs, no matter where they live, what they have or who they are. AFHTO is committed to helping members work towards this goal and to identify gaps and opportunities to improve health care for all of their patients. We have begun work towards establishing a baseline on social demographic data collection and the capacity of EMRs to record and track this information, starting with a conversation in our weekly QIDSS calls and EMR CoP meetings focused on two main questions:
- What social demographic data is currently being captured in the EMR?
- What social demographic data can be easily recorded in the EMR today?
The Tri-Hospital + TPH Health Equity Data Collection Research Project have begun work on answering the question of what Socio-Demographic factors to measure. Their findings, presented in the report We Ask Because We Care, were reviewed and shared with the QIDSS and EMR CoPs, and we have started our conversation with the data elements presented there. This work will lead to recommendations for adding social demographic data to the EMR Data Quality Indicator for D2D 4.0.