The Oregon Health Authority convened the SDOH Measurement Workgroup: Screening for Social Needs from late 2020 to early 2021. The purpose of this workgroup was to recommend a measure related to the social determinants of health for consideration by Oregon’s Health Plan Quality Metrics Committee and Metrics and Scoring Committee. Specifically, the SDOH Measurement Workgroup was charged with recommending a measure that would incentivize screening for individual health-related social needs.
Following the workgroup's recommendations, OHA developed, pilot tested and refined detailed measure specifications. The Health Plan Quality Metrics Committee added the measure to the aligned measure menu at its March 29, 2022 meeting. The Metrics and Scoring Committee then added the measure to the 2023 set of Coordinated Care Organization (CCO) quality incentive metrics at its May 20, 2022 meeting.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Workgroup was delayed until October 2020. The Workgroup met between October 2020 and February 2021. See meeting details and materials to the right.
From May to September 2020, a team of OHA and DHS staff, consultants, and national advisors from the National Committee for Quality Assurance met to ensure the Workgroup could have the maximum impact over its condensed timeline by:
- finalizing an environmental scan of existing social needs screening efforts in Oregon and nationally (including information about screening for social needs as a part of ongoing COVID-19 screenings);
- conducting background research on best practices in social needs screening measures alongside national experts; and
- developing three to five high-level measure concept options for the Workgroup to review.
The Social Determinants of Health Measurement Workgroup welcomed public comments related to discussion topics. Time was dedicated on each meeting agenda to hear and discuss testimony. Agendas were posted on the Workgroup webpage prior to each meeting.