Activities for Integrating Social Care Into the Delivery of Health Care
| Activity | Definition | Transportation-Related Example |
|---|---|---|
| Awareness | Activities that identify the social risks and assets of defined patients and populations; the foundation on which all other activities are built | Ask people about their access to transportation |
| Adjustment | Activities that focus on altering clinical care to accommodate identified social barriers | Reduce the need for in-person health care appointments by using other options such as telehealth appointments |
| Assistance | Activities that reduce social risk by providing assistance in connecting patients with relevant social care resources | Provide transportation vouchers so that patients can travel to health care appointments; vouchers can be used for ride-sharing services or public transit |
| Alignment | Activities undertaken by health care systems to understand existing social care assets in the community, organize them to facilitate synergies, and invest in and deploy them to positively affect health outcomes | Invest in community ride-sharing or time-bank programs |
| Advocacy | Activities whereby health care organizations work with partner social care organizations to promote policies that facilitate the creation and redeployment of assets or resources to address health and social needs | Work to promote policies that fundamentally change the transportation infrastructure within the community |
Note: Reproduced with permission from the National Academy of Sciences, Courtesy of the National Academies Press, Washington, DC. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Integrating Social Care into the Delivery of Health Care: Moving Upstream to Improve the Nation’s Health. https://doi.org/10.17226/25467