The Physicians Foundation released part one of three of its 2022 Survey of America’s Physicians, which examines the current impact of social drivers of health (SDOH) on physician practice, physician wellbeing and their patients as well as possible solutions needed to address SDOH.
The survey found that though physicians believe addressing patients’ SDOH is critical to improving patient health outcomes and lowering cost of care, six in 10 physicians feel they have little to no time and ability to effectively address their patients’ SDOH.
However, this isn’t for lack of trying or effort—physicians face many barriers when addressing SDOH. The majority of physicians indicated that their top challenges are limited time during patient visits (89%) and an insufficient workforce to navigate patients to community SDOH resources (84%).
While there are helpful resources that exist to help physicians and patients navigate SDOH, physicians still reported that the community resources are not available, inadequate or difficult to access (77%) and that there is inadequate information on how to access community resources (77%) which strongly contributes to these barriers.
Read more:
- The Physicians Foundation 2022 Physician Survey: Part 1. Physicians Foundation. March 22 2022