We organize outpatient Medicaid mental health care clinics in Colorado. Colorado is pressing organizations to implement ‘closed loop’ referral at patient contact points follow SDOH (PRAPARE) assessments.
I read the 2022 implementation in openEMR of a SDOH assessment, so that looks good. I’ll see about creating a PRAPARE routine for that assessment.
@Andrew_Rose
Thanks for posting. It will be a huge uphill battle to get volunteers for this kind of major task.
With that said, I applaud what your group is trying to do.
If I can help try to answer any questions. I will do what I can.
The thing that I am working on is a universal or general-purpose app that will work with any OpenEMR installation. We have worked out most of the details of the initial communication between OpenEMR and the app. I have learned that we needed to stand up an intermediate server to handle that communication. We are at the point of getting the client_id and secret from the OpenEMR server so that the app can start pulling data from the OpenEMR instance.
No one is currently working on the SDOH Referral profile right now. We will be adding some SDOH elements as part of our USCDI V3 upgrades for our US ONC (Office of National Coordinator) certification. If this is critical for you and you are able to secure budget we can get people to assist with this. Otherwise it might take a while to do this on volunteer basis
You can definitely use OpenEMR for this, but much of the work would need to be fleshed out. We’ve done some experimental work with questionnaires, tasks, service requests, but its currently not in the core product. I can provide some guidance but right now a lot of my focus is on our ONC certification efforts with FHIR with upgrading USCDI V3 and FHIR 6.
Just posted this in OpenEMR Development. Curious what you ended up using for this and if you know of other organizations i can work with to get feedback for some best practices to help design a solution in OPenEMR: Future Direction for OpenEMR SDOH Development
As one of the original developers of OpenEMR’s configurable SDOH screening module, I’d like to explore the next phase of SDOH functionality within the platform.
Over the coming months, I’d like to focus on researching existing social needs screening and referral models, identifying best practices, and understanding how organizations are currently implementing closed-loop referral systems. My goal is not to immediately build a solution, but first to learn from successful implementations and collaborate with others interested in this space.
One area I believe deserves discussion is maintaining maximum flexibility within OpenEMR’s open-source architecture. While tools such as PRAPARE have become widely adopted standards, embedding proprietary screening instruments directly into software platforms can introduce licensing restrictions and ongoing costs that may conflict with the goals of an open-source community.
I would like to explore a more flexible, standards-based approach that allows organizations to:
Create and maintain their own social needs screening questions and workflows
Map questions and responses to standardized vocabularies such as LOINC, SNOMED CT, and ICD-10 Z-codes
Support reporting, interoperability, and regulatory requirements without dependence on proprietary form licensing
Build future referral workflows that can connect patients to community resources using open standards
I am particularly interested in hearing from:
Organizations currently using SDOH referral platforms
Anyone familiar with successful closed-loop referral implementations
Developers interested in contributing to architecture, standards research, workflow design, or interoperability
Clinics that have encountered licensing or cost barriers with existing commercial solutions
If OpenEMR can provide the same structured data, interoperability, and workflow capabilities while preserving flexibility and avoiding unnecessary licensing costs, I believe it could become a powerful open-source alternative for social care integration.
I’d welcome discussion, existing examples, research references, and potential collaborators.
Hi Char,
Happy to see you back at this. I remember your original work as a rather long encounter form.
Since that time we have developed an SDOH to meet ONC for 2026. Unsure if you’ve looked over and you’ll find my effort is not as extensive as yours is but perhaps you can get some ideas for your new work.
In Patient Dashboard look for Assessments pull down and select SDOH:
Thanks Jerry!!! I absolutely love the new work! And so glad that it became part of ONC. I want to be sure that I use your form to build out the Referral System based on the Referral Workflow - SDOH Clinical Care v3.0.0-ballot . But i also want to allow for a more flexible design and would like to add another option for SDOH screenings that is focused on Opportunity instead of Needs. ie sometimes patients are more likely to ask for services if offered becasue it might be embarrassing to admit they can’t apy for food. So would love to connect! let me know when you have time. my email is charjmiller@gmail.com
