The evolution of clinical information systems has enabled the integration of processes at workstations, providing significant benefits for patient care. At the same time, the development of a social health work process (SHWP) has become a priority for our field. For this reason, the Social Work Coordination Unit at the Catalan Health Institute (ICS) set a goal of establishing an SHWP in ICS hospitals and integrating this process into electronic medical records.
To create the SHWP, the Social Health Work Information Systems task force (SHWIS) was formed. This group adapted an earlier project carried out at the primary care clinical workstation, which was based on a register of social variables. The SHWP developed consists of 6 stages: initiation of hospital care, social assessment, abuse, social health diagnosis, follow-up, and discharge. It thus aims to document the patient-family pathway during hospitalisation. Integration into the medical records was carried out by the SAP-ARGOS technical process team. In parallel, a dashboard was created to visualise the data entered.
The SHWP has been implemented in all ICS hospitals, although data recording is not yet consistent. Measures are being applied to address this, including updating the social assessment conceptualisation document, reviewing dashboard data and creating sub-processes for specific clinical and social profiles.
