Point-of-care social needs screening and resource navigation for patients with cancer undergoing active treatment: A pilot initiative.

Abstract

e13800 Background: Patients with cancer undergoing active treatment often face social needs including housing, transportation, food, and financial challenges. Social needs have been shown to be associated with delays in care, higher rates of psychosocial distress, and worse survival. Despite the prevalence and impact of social needs in the cancer population, screening does not happen in a systematic way. In this pilot quality improvement initiative, we sought to 1) assess response rates of point-of-care screening during infusion visits and 2) explore whether screening led to high utilization of social work referrals and receipt of social resources. Methods: This quality improvement initiative took place at the Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Cancer Center between 7/15/2024-8/23/2024. All patients with a cancer diagnosis who presented to the infusion center for a cancer-directed therapy were offered a one-page social needs screener by the front desk staff upon check-in. The screener was offered in English, Spanish, and Written Chinese. Patients who screened positive for a social need were referred to the cancer center social worker for resource navigation. Completion of social work referral and receipt of resources within three months of screening were tracked. Results: Of 244 patients who presented to the infusion center, 156 (64%) filled it out completely, 51 (21%) filled it out partially, 2 ( < 1%) indicated the questions were not relevant, and 35 (14%) did not return it or returned it blank. Those who completed the screener completely were more likely to be younger than those who did not, but there were no significant differences by gender, race, ethnicity, or language. (Table 1) Of the patients who filled out the screener completely, 52 (33%) screened positive, of which 43 subsequently met with a social worker and 30 received a resource within 3 months of screening. Conclusions: Response rates to point of care screening were robust, including among patients belonging to racial/ethnic minorities and non-English speaking patients. Prevalence of social needs was high. Screening led to successful resource navigation in over half of patients with a positive screen. Future work should scale up point-of-care social needs screening with resource navigation in clinical settings. Sociodemographic characteristics of patients who completed the social screening tool. Sociodemographic characteristic Completed screener completely (n=156) Did not complete completely (n=88) t-test or Pearson chi square Age (Mean (SD)) 61.7 (14.4) 67.5 (12.4) P=0.002* Female Gender N (%) 49 (54%) 103 (62%) P=0.237 Race/Ethnicity N (%) Asian Black or African American Non-Hispanic White Hispanic/Latino Other/Unknown 50 (33%)8 (5%)70 (46%)5 (6%)2 (2%) 31 (36%)10 (11%)39 (45%)19 (13%)5 (3%) P=0.223 Primary language not English N (%) 19 (22%) 22 (14%) P=0.146 *denotes t-test was used.