What is the Gravity Project? The Gravity Project is a national and international effort for “documenting and sharing SDH-related assessment, diagnosis, and treatment information using modern coding and exchange standards has the potential to improve whole person care and health outcomes.” As a part of the HL7 FHIR Accelerator Program “creates and maintains a consensus-building community to expand available Core Social Determinant of Health (SDOH) Data for Interoperability and accelerate standards-based information exchange by using HL7 FHIR” The project covers three SDoH domains – Food Insecurity, Housing and Transportation. The standards being developed are tool agnostic and intended to be applicable to all Social Determinants domains in the future. This project is sponsored by SIREN, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and EMI Advisors and consists of a large group of stake holder, including Contra Costa Health Services, University of Victoria, NIH, Johns Hopkins, New York Department of Health, the FDA and many others participating regularly in community meetings to: a) submit data elements from different screening tools (validated or not), b) to review concepts and determine which ones are similar or the same c) and adjudicate which concepts are appropriate for the data set for the three identified domains.
What is the Gravity Project Schedule? Community Meetings: Meetings are held for 1 hour on Thursdays from 4:00pm-5:00pm ET / 1:00pm-2:00pm PT. The Association's Role in the Gravity Project The Association is a member of the national community stakeholder’s group. Our role is to collect screening tools, surveys, information on interventions, community resources and other important data elements and concepts and push them up to the community group in a standardized format for adjudication. We convene a Washington State Gravity Project Work Group who’s aim is to review submitted data and discuss data element alignment with other stakeholders in Washington State, such as the HCA, MCO’s, and community services. The Health Center Roles in the Gravity Project Health centers can best have their interests represented in the Gravity Project by simply assigning one contact person to provide The Association with the requested materials. These materials will include things like a copy of any current SDoH surveys you are using that are applicable to the current domain, information on programs used for SDOH interventions, of resources you are referring your patients to or wish to refer your patients to, the kinds of diagnosis you think are appropriate for you community. Health Centers may also participate by providing letters of support for data submission to governing bodies, by joining the Washington State Workgroup, or by participating in a Connectathon.
What is the Connectathon? The Connectathon will test the structure developed by the Gravity Project using real and dummy codes for SDoH. There are three two-day long (or longer) virtual events where CHCs can participate in different “roles” such as PMEHR App, Screening App, Clinical R/R Actor, Patient, or Observer. As a “Clinical R/R” actor you will be testing the temporary coding and structure on your EHR and as “patient” you will be filling out screening tools or forms to provide feedback on the patient experience. You will also be able to see how the patient data flows through the system, is accessed by the provider “role” and how patients might access their data after it has been collected. Connectathon Meetings Are held twice monthly and are separate from the Gravity community collaborative meetings. Meetings are held for 1 hour on Wednesdays from 3:00pm-4:00pm ET / 12:00pm-1:00pm PT. These meetings are for technical implementers using FHIR who are testing and implementing the data set(s) and content developed by the larger community. You can sign up to participate in the Connectathon here.
Resources
Templates for data submission
Data sets
Staff Contact
Data Analyst
Karie manages data collection and analysis projects in support of The Association's strategic priorities, provides data training and assistance, works on Social Determinants of Health data efforts and is heading up the PCA's research projects.