Practice Capacity to Address Patients' Social Needs and Physician Satisfaction and Perceived Quality of Care

Abstract

Recent studies have explored clinician impacts of health care-based interventions that respond to patients' social and economic needs. These studies were limited by available clinician data. We used the Commonwealth International Health Policy Survey of 890 primary care physicians to examine associations between clinic capacity to respond to patients' social needs and physician satisfaction, stress, and perceived medical care quality. Results suggest that perceived capacity to address social needs is strongly associated with both clinician satisfaction and perceived medical care quality. Our findings add to a growing literature on the potential return on investment of clinical interventions to address social needs.

Keywords: acommunity/population health; care coordination; disparities in health & health care; health policy; job satisfaction; practice-based research; primary care; professional practice; quality of care; social needs; vulnerable populations.