Identification of carnivory in the flowering plant Saxifraga via multidisciplinary evidence.

Health-related social needs (HRSNs) are modifiable social and economic factors that affect an individual’s health and may contribute to outcome disparities. Numerous studies have demonstrated that interventions to address HRSNs are cost-effective among selected patients; for example, permanent housing reduces mortality and acute care utilization in HIV, produce prescriptions improve glycemic control in diabetes, and transportation services increase receipt of preventive care among Medicaid beneficiaries. Given these potential benefits, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) expanded incentives for US health systems to implement HRSN screening and intervention programs in 2024. However, the CMS subsequently removed HRSN screening from hospital quality-reporting programs, leaving health systems to decide whether and how to sustain screening and assistance infrastructure. While prior studies evaluating HRSN screening demonstrated meaningful identification of social need burdens and their potential association with health care utilization, they have been limited by low screening penetration, demographic and geographic homogeneity, limited power to evaluate differences among subgroups, and variation in screening administration. As a result, little is known about screening penetration, selection biases in screening processes, or patient characteristics associated with HRSN positivity, burdens, and assistance requests. Addressing these knowledge gaps is a key first step to providing health systems with the evidence base to sustain cost-effective screening programs amid changing federal incentives and for future studies evaluating postscreening care cascades. We therefore evaluated patient characteristics associated with HRSN screening completion, identification of at least 1 need, total identified needs, and assistance requests across one of the nation’s largest, most diverse health systems. We performed a retrospective cohort study of patients 18 years or older across Trinity Health from January 1, 2020, through November 30, 2024. Trinity Health comprises 92 academic and community hospitals and more than 2100 outpatient practices in 22 US states. Eligible encounters for Trinity Health’s HRSN screening program included (1) outpatient primary care, family, geriatric, and internal medicine, and obstetrics and gynecology encounters; (2) emergency department (ED) visits; and (3) inpatient hospital admissions (eTable 1 in ). Outpatients received previsit portal prompts and, if incomplete, in-person self- or staff-administered screening; inpatients received staff-administered screening at admission (eMethods, eFigure 1, and eTable 2 in ). Patients with positive screens received a community resource card; those requesting assistance were referred to community health workers, social workers, or care managers. We excluded ED encounters from the study because less than 1.5% of ED patients completed screening. The Trinity Health Institutional Review Board deemed this study exempt for its use of retrospective, deidentified data and waived informed consent. We followed the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology () reporting guideline for cohort studies. Data analyses were conducted from June 7, 2025, through February 4, 2026.