Sacramento Health Connect (SHC)--a social health information exchange (SHIE)--is a robust and secure data exchange platform that integrates and shares an individual’s medical, behavioral health, housing, incarceration/detention, and social health data with authorized health and social service providers. This exchange helps participants to improve the quality and efficiency of person-centered care, supports efforts to maintain continuity of Medi-Cal coverage, and improves health outcomes for individuals and communities.
We are creating an opportunity to deliver a more coordinated approach to care and services to support optimal individual outcomes and reduce health inequities. The purpose of the SHC architecture is to establish a secure data sharing infrastructure and framework that exchanges data across sectors and silos to enable the delivery of data-driven, responsive and holistic care. This model connects the social factors that influence health with a person's physical and behavioral health care so that wherever they seek care, they should be able to access or be referred to services that best meet their physical, behavioral, and social health needs.
Goals of SHC
The overall goals of SHC align with those of California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM), which is a broad transformation of Medi-Cal aimed at creating a more coordinated, person-centered, and equitable health system that works for all Californians. Similarly, SHC strives to support and promote increased coordination and effective, personalized care across all providers through systems improvements.
SHC will remove data silos, which will make seeking and receiving care more accessible and equitable. This, in turn, can reduce the rates at which individuals experience hospitalization and re-incarceration.
SHC will promote whole-person health. Individuals will no longer have to separate aspects of health and wellness that are in fact deeply connected.
Individuals will not need to recount complex medical and social histories over and over again or take the same screenings multiple times when visiting a provider. This will save time and improve the experience of seeking care.
SHC will connect providers to the data they need to more effectively meet their patients' holistic needs.
SHC will reduce the amount of time providers spend on paperwork by creating efficiencies that make time spent more productive.
SHC will build a data sharing network that enables providers to not only send closed-loop referrals, but also to avoid sending patients to services that do not work well for them.
SHC is a multi-year initiative with no expected end date. While initial research, community engagement, and planning began in 2021, the core data architecture, technical infrastructure and data exchange components will be built over a three year period, beginning in 2025. The following is a high-level overview of the SHC timeline, including the initial period of planning and research as well as the phased approach to techical implementation.
