The Gravity Project

Gravity Pilots Affinity Group Meeting, Nov 17

We are thrilled to announce the launch of our Gravity Pilots Affinity Group! This group, sponsored by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), AARP, and IHE USA, is a peer-to-peer learning forum for real-world testing of Gravity terminology and technical standards. Gravity Pilots Affinity Group will hold its next monthly public meeting on November 17, 2022 from 2:30pm to 4:00pm ET. We designed these meetings for participants to share successes and challenges, seek partnerships, and ask questions. Learn more about participating in our Pilots Affinity Group here. It’s an opportunity you won’t want to miss! 

Gravity Sponsor Matching Campaign to Launch the Digital Inequity/Access & Digital Literacy Domain

The Gravity Project presents an opportunity to launch the first national digital access and digital literacy domain standards development in partnership with Kaiser Permanente, and others! Match Kaiser Permanente’s contribution to help us meet our goal to initiate the domain, and contact jillian.annunziata@emiadvisors.net to solicit matching funds.

ICD-10-CM Release, Oct 1

The Gravity Project is excited to announce that multiple ICD-10-CM codes from our multi-domain set were approved for implementation this October 1st, 2022. View a list of approved codes here. View the full ICD-10-CM release here. The remaining ICD-10-CM elements from the Gravity Project submission were presented at the ICD-10-CM Coordination and Maintenance Committee Meeting September 13th and 14th. There is a written period of public comment in the weeks after. The Gravity Project team is happy to assist with framing of written public comment.

Gravity SME Outreach Letter

Help us recruit subject matter experts (SMEs) for our upcoming domains! The Gravity Project will address the domains of digital access and digital literacy, neighborhood safety, and food access, and we are looking for a wide range of community engagement. Please send notice within your communities of a need for SMEs, we have written a letter to assist here.

Gravity Value Set Authority Center (VSAC) Screening Assessment Value Sets

In response to requests from implementers, Gravity Project is happy to announce the publishing of value sets including Gravity Project selected screening panels. The first release includes all Social Determinants of Health panel value sets (in line with USCDI) and screening panel value sets for our first domains of food insecurity, housing instability, homelessness, inadequate housing, and transportation insecurity. Over the next months the terminology team will build the remaining sets for our other domains. Each of these sets align with recommendations on our confluence and in our SDOH IG supplemental guide.

Interoperability Standards Advisory Updates

As part of the USCDIv3 updates, the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) has updated the Interoperability Standards Advisory (ISA) with the Gravity Project USCDI aligned broad social determinants of health (SDOH) VSAC value sets for each SDOH activity (screening, diagnosis, goal setting, and interventions). This is a significant step toward making our work more visible and assisting implementers and pilot sites.

NIH RFI Opportunity: OBSSR Strategic Plan 2023-2028, Comments Due Nov 14

The Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) has issued a RFI on OBSSR’s Strategic Plan for 2023-2028. The purpose of this RFI is to inform OBSSR in finalizing their 2023 - 2028 Strategic Plan priorities and strategic objectives for behavioral and social science research (BSSR) at NIH. OBSSR seeks feedback on the scientific priorities and cross-cutting themes that are proposed for its next strategic plan. These were developed based on an evaluation of the previous strategic plan, a previous RFI, and listening sessions with multiple groups internal and external to the NIH. Comments are due to NIH on November 14th. Learn more here.

Domain Code Dashboard

The Gravity Project has created a dashboard which shows the status of domain specific codes across our four activities (Screeners, Diagnosis, Goals, and Interventions). Each domain has a spreadsheet that lists the codes available to date. The spreadsheets will be updated after major release dates. View the dashboard here.

Gravity's Comments to CMS's Proposal in 2023 Hospital IPPS Proposed Rule (CMS-1771-P)

The Gravity Project submitted comments to the CMS proposed rule on the Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System and associated changes for 2023, File No. CMS-1771-P, published May 10, 2022, and specifically on CMS’s welcome proposal to require two new screening measures in the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program to measure social drivers of health and integrate social drivers of health factors into Medicare quality reporting and payment. View comment letter here.

Gravity Response to CMS CY 2023 Medicare Advantage and Part D Proposed Rule (CMS-4192-P)

The Gravity Project submitted a public response to the CMS proposed rule that includes provisions for Social Determinants of Health and Special Needs Plan Health Risk Assessments. View submission here

Gravity's Response to the Request for Information (RFI) on Strengthening Community Health Through Technology

Please see Gravity response here to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) request for information on how digital health technologies are used, or could be used in the future, to transform community health, individual wellness, and health equity. 

The Social Interventions Research and Evaluation Network (SIREN), with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and in partnership with EMI Advisors, LLC, launched the Gravity Project in May 2019. The Gravity Project convenes stakeholders across the country through an open and transparent collaborative process where they develop and test consensus-based standards to facilitate SDOH data capture and exchange across a variety of systems and settings of care and social services. 

The Gravity Project seeks to identify data elements and associated value sets to represent SDOH information documented in electronic health records (EHRs) across four clinical activities: screening, diagnosis, goal setting, and intervention activities. The Project deliverables are:

• Develop use cases that guide the development of standards to support SDOH data capture and exchange; 
• Identify common data elements and their associated value sets to support the use cases;
• Develop a consensus-based set of recommendations on how best to capture and group these data elements for interoperable electronic exchange and aggregation;
• Collaborate with coding and terminology organizations to address coding gaps identified and apply for new codes;
• Develop, test, and ballot HL7 FHIR Implementation Guide(s) based on the defined use cases and coded data sets; and 
• Develop Reference Implementation(s) to support real-world pilots and implementations.

Project objectives will be accomplished through bi-weekly virtual meetings and collaborative project product development through the HL7 project confluence page.

Updated 11 Nov 2022

Gravity Project Community Collaborative and FHIR IG Workgroup Meetings have been postponed. We encourage community members to remain engaged with the Gravity Project via our Gravity Pilots Affinity Group.

CLICK HERE FOR A FULL MEETING SCHEDULE
Click here for project documentation and deliverables.

The success of the Gravity Project depends on the contribution of volunteers who are eager to make rapid progress on the standardization of social determinants of health data.  We need experts to contribute to and validate definitions for SDH related data elements and value sets. Participants are asked to join the project at any time either as a Committed Member or Other Interested Party as part of the HL7 Consensus Process.  To join the project, sign up here.  

• To check your project membership status, click here.  If you wish to change your membership from Other Interested Party to Committed Member, please send an email request to GravityProject@emiadvisors.net .
• NOTE:  Both member types can submit comments on project documentation.  However, only Committed Members may vote on final documentation.  If you would like to have voting rights, please change your membership status or join the project as a Committed Member.