-A novel screening and referral intervention using emergency department wait times to identify and address unmet social needs.

Background: People arriving at the emergency department (ED) often have unmet health-related social needs (HRSN). We implemented an intervention that used undergraduate student volunteers to screen patients in the ED waiting room (WR) for unmet social drivers of health and subsequently referred patients to community resources.

Methods: This cross-sectional quality improvement study included patients who were approached to complete a HRSN screening questionnaire, subsequently referred to community resources, and followed up by phone from October 2021 to October 2022 in an ED WR of an academic medical center.