HEAL

Health equity is a discussion that is often framed only around race, but it means so much more.

AHA members have expressed interest in understanding the degree of alignment between the AHA’s Health Equity Roadmap and CMS's three new quality measures, as well as the alignment among regulatory policies. The crosswalk identifies how each framework aligns with eight overarching key practices that are linked to advancing health equity in hospitals.

AHA presents a framework to support hospitals and health systems and actions they can take at each level (structural, community, personal) to improve health equity. Numerous studies have demonstrated a link between the social determinants of health and key health outcomes. AHA has worked to promote widespread use of ICD-10-CM codes that enable provider to collect data on the social determinants of health.

Dr. Leon D. Caldwell, Senior Director, Health Equity Strategies and Innovation, in the Institute of Diversity and Health Equity at the AHA, sits down with Dr. James Min, CEO and Co-founder of AHA Associate, Cleerly, as well as Dr. Richard Chazal, Senior Cardiologist and Medical Director of the Heart & Vascular Institute at Lee Health System.

Roundtrip’s continuing development can be traced in part to AWS’ Health Equity Initiative, a three-year $40 million commitment to help its health care customers develop cloud-based solutions to reduce health disparities.

As digital health continues to expand, hospitals and health care systems will need a digital health equity strategy to ensure that all their patients can access needed medical and social services.

Edmondo Robinson, M.D., MBA, MS, FACP, senior vice president and chief digital officer at Moffitt Cancer Center spoke with Julia Resnick, director of strategic initiatives at the American Hospital Association about how Moffitt’s approach to digital health improves equity for the patients they serve.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, digital solutions, including mobile health apps, patient portals and telehealth serve as a critical access point for health care providers to reach patients.

National Minority Health Month can be a launchpad to closing the ‘knowing-doing’ gap.

Attendees of the upcoming Accelerating Health Equity Conference, May 10-12 in Cleveland, will have an excellent opportunity to see the Health Equity Roadmap come to life as they join counterparts in other health care and community organizations for hands-on learning that can bolster efforts to advance diversity, equity and inclusion.

We spoke with Leon D. Caldwell, AHA’s senior director for health equity strategies and innovation and one of the Health Equity Roadmap’s architects, about its importance to hospitals and health systems.

Across health systems, equity, diversity and inclusion may require varying degrees of resources based on a hospital’s leadership, staff resources, geography and demographics. Here are recommendations to engage the hospitals in your system.

Providing culturally and linguistically appropriate services is key to advancing health equity, improving patient safety and quality of care and eliminating health disparities. This literature overview provides a series of resources intended to guide and empower efforts to reach this critical milepost.

Now is the time to evaluate how far we have come in closing gaps in health disparities, assess where health care is on the equity journey and take what we’ve learned to strengthen our organizations and communities through collaborative and innovative work — by investing in our neighborhoods and one another.

Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of the Health Equity Roadmap — an innovative framework to support hospitals and health systems in their efforts to become more equitable organizations and dismantle structural barriers to health and overall well-being.

Creating infrastructure to maintain accountability to sustain DEI work across departments and service lines.

Advancing health equity and fostering healthy communities by investing in strong hospital-community partnerships.

Creating pathways that lead to diversifying leadership ranks to reflect the populations and communities served.

Using quantitative and qualitative data to inform, design, and evaluate improvement strategies.

Applying a DEI lens to organizational policies and supporting an equitable and inclusive climate and culture.

Practicing cultural humility and activities that improve culturally appropriate care such as language access and health literacy.

This glossary refers to the Associated Press (AP) style for a majority of the terms listed below. For terms not specifically included in the AP Style guide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Boston Public Health Commission, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Washington School of Public Health informed those definitions.

AHA’s Institute for Diversity & Health Equity designed the Health Equity Roadmap as a framework to guide hospitals and health care systems to advance equity.

Research and experience show that leading health equity strategies cut across these six major areas within health care organizational structures: Equitable and Inclusive Organizational Policies; Community Collaboration for Solutions; Diverse Representation in Leadership and Governance; Collection and Use of Data to Drive Action; Culturally Appropriate Patient Care; and Systemic and Shared Accountability.

In 2018, the Alliance formed a Racial Equity Network (REN) of local and state systems and program leaders and advocates to inspire more engagement about best practices, data collection, and action steps at the systems level.