www.mydiversepatients.com
Mydiversepatients.com harnesses the power of data to identify ways to bridge gaps often experienced by diverse populations. This site offers a way for you to explore learning experiences, techniques, and ideas that we hope you can translate into your practice to help you provide the individualized care every patient deserves. My Diverse Patients is a unique collaboration between Anthem, Inc. and Training Systems Design, Inc. with a common goal of expanding the way we think about health care to ensure more people have the opportunity to make the choices that lead to healthy, longer lives, regardless of their diverse backgrounds.
CMS Equity plan for Medicare
The centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released an updated progress report on their CMS Equity Plan. As part of the update, CMS identifies six health equity priorities for reducing disparities in health. To read about the six health equity priorities, follow this link.
Social Determinants of Health
Social determinants of health (SDOH) are the economic and social conditions that influence individual and group health. Inequalities in public health have long been a problem but the COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the gaps. According to a recent article by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), large numbers of people are experiencing hardships, with, Black and Hispanic people significantly worse off across all categories. For instance, when looking at people that experienced a loss of employment income over the 4 weeks prior to September 13th,2021,Black and Hispanic people were at 24.9% and 27.2% respectively, compared to 13.1% for White people.
The data in the KFF article is reinforced by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation where an article states that COVID-19 “laid bare the gaps in our public health data infrastructure and illuminated the many ways in which they perpetuate vast health inequalities.” Based on this, they recommended actions to modernize the health data system that includes prioritizing governance of the data infrastructure to put equity at the center and ensuring that public health measurement captures and addresses structural racism and other inequities. The time is now to change. You can download and read the full report from the Robert Wood Foundation here.
Addressing health inequities at Blue Cross
March 31, 2021
At Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, we are addressing the needs of the communities we serve by tackling systemic racism in health equity and creating strategies to remove barriers to health for people of color.
For our 2020 Report to the Community, Rosemond Sarpong Owens, the health equity integration director for Blue Cross, discussed her views on health inequities in communities of color.
What is racial and health equity?
To define racial and health equity, imagine this: You have two neighborhoods. The first neighborhood is where the Smith family resides. This neighborhood is stagnant and it has dilapidated houses. This neighborhood doesn’t have access to fresh foods or supermarkets where people can buy fresh produce. This neighborhood has mostly corner stores and gas stations where people get their food and no decent public transport system.
Now, let’s talk about the Jones family. This family of three lives in a neighborhood with many kinds of supermarkets, good schools and clinics. You know that the difference between these two neighborhoods is not by chance. The people who live in the Jones neighborhood are mostly white and the people who live in the Smith neighborhood are mostly people of color. Whether it’s intentional or not, the systemic and structural racism over the years has contributed to this tale of two neighborhoods.
When we talk about racial inequity we are talking about inequitable systems which produce inequities.
How does racial and healthy equity impact communities of color?
The racial composition of those two neighborhoods of the Smiths and the Joneses didn’t happen by chance or didn’t just happen on their own. Who lives in which neighborhood and whether that neighborhood has decent housing, good jobs, good schools and well-paying jobs is determined by multiple systemic institutional policies and practices.
Whether this is intentional or not, these systemic policies and practices have often discriminated by race, which is why we see so much difference in life outcomes based on race. This is how racial and health equity impacts communities of color.
Why is health and race equity important to Blue Cross?
The mission of Blue Cross is to inspire change, transform care and improve health. We’ve realized in order to reach our goal of this mission, we need to ensure that every member of Blue Cross is as healthy as possible.
Blue Cross demands an understanding of different communities and their issues and what is important to improve health for those communities. This requires listening to the community and coming alongside them to co-create solutions. If we do all of that coupled with all the other things we do as a health plan, we shall achieve racial health equity.
What does inclusion mean in the context of equity?
Diversity is inviting people to the party. Inclusion is dancing with them. When I invite people to my home, I make sure everybody has a plate and they are eating. I make sure that I have a forum where everybody has a voice because I like asking people to give input. Inclusion is intentionally making sure that people have a seat at the table and that their voice is heard.
We don’t just invite leaders and people with knowledge and expertise, at Blue Cross, we also invite people to the table who have lived experiences who can inform whatever we are doing. That is one of the ways we ensure inclusion in our organization.
How does Blue Cross hope to impact health and race equity in the future?
Equity happens when we have well-intentioned efforts to dismantle structures and systems that are inequitable. We need to make sure that we face systemic racism head-on and deal with it. It’s not something we can wash away.
At Blue Cross, our goals for the future are to impact systemic racism and impact health outcomes. For that, we have a three-pronged strategy and three areas of focus. First, we want to create a diverse and inclusive workplace through representation and leadership. Moreover, we want to reduce health inequities for people of color in the state of Minnesota as well as remove barriers to health for people of color through our work in the community. We believe that by doing these three, we will be able to impact systemic racism and impact health outcomes for the wellbeing of our community and for our state.