Health care and equity advocates have launched a new coalition, Rise to Health: A National Coalition for Equity in Health Care, created to bring together individuals and organizations engaged in health equity work but currently operating in silos. The coalition’s objective is to forward a cohesive national strategy that advances equity and embeds racial justice in health care.
Announced in early December at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Forum 2022, IHI’s president, Kedar Mate, MD, said, “The time has come for a system-wide approach—where health care organizations, individual practitioners, payers, professional societies and pharmaceutical, research and biotech organizations come together and align activities to make the whole ecosystem of health care more equitable. By doing this together we will change the story on equity from one of confusion and competition to one of hope, possibility, collaboration, and alignment.”
The organizations in the coalition include: AHIP (American Health Insurance Plans), American Hospital Association, American Medical Association, Council of Medical Specialty Societies The Commonwealth Fund, Genetech, Groundwater Institute, Health Begins, Institute for Healthcare Improvement, National Association of Community Health Centers, PolicyLink and Race Forward.
The coalition will unite people and organizations toward action and shared solutions for systemic change and structural impact, with a vision for a transformed health care ecosystem in which all people have the power, circumstances and resources to achieve optimal health.
The coalitionalso includes a number of advisor organizations: American Public Health Association, Asian/Pacific Islander Domestic Violence Project, Kaiser Permanente, National Association of Hispanic Nurses, National League for Nursing, National Quality Forum, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Trevor Project, Treehouse, A Vision of Change, Urban Indian Health Institute, WE in the World and others.
To realize its vision, the coalition will have several areas of action – mobilizing and equipping individuals, health care organizations, and health care industry actors with concrete skills and tools. They hope to change mindsets and narratives within health care and influence and fundamentally change policy, payment, education, standards and practices.
“Hospital and health system quality improvement and equity are inseparable in order to improve health outcomes for all,” said Leon D. Caldwell, senior director of health equity strategies and innovation for the American Hospital Association’s Institute for Diversity and Health Equity.
The coalition embodies five critical values, including: an interdependence in which cooperation and collective action are needed to transform inequitable systems; a sense of belonging, with the belief that improving health for individuals and communities that experience health inequities benefits everyone; a belief that an abundance exists with enough resources to achieve optimal health for everyone; a faith in the inherent dignity, worth and value of all people; and, finally, a strength in which the coalition honors community knowledge and practices, while acknowledging the structural inequities that lead to disparate health outcomes.
To achieve its goals, the coalition will engage health care sector audiences in health care organizations, individual practitioners, payer organizations, pharmaceutical, research, and biotech organizations and professional societies.
The coalition has organized its foundational set of actions and associated activities into six categories or steps: committing to acting for equity, getting grounded in history and local context, identifying opportunities for improvement, making equity a strategic priority, taking initiative with others and aligning, investing and advocating for thriving communities.
In recent years, the growing need for healthcare equity has become headline news with a growing recognition that inequity in healthcare leads to poor patient outcomes, often resulting in tragic consequences, including shorter lifespans, untreated illnesses and lost lifetime potential, not to mention billions of dollars in costs to the U.S. health system.
To achieve its long-term vision, the coalition will focus on four areas of emphasis. Firstly, the coalition will seek to build access, ensuring that every individual and community has health care that is inclusively designed to reach them.
Secondly, the coalition will build and sustain a diverse, inclusive and thriving health care workforce that advances racial justice and health equity for patients, communities and staff. Thirdly, the coalition will work together to leverage its collective strengths, resources and power to address structural and social drivers of health inequities, creating social and structural drivers of equity.
Finally, the coalition will redesign health care systems to reliably deliver equitable, high-quality and safe care for every single individual and community, with the goal of eliminating unjust differential harms and ultimately improving care for all.
For more information, please visit the coalition’s official website at http://www.risetohealthequity.org.