THURSDAY, DEC. 1, 2022  
 
8:00am | Registration Opens  
 
9:00am - 9:45am | Improving Quality and Achieving Equity: Lessons from the Field  

Joseph Betancourt, MD, MPH, Senior Vice President, Equity and Community Health, 
Massachusetts General Hospital
 

Since the release of the Institute of Medicine Report "Unequal Treatment," hospitals and health plans across the country have gradually aimed to improve quality and achieve equity in health care. This presentation will provide an overview of the state of disparities today--including root causes--and describe critical success factors observed over the last 20 years in work done with health care organizations across 35 states, and at Massachusetts General Hospital, winner of the inaugural 2014 Equity of Care Award from the American Hospital Association.   
 

9:45am - 10:10am | Accelerating Health Equity at CMS Through Stakeholder Engagement

CAPT Wanda Finch, MSW, MCE, Deputy Director, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services

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CMS OMH will highlight our multi-faceted approach to engage with the community, discuss how we use feedback to improve strategies, and how it helped us establish CMS’s Framework for Health Equity. We’ll also highlight programs that put the resources the community helped us develop back into the hands of the stakeholders to continue to improve health care quality and access for all.

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• Discuss strategies to engage with the community and stakeholders and support them in their efforts to advance health equity

• Describe the Health Equity TA Program and C2C Partner Portal Program and their impact on health care organizations and the community

• Highlight new internal initiatives that CMS OMH will be implementing to improve stakeholder engagement strategies

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10:10am - 10:45am | An Insurer’s Journey to Addressing Social Determinants of Health

Tracy Parris-Benjamin, LMSW, FHELA, Director, Community Health and Health Equity, Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield of NJ

 

Horizon Neighbors in Health is a program rooted in addressing social needs to provide whole-person care for members and the communities they serve. During the session Tracy will provide takeaways from a retrospective look at traditional care models and discuss Horizon’s journey from SDOH pilot to the deployment of a full-scaled program focused on:

 

Workforce Development 

• Creating hyper-local jobs (CHW’s) in underserved communities, aiding financial wellness 

• Connecting members to job training and development resources 

 

Equitable Healthcare 

• Increasing access to care with providers who understand the needs of the community 

• Raising awareness of the impacts of implicit and explicit biases to eliminate health disparities and improve health outcomes 

 

Health Education 

• Promoting understanding of how to utilize benefits appropriately 

• Fostering trusting relationships with CHWs and care teams 

10:45am - 11:00am | Networking Break  
 
11:00am - 11:45am | Panel Discussion: 
Can Economic Mobility be the Fast Lane to Solving Health Inequities?  

Moderator: Sheila Phicil, Director of Innovation, Health Equity Accelerator, Boston Medical Center 
Panelists: 

Teilachanell Angel, Social Impact MBA, Founder, Walker-Angel Enterprise for Equitable Work
Gary C. David, PhD, CCS, Professor, Bentley University

Gina Patterson, Director, Boston Opportunity System (BOS) Collaborative, Boston Medical Center

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There is overwhelming evidence that greater wealth is linked with better health outcomes and longer life expectancy. Economic mobility describes the opportunities and social support systems that enable individuals and families to improve their wealth over their life. Historically and present day, race and ethnicity are being systematically used to exclude and enforce unequal economic outcomes (e.g., redlining) and subsequently lead to unequal health outcomes. We have brought together a panel of experts to discuss how health systems can actively enable economic mobility among the communities they serve as a means of achieving health equity.  

 

• Learn key elements of the history of how economic racism has led to and continues to perpetuate health inequities   

• Explore how healthcare players can take the lead in addressing economic mobility for vulnerable populations  

• Understand different types of economic mobility initiatives and their potential impact  

  

11:45am - 12:20pm | Unlocking the Potential of Value-based Care through Health Equity 
Duane Reynolds, Partner, President, Chartis Just Health Collective  
 

The movement from fee-for-service to value-based care payment arrangements has been slow-moving. Adoption is driven by local health plan and provider market dynamics, leadership prowess and understanding of its benefits, and slim margins that do not allow for proper infrastructure investment to succeed under captivated payment arrangements. Despite slow adoption, research shows that value-based payment arrangements improve the consumer experience, quality, and decrease overall costs of care. But there is another benefit – value-based care has the potential to eliminate disparities in care and accelerate health equity. In this session, we will explore how health equity relates to value-based care and what actions you can take to reduce disparities in care, improve quality and demonstrate financial return on investment.

 

• Understand the link between health equity and value-based care  

• Discuss ways in which health equity improves patient experience, quality outcomes, and cost of care  

• Identify specific actions you can apply in your accountable care programs and operations  
   

12:20pm - 1:20pm | Luncheon 
 
1:20pm - 2:05pm | Panel Discussion: Improving | LGBTQ+ Health Equity Together

Soltan Bryce, Special Assistant to the COO & EVP of Strategy, Boston Medical Center Health System
Luke Lennon, Founder & CEO, Namesake Collaborative
Jessica Halem, Senior Director, The Eidos LGBTQ+ Health Initiative at University of Pennsylvania

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Healthcare is shaped by a host of factors, and they are different for the LGBTQ+ population.  This interactive panel will discuss these factors that include the experience and impact of discrimination, stigma, and denial of care which can affect health outcomes, access, coverage and overall interaction with the healthcare system. 

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2:05pm - 2:40pm | Integrating Equity into Quality and Safety  

Lou Hart, MD, Medical Director of Health Equity for Yale-New Haven Health System  
 

An interactive session that highlights a framework to understand the principal cause of large scale intergenerational social, racial, and economic inequity in our country. After presenting this framework for understanding structural drivers of inequity, participants will learn the three pillars of an equitable health system and how Equity, Experience, and Quality & Safety infrastructures represent ideal starting places for our systems to drive transformative change in our collective healthcare equity journeys.

 

• Understand a key framework that elucidates the underlying cause of unjust disparity in our country 

• Describe the three pillars that constitute key priorities for an equitable healthcare system to bring about transformative equitable change 

• Glean three key action items from leveraging healthcare Experience, Quality & Safety systems and QI science to measure and eliminate healthcare inequities 

 

2:40pm - 3:00pm | Networking Break  
 

3:00pm - 3:35pm | HEDI: Clinical Drivers & Informatics Solutions  

Brenda Ayers, MD, Nuvance Health Network    

Albert Villarin, MD, FACEP, Chief Medical Informatics Officer, Nuvance Health Network

Rebecca Winokur, MD, Oracle/Cerner  

 
Nuvance Health™ strives to provide an environment where all community members, patients and staff have the opportunity for optimal health and well-being, and feel welcome, safe, valued and supported. In this session, three executives - vendor, clinician, and clinical informaticist - discuss how a collaborative and aligned approach leads to meaningful and sustainable change in the advancement of health equity. The panel will explore data collection and registration, clinical calculators, and interactive workflows, to highlight the measurable impact on their healthcare network and entire patient population. 
 

• Review current state clinical factors impacting patient equity 

• Evaluate clinical data enhancements to address equity gaps 

• Explain Nuvance Health’s Health Equity & Diversity Future 

3:35pm - 4:10pm | Health Equity is a Moral and Business Imperative  
Tosan O. Boyo, MPH, FACHE, Senior Vice President of Hospital Operations, John Muir Health  
 
Health disparities limit our capacity to thrive and impact how we show up to work, school and even our families. Research estimates it costs the US Health System $320 Billion annually. That startling amount doesn’t encompass the emotional, economic and generational toll burdening communities. When we embrace the fact that equity work is quality work it makes the moral and business imperative clearer. There are three fundamental steps every Health System can and should take on this journey. 

 

• Build a burning platform on why equity matters to the executive team and frontline staff  

• Establish strategic and operational accountability with your leaders internally and externally   

• Utilizing data to understand the needs of your community and assess the impact  
   

4:10pm - 4:45pm | Addressing the Cost of Inequities
Nicole Kelm, Strategy Consultant, Deloitte Health Equity Institute
 

Inequities across the US health system limit underserved people’s access to affordable, high-quality care, create avoidable costs and financial waste that span society, and impact every individual’s potential to achieve health and well-being. To understand how far-reaching this issue is, Deloitte’s actuarial team developed a model to quantify the link between healthcare spending and healthcare disparities related to race, socioeconomic status, and sex/gender. The team analyzed several high-cost diseases (e.g., diabetes, asthma, and cardiovascular disease), determined the proportion of spending that could be attributed to health inequities today, and trended the spending to 2040. They found that inequities in the US health system cost approximately $320 billion today and could eclipse $1 trillion in annual spending by 2040 if left unaddressed. We’ll be discussing the opportunities for stakeholders across industries to collaborate and activate to meaningfully address these inequities and their root causes.

Click here to read more!

 

4:45pm | Opening Night Reception in Sponsor Showcase  
 
 

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2022  
 

8:15am - 8:50am | Representation Matters:
Why True Diversity in Medicine is Urgently Needed  

Michellene Davis, Esq., President & CEO, National Medical Fellowships  
 

The COVID-19 pandemic illuminates how structural and systemic racism in medicine contributes to and proliferates the social and political determinants of health. Equity-minded health professionals from the communities enduring the highest levels of health inequity can best address well-earned mistrust in health care. By bringing cultural competency and humility to their life-saving work, they become change agents who eliminate health disparities.  

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• Understand the power of cultural competency and cultural humility to transform health care  

• Unpack the impact of “weathering” — how lifelong racism, community disinvestment, socioeconomic and political marginalization, community disinvestment, and threats of violence harm health  

• Discover why diversifying health care delivers better health for all communities  
   

8:50am - 9:25am | Diversity in the Healthcare Workforce: A Path to Health Equity:

No More Excuses

Veronica Thierry Mallett, MD, MMM, Chief Administrative Officer, More In Common Alliance

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• Explain the racial and ethnic composition of the healthcare workforce

• Demonstrate knowledge of the impact of having a provider who is from the patient’s community and understands the patient’s lived experience 

• List concrete actions that K-12, undergraduate and medical schools can take to increase diversity in the health care work force

 

9:25am - 10:00am | Using Telehealth to Eliminate Disparities and Inequities  

Ann Mond Johnson, CEO, American Telemedicine Association (ATA)
 

Health disparities are not simply differences in health outcomes. They represent significant gaps in what evidence-based tools and resources can be accessed by whom and when. The ATA is advancing a framework that illustrates the different levers and elements that the industry needs to address to eliminate health disparities. This framework illustrates that the broad availability and integration of telehealth can drive the changes needed in order to achieve the nation’s goals for health and well-being.  
 

• Identify key elements that must be addressed in order to eliminate health disparities.  

• Learn how telehealth can help address disparities and drive better health and wellness in both urban and rural communities  

• Better understand how different stakeholders can engage more effectively in addressing disparities  

  

10:00am - 10:20am Networking Break
 

10:20am - 11:00am | PANEL: How Equity Impacts Patients and Communities  

Moderator: Giavanna Gaskin, Program Director, Equity in Pregnancy, Boston Medical Center Health System 
 

Panelists: 
Tosan O. Boyo, MPH, FACHE, Senior Vice President of Hospital Operations, John Muir Health  

Abner Mason, Founder & CEO, SameSky Health
 

One of the ways to improve equitable outcomes in a community is to start within the community. Often interventions and innovations are scoped, planned, and designed away from the people they will affect, and where the opportunity for input from patients and community members comes during implementation. We have brought together a panel of experts to discuss what happens when you empower patients and community experts to be involved in projects from the beginning and how that engagement can lead to more equitable outcomes.

 

• Discuss the importance of the community and patient voice 

• Identify ways to engage with patients and the community when designing interventions or planning innovations 

• Learn why patient and community engagement can yield equitable outcomes  

 

11:00am - 11:45am | Enhancing the Health of Our Communities

Alisahah Jackson, MD, Vice President for Population Health Innovation and Policy,
CommonSpirit Health System  
Jay Bhatt, DO, MPH, MPA, Executive Director, Deloitte Center for Health Solutions

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• Recognize social drivers' impact on health equity 

• Identify strategies for addressing health disparities

• Discuss community engagement as a way to accelerate health justice.

 

11:45am - 12:25pm | Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity (AIM-AHEAD)  
Lavanya Vishwanatha, MS, PMP, National Institutes of Health

Toufeeq Ahmed, PhD, MS, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Biomedical Informatics, Vanderbilt School of Medicine
 

The Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity (AIM-AHEAD) program was launched by the National Institutes of Health in September of 2021 through the funding of a coordinating center. The goals are to enhance the participation and representation of researchers and communities currently underrepresented in the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) models; address health disparities and inequities using AI/ML; and improve the capabilities of this emerging technology, beginning with the use of electronic health record (EHR) and extending to other diverse data. This presentation will discuss the AIM-AHEAD program and how it seeks to address the challenges that hinder the use of AI/ML in healthcare.   

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12:25pm - 1:00pm | The Healing ARC: an Antiracist Approach to Addressing Inequities in Heart Failure Care  
Regan H. Marsh, MD, MPH, Medical Director of Health Equity, Department of Quality and Safety, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

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The Healing ARC — acknowledgment, redress, and closure – is a pragmatic framework for addressing institutional racial inequities in health care delivery. The presentation will share our experiences in documenting and then addressing institutional racism in heart failure care through the Healing ARC. This approach can serve as a model to address disparities by engaging affected communities and healthcare institutions as partners to eliminate healthcare inequities through an antiracist approach.

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• Understand levels of structural, institutional and interpersonal racism and discrimination that impact health outcomes

• Describe the Healing ARC as a model for addressing healthcare inequities

• Learn the importance of a race-conscious approach to eliminating inequities in health

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