AHA members share strategies for advancing health equity, value

Pictured, from left to right: Vikas Chowdhry, chief analytics and information officer, Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation; Jaime Dircksen, vice president, community health and well-being, Trinity Health; Lois Bernstein, chief community executive, Multicare Health System; Priya Bathija, vice president, AHA's The Value Initiative; Laura Vail, director, office of inclusion and health equity, Cone Health, and Brian Youngblood, Project Leader, Community and Population Health, NewYork-Presbyterian.

Improving healthy equity can provide “tremendous value” to patients, communities, hospitals and the health care delivery system in the United States, where disparities in social factors contribute to an estimated $93 billion in excess health care costs each year, said Priya Bathija, vice president of AHA’s The Value Initiative, moderating a panel discussion yesterday at the Root Cause Coalition’s National Summit on the Social Determinants of Health in San Diego. Panelists from Cone Health, Multicare Health System, NewYork-Presbyterian, Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation and Trinity Health shared how their organizations are using data to guide and measure the impact of their strategies to address social determinants of health, which ranged from screening for social determinants to supporting at-risk youth and lowering emergency department admissions. AHA is an inaugural partner in the coalition.