Health Equity Blogs

Raymond Waller, hospital administrator at Ascension Brighton Center for Recovery in Brighton, Mich., and 2020 chair of AHA's Behavioral Health Council, looks at substance use rates, stigma and the lack of Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) behavioral health care providers. Read more in this guest blog about the work hospitals and health systems can do now to help future generations.

The American Hospital Association’s Institute for Diversity and Health Equity has developed new REaL data resources and tools to help health care providers address health care disparities in the fight against COVID-19 and beyond.

In this conversation, Elisa Arespacochaga, vice president of the AHA’s Physician Alliance and interim executive lead for the AHA’s Institute for Diversity an Health Equity, talks with two health system chief diversity officers about their efforts to learn more about the patients they are serving through REAL data collection, stratification and utilization.

In this AHA Stat Blog, former AHA Board Chair John Bluford says we need action now to improve health equity. “A good place to start is by our health care systems attacking social and economic determinants of health and racism ZIP code by ZIP code, community by community and city by city in pursuit of better communities and a better nation,” writes Bluford.

As we mark July as Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, Harsh Trivedi, M.D., president and CEO of Sheppard Pratt Health System based in Baltimore, Md., and a member of the AHA Board of Trustees, writes that hospitals and health systems must improve behavioral health care access for Black, Indigenous and people of color.

Listen in as Maria Hernandez, Ph.D., president and chief operating officer of Impact4Health, and Karma Bass, senior principal at Via Healthcare Consulting, discuss the health equity challenges that board members can expect to encounter and how best to tackle them.

Eight minutes and forty-six seconds. A lot goes through your mind when you stand or kneel in silence for eight minutes and forty-six seconds. You think about justice and injustice. About despair and struggle.

This Pride Month, the LGBTQ community and its allies celebrate with an aching absence — amid shifting cultural and social tides. Larry Kramer, a literary giant and iconoclast who used words printed and spoken as the engines for his long career, died late last month at the age of 84.

Any way you cut it, this has been a very tough few weeks in our country. We have witnessed a colorful tapestry of Americans voicing loud opposition to the systemic injustices and institutional racism. We’re also seeing centuries’ worth of wounds being opened and spilling into our streets — and tragically into our emergency departments — here in the greater Kansas City metro and in cities of every size coast-to-coast.

The AHA is working hard to achieve health equity by working with the government to improve data collection to guide policy, and by creating tools and resources to help hospitals and health systems improve health equity in the community.

Hospitals and health systems continue to provide care for our most vulnerable communities by addressing social needs, educating on COVID-19 risks and collaborating with community organizations to expand these efforts beyond their walls, writes Elisa Arespacochaga, vice president of AHA’s Physician Alliance and interim executive lead of AHA’s Institute for Diversity and Health Equity. This AHA blog shares new AHA resources addressing the social determinants of health and meeting the needs of vulnerable populations during the pandemic.

In this podcast, Darren Henson, AHA’s director at the Institute for Diversity & Health Equity, explores how despite the COVID-19 outbreak, Loyola University Medical Center – serving the Chicago

In part two of this AHA Advancing Health podcast, Jay Bhatt, D.O., AHA senior vice president and chief medical officer, and Maurice Jones, president and CEO of the Local Initiatives Support Corpora

On this AHA Advancing Health podcast, Jay Bhatt, D.O., AHA senior vice president and chief medical officer, and Maurice Jones, president and CEO of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, discus

In this AHA Stat Blog, Jay Bhatt, D.O., AHA senior vice president and chief medical officer, discusses a new Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant awarded to AHA’s Institute for Diversity and Health Equity.

Hospitals and health systems are improving the patient experience by understanding implicit bias, preparing for sensitive conversations and addressing other factors that impact this part of the value equation.

Hospitals and health systems are improving health outcomes by tackling disparities in their communities, write Priya Bathija, vice president of AHA’s The Value Initiative, and Duane Reynolds, president and CEO of AHA’s Institute for Diversity and Health Equity.

Hospitals and health systems can use data and metrics to guide their strategies on social needs and social determinants, writes Priya Bathija, vice president of AHA’s The Value Initiative.

Many hospitals and health systems are reducing costs and improving health outcomes by addressing disparities head on, write Priya Bathija, vice president of AHA’s The Value Initiative, and Duane Reynolds, president and CEO of AHA’s Institute for Diversity and Health Equity.

In this AHA Stat blog, Robyn Begley, AHA senior vice president and CEO of the American Organization for Nursing Leadership, discusses how hiring and empowering nurses who reflect the communities they serve can improve quality and the patient experience.