The prominent Michigan health system Henry Ford Health recently held a two-day digital health summit titled, “Advancing Health Equity: Bridging the Telehealth Divide.”
Day one was held at Henry Ford Innovations located on the campus of Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. The second day of the summit took place at nonprofit health equity organization Focus:HOPE in the Hope Village neighborhood of the Motor City.
The audience both days featured a broad range of participants with a strong emphasis on community organizations. Clinical and administrative stakeholders from Henry Ford Health, life and sciences partners, researchers, funders, payers, city and state employees, and community organizations were in attendance.
Healthcare IT News spoke recently with Ally Hunter, virtual care consultant at Henry Ford Health, for a recap of the summit and a discussion about some of the event’s conclusions.
Q. What were the goals of your summit?
A. The idea for this summit originated from the Telehealth Equity Catalyst award Henry Ford Health was awarded by the Association of American Medical Colleges. Dr. Denise White-Perkins, chair of family medicine at Henry Ford Health, is the principal investigator on the grant. Thor Person, a research project manager, and I support the grant work.
There is a lot of amazing work being conducted in the digital equity space, specifically in the city of Detroit and the State of Michigan. It’s also a relatively newer space to pursue in the equity arena, but one that is important as our world becomes increasingly digital and patients are asked to access their healthcare digitally.
Our team saw an opportunity to create the space to convene cross-functional parties tackling this issue from multiple angles. We also recognized that often when these conversations are being held, those with lived or living experiences don’t have seats at the table, and we wanted to flip this narrative on its head.
We had three goals for this event. First, foster an environment of radical collaboration, humility and inclusivity that’s action-focused, and one that leverages assets. Second, leverage the knowledge and lived experience of the participants involved in our community engagement sessions – community members and organizations, city and state employees, physicians, etc.
And third, collate ideation content that can be turned into solutions and can be the source of future development through a framework model.
Q. What were two or three topics that got the most attention, and why?
A. The largest portion of our summit was focused on our community engagement sessions. These sessions were broken up into six groups: Older Adults, General Adults, and Peds and Family. Each group was tasked with identifying an area of focus from the digital equity methodology.
This methodology comprises five areas to address the issue of digital equity. These areas are advocacy and awareness, access and affordability, technical support, digital skills, and devices. We focused the conversations on seeking to understand the existing barriers, assets and opportunities in these areas.
While digital health has been around for a while, understanding what digital equity is and how it applies to telehealth are conversations that have only started in the last few years. In knowing this, it was important for us to create conversations that fostered a sharing of knowledge and resources, but also an increase of knowledge on the subject.
If attendees were able to walk away with one new piece of knowledge to take back to their team and their work, that was a win for our team. At the end of the community engagement sessions, we asked participants to write down the biggest takeaway they felt Henry Ford Health needed to know in tackling digital and telehealth equity.
Additionally, we were able to highlight some amazing community organizations serving the Detroit and Metro Detroit area in the digital equity space. These presentations allowed us to showcase the diligent work that is being done in our community and foster the connection between various attendees. The following community organizations shared their work throughout the two days.
The goal of the City of Detroit’s Office of Digital Equity and Inclusion is to provide residents with digital equity tools, increasing access and long-term digital equality.
Social enterprise Human-I-T creates equitable access to opportunity by providing devices, internet access, digital skills training and tech support for communities left on the wrong side of the digital divide, while at the same time, empowering businesses and organizations to do good by diverting technology from landfills to protect our planet.
The Detroit Area Agency on Aging shared their Senior Telehealth Connect program in partnership with Michigan-based Behavioral Health Associates.
The organization Empower My Future shared their digital upskilling program, which provides training and resources to seniors, returning citizens and low-income individuals, bridging the digital divide and enhancing their technological skills for the future.
The Senior Regional Collaborative emphasized the work they do and the importance of collaboration among all partners and ensuring there are seats at the table. The organization is a network of more than 35 organizations serving the needs of older adults and persons living with disabilities in and throughout Southeast Michigan, as they face barriers to obtaining a successful quality of life in home and community-based settings.
Q. What were a few conclusions that came out of the summit that show how hospitals and health systems can improve their digital health equity?
A. Something to note is that in conversations I’m a part of in this space, I see Henry Ford Health truly leading the charge in investment in this work and supporting our patient population in accessing their care digitally. This event was a unique opportunity to bring parties across various areas together to engage in these conversations.
Tap into your communities: They know best and it is crucial they are a part of the conversations in developing solutions, otherwise you miss a large and necessary perspective. There is also likely great work already being done in the communities that allows for partnerships. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.
Don’t design solutions only with the default user in mind. Make sure solutions consider the occasionally overlooked user (can be challenging for them to use) and the overlooked user (cannot use solutions at all).
And here is some participant feedback I recorded.
“Invest in education and communication, as well as offer human interaction to provide patient options to receive health help and encourage them as to why one should seek medical checkups before major health issues.”
“Digital literacy is important and it’s urgent to act on it now, before we are hit by another catastrophe. One person cannot do it all. It takes a village.”
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Email him: bsiwicki@himss.org
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Source : Healthcare IT News