Physicians, prescribe education to address population health equity.

Structural barriers embedded within American society contribute to health inequities and social determinants of health (SDOH) in ways that systematically influence one's ability to succeed and to maintain a healthy overall quality of life in the United States. This article leverages educational attainment as an upstream SDOH factor that can be used to address downstream implications of population health equity. As providers learn to prescribe more innovative treatments that directly influence SDOH, an exploration is made to develop an intervention that integrates education, public health, and medicine as systems in a coordinated process to increase educational attainment for vulnerable populations. This article develops and analyzes the use of health equity management (HEM) model as a conceptual framework to identify precursors for educational attainment and provide an equitable solution for mending the educational attainment gap. It provides theoretical framing, conceptualizes stakeholder engagement, and creates a conceptual framework for identifying and addressing population health issues with education prescriptions. Operationalizing an educational prescription intervention will utilize provider-based screening methods to decrease the gaps in educational attainment by fostering partnerships between education, public health, and medicine. HEM identifies ideal partnership relationships to increase educational attainment and address long-standing quality of life issues, with a primary focus on coordinated activities among systems. Incorporating provider expertise into upstream educational decision-making legitimizes educational attainment as a critical component of population health equity. For many Americans, this is a necessary call to action to demand real structural change to ensure prosperity for all. An educational prescription intervention is a step towards increasing population health equity.

A business planning model to identify new safety net clinic locations.

PURPOSE: Community health clinics serving the poor and underserved are geographically expanding due to changes in U.S. health care policy. This paper describes the experience of a collaborative alliance of health care providers in a large metropolitan area who develop a conceptual and mathematical decision model to guide decisions on expanding its network of community health clinics. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: Community stakeholders participated in a collaborative process that defined constructs they deemed important in guiding decisions on the location of community health clinics. This collaboration also defined key variables within each construct. Scores for variables within each construct were then totaled and weighted into a community-specific optimal space planning equation. This analysis relied entirely on secondary data available from published sources. FINDINGS: The model built from this collaboration revolved around the constructs of demand, sustainability, and competition. It used publicly available data defining variables within each construct to arrive at an optimal location that maximized demand and sustainability and minimized competition. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: This is a model that safety net clinic planners and community stakeholders can use to analyze demographic and utilization data to optimize capacity expansion to serve uninsured and Medicaid populations. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: Communities can use this innovative model to develop a locally relevant clinic location-planning framework.

Setting the stage for a business case for leadership diversity in healthcare: history, research, and leverage.

Leveraging diversity to successfully influence business operations is a business imperative for many healthcare organizations as they look to leadership to help manage a new era of culturally competent, patient-centered care that reduces health and healthcare disparities. This article presents the foundation for a business case in leadership diversity within healthcare organizations and describes the need for research on managerial solutions to health and healthcare disparities. It provides a discussion of clinical, policy, and management implications that will help support a business case for improving the diversity of leadership in healthcare organizations as a way to reduce health and healthcare disparities. Historical contexts introduce aspects of the business case for leveraging leadership diversity based on a desire for a culturally competent care organization. Little research exists on the impact that the role of leadership plays in addressing health disparities from a healthcare management perspective. This article provides practitioners and researchers with a rationale to invest in leadership diversity. It discusses three strategies that will help set the stage for a business case. First, provide empirical evidence of the link between diversity and performance. Second, link investments in diversity to financial outcomes and organizational metrics of success. Third, make organizational leadership responsible for cultural competence as a performance measure. In order to address health and healthcare disparities, collaborations between researchers and practitioners are necessary to effectively implement these strategies.