How Henry Ford Health is advancing health equity by closing the telehealth gap
Henry Ford Health, Michigan’s preeminent health system, recently held a two-day digital health summit titled “Advancing Health Equity: Closing the Telehealth Gap.”
The first day 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 the health justice nonprofit Focus:HOPE In the Hope Village neighborhood in Motor City.
The audience on both days included a wide range of participants with a strong focus on community organizations. Clinical and administrative stakeholders from Henry Ford Health, Life and Science Partners, researchers, funders, payers, city and state staff, and community organizations were in attendance.
Healthcare IT News He recently spoke with Ally Hunter, a virtual care consultant at Henry Ford Health, for a recap of the summit and a discussion of some of the event’s takeaways.
Q: What are the goals of your summit?
A. The idea for this summit stemmed from the Telehealth Equity Catalyst Award received by Henry Ford Health by the Association of American Medical Colleges. Dr. Dennis White Perkins, chief of family medicine at Henry Ford Health, is the principal investigator on the grant. Thor Pearson, a research project manager, and I support the grant work.
There is a lot of great work being done in The digital equity space, specifically in Detroit and Michigan. It’s also a relatively newer space to follow in the equity space, but it’s important as our world becomes increasingly digital and patients are required to access their healthcare digitally.
Our team saw an opportunity to create a space for cross-functional meetings to address this issue from multiple angles. We also realized that often, when these conversations are being had, those with lived or lived experiences don’t have seats at the table, and we wanted to turn that narrative on its head.
We had three goals for this event. First, foster an environment of radical collaboration, humility, and action-focused inclusivity that leverages assets. Second, tap into the knowledge and life experience of participants involved in our community engagement sessions – community members and organizations, city and state employees, clinicians, etc.
Third, to collect idea content that can be transformed into solutions and can be a resource for future development through a framework model.
Q: What two or three topics have received the most attention, and why?
A. The bulk of our summit focused on community engagement sessions. These sessions are divided into six groups: Seniors, General Adults, Children and Family. Each group was tasked with identifying a focus area of the digital equity methodology.
This methodology includes five areas that need to be addressed The issue of digital stocks. These areas are advocacy and awareness, access and affordability, technical support, digital skills, and devices. We focused the conversations on seeking to understand the barriers, assets, and opportunities that exist in these areas.
Although digital health has been around for a while, understanding what digital justice is and how to apply it to telehealth are conversations that have only begun in the past few years. Knowing this, it was important for us to create conversations that fostered the exchange of knowledge and resources, but also increased knowledge about the topic.
If attendees can walk away with new knowledge to take back to their team and their work, that’s a win for our team. At the end of the community engagement sessions, we asked participants to write down the top tips they felt Henry Ford Health needed to know in navigating digital justice and telehealth.
Additionally, we were able to highlight some great community organizations serving the Detroit and Metro Detroit area in the digital equity space. These presentations allowed us to showcase the hard work being done in our community and foster communication between the various attendees. The following community organizations shared their work over the two days.
The goal of City of Detroit Office of Digital Equity and Inclusion It is to provide residents with digital equity tools, increasing digital access and equality in the long term.
Social enterprise Human information technology It creates equitable access to opportunity by providing devices, internet access, digital skills training and technical support to 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 Its Senior Telehealth Connect program is partnered with Michigan-based Behavioral Health Associates.
Organization Empowering my future They 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 technology skills for the future.
the Senior Regional Cooperative They stressed the work they are doing and the importance of cooperation between 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 people with disabilities in and throughout Southeast Michigan, who face barriers to a successful quality of life at home and in community settings.
Q: What are some of the conclusions from the summit that show how hospitals and health systems can improve their digital health equity?
A. What’s important to note is that in the conversations that I’m a part of in this space, I see Henry Ford Health really leading the charge in investing in this work and supporting our patients in accessing their care digitally. This event was a unique opportunity to bring parties from different fields together to participate in these conversations.
Leverage your communities: They know best and it’s important to be part of the conversations in developing solutions, otherwise you’ll miss out on a huge and necessary perspective. There is also likely to be great work already being done in communities allowing for partnerships. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.
Don’t design solutions with only the hypothetical user in mind. Make sure the solutions take into account the user who is sometimes overlooked (it may be difficult for them to use it) and the user who is ignored (can’t use the solutions at all).
These are some of the participants’ comments that I recorded.
“Investing in education and outreach, as well as providing human interaction to provide options for patients to receive health assistance and encourage them on why medical check-ups are necessary before major health issues.”
“Digital literacy is important and urgent to act on now, before we suffer another disaster. One person cannot do everything. It takes a village.”
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