An exciting new tool designed to help advance Endeavor Health’s goals to close health disparities in our communities is being implemented systemwide, following a successful pilot initiative to improve breast cancer screening.
The Lens of Equity Tool is a critical asset that identifies and characterizes disparities in clear metrics across diverse demographic groups. The tool takes in a variety of factors — including race, ethnicity, age, language, gender and median family income — and provides a data-driven method of understanding where specific disparities exist in our communities. It can be applied to an endless array of clinical concerns, from hypertension to colorectal cancer screening rates.
“We are one of a select few if not the only healthcare systems to use patient, clinical and community data to help improve outcomes and close disparity gaps,” said Brandon Buchanan, Assistant Vice President, Health Equity at Endeavor Health.
“This is incredible, not only are we using insights from the Lens of Equity Tool to drive impact throughout the communities we serve, we now have health equity metrics embedded in on our system scorecard as one of the key initiatives in measuring quality, safety and patient experience.”
The Lens of Equity tool was initially developed as a spreadsheet to understand where the health equity team should prioritize its work.
The tool was then deployed to support breast cancer screening improvements and was tracked over a two-year period, where mammography adherence grew from 73% to 82.6% in residents in the lowest income neighborhoods served. The study will soon be published and highlights how analytic tools and measurement systems can truly help move the needle in health equity.
Community Health Worker Cait Chapman recently joined Endeavor Health’s team after working with patients in marginalized communities and seeing firsthand the negative impact of disparities in care. “I wanted to see what I could do to help people be better taken care of,” said Chapman, who believes the new tool is helping them do just that.
“It’s so wonderful to have the data and have it on hand when I am speaking to a patient so I am able to help connect them to resources even if they’re not comfortable sharing their situation,” said Chapman. “There’s no doubt this is helping patients, especially those we are serving at the Community Health Center in Evanston.”
The tool is really about leveraging Endeavor Health’s strength in technology and analytics to uncover equity gaps and combine those analytics with personal connections and human support, like the work done by community health workers, explained Buchanan.
“We’re now applying the initial learnings across the system to scale this work,” said Buchanan. “We have observed an almost 22-year life expectancy gap across the Endeavor Health service area. Cancer, chronic disease, mental health, violence and infant mortality all contribute to that gap, and as a health system we have put our stake in the ground to better address those drivers.”
If the goal is to change the world, we have to start in our own backyard, added Buchanan.
“Looking ahead, there are countless ways the tool can support our health equity goals, equipping our team and community partners with the hard data to make good policy decisions and important choices on where to allocate resources,” said Health Equity Care Transformation Manager Jerome Kaul.
“Achieving health equity is non-negotiable, we are holding ourselves accountable, we’re measuring our impact, and this tool helps us do that,” added Buchanan.
