Health Equity (160)

Christina Caraballo, VP of informatics at HIMSS, describes the inclusion of maternal social determinants of health data in the U.S. Core Data for Interoperability as a crucial step towards reducing maternal mortality in underserved communities.

Asad Lilani, director of political strategy at the Access Challenge notes that while social media campaigns are effective to reach large urban audiences, radio remains a vital way to convey health information to many people in rural areas of Africa.

CIO Craig Kwiatkowski offers a look at the AI tools at the famous health system, how its AI-powered primary care app is training AI on data sets that reflect diverse populations, and how he measures the success of AI-enabled initiative.

MA plans will need to measure performance ahead of 2027 when CMS will start rewarding plans that demonstrate progress in addressing health disparities, says Anna Basevich, SVP of Enterprise Partnerships and Customer Enablement at Arcadia.

Khue Tran, chief strategy officer at Azalea Health, talks about how the company's telehealth and EHR tools integrate with partners' remote patient monitoring and chronic care management products to treat patients living in rural "care deserts."

Christopher Kunney, advocacy chair for HIMSS Georgia chapter and 2024 HIMSS Changemaker award recipient, discusses closing the gaps of health equity and creating a pipeline of clinicians from historically underserved communities.

Patients are concerned that healthcare's digital transformation could worsen existing health inequalities, especially the digital divide, says Gözde Susuzlu Briggs, programme manager for the European Patients' Forum.

Roselyn Tso, director of the Indian Health Service (IHS), discusses the agency's mission of advancing health equity for Native Americans and Alaska Natives and its progress in modernizing its health IT system.

Dr. Hunter Cherwek, VP of clinical services and technologies at Orbis International, discusses the company's partnership with surgical training company FundamentalVR to train students in ophthalmic surgery to treat cataracts using VR.

Ellen Arigorat, nursing informatics program director at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and a HIMSS Changemaker award recipient, reflects on supporting digital technology adoption in clinical workflows, which inspired her to focus on health equity.

Gabriel Garcia-Lopez, Los Angeles LGBT Center health information systems director, says attending his first HIMSS Global Conference inspired him to bring a LGBTQ+ health equity perspective to HIMSS committees, leading to a Changemaker Award.

Dr. Donald Warne, co-director of the Center for Indigenous Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, calls for leadership development for Indigenous people in healthcare education as one way to ensure culturally relevant care.