A Look at the Emerging Role of Health Equity Institutes

This is the first post of a three-part series on Modern Healthcare’s Social Determinants of Health Symposium, which was held virtually on October 25, 2023.

Social drivers/determinants of health are not a new concept. However, what is new is an emerging trend that has the potential to improve equitable care at a much deeper and more profound level. That trend is the health equity institute—organized teams of clinicians, researchers, experts, advocates, and patients to create system-level strategies that place health equity at the foundation of every facet of a healthcare system.

On October 25^th, 2023, Modern Healthcare hosted a Social Determinants of Health Symposium which highlighted some of the nation’s most advanced strategies and programs dedicated to addressing disparities in healthcare. Among those featured was Sutter Health and its Institute for Advancing Health Equity.

Sutter Health Institute for Advancing Health Equity

Sutter Health, a northern California, not-for-profit integrated health system, serves nearly 3.3 million patients per year across 22 counties, representing a wide range of diverse populations across rural, suburban, and urban settings, many of which include heavily populated underserved communities. Therefore, the need to address disparities in healthcare became a chief priority at Sutter Health.

The Sutter Health Institute for Advancing Health Equity has developed a powerful platform to generate data-driven insights, innovative metrics and methodologies, as well as pragmatic solutions to improve outcomes for all patients. This comes after a decade of work to advance health equity through research and patient focused care and examining their own data to identify ways to provide better outcomes for patients.

In 2020, this work came to fruition with the launch of its Institute for Advancing Health Equity. Bill Isenberg, MD, chief medical and quality officer at Sutter Health, describes the Institute as “an innovation incubator that serves as a conveyor of experts, advocates, and patients to identify inequities, explore ideas, and most importantly, create solutions that foster more equitable outcomes for all.”

According to Warner Thomas, president and CEO of Sutter Health, health equity is an important part of healthcare in the United States. “As we saw during COVID-19, social determinants of health and the challenges in health equity in our country came front and center. We are continuing to educate the community about what they can do to take better care of themselves,” he said. “We are continuing to educate ourselves about how we can take better care of our communities, [to understand] where are the gaps, how we approach different populations with different strategies and different approaches.” Thomas wagers that this will allow the broader healthcare community to take better care of people, while connecting with different communities and different ways.

Data and the Sutter Health Approach

Using a combination of data and unique programming, Sutter Health’s approach has enabled them to make broad strides in addressing health disparities at their core. Through a single and comprehensive electronic health record (EHR) system, they examined their own data—including race, ethnicity, ancestry, and language data—and augmented this with social drivers of health data to produce substantive and actionable solutions.

“Data is the engine of our health equity work,” said Dr. Isenberg. “We use this real-time data to identify and quantify disparities and design tailored solutions to address identified equity gaps.”

Kristen Azar, RN, MSN/MPH, PhD (c), FAHA, executive director of the Institute described their approach. “We’ve been very intentional about addressing health equity as a measure of quality emphasizing alignment with quality and safety and recognizing that you cannot offer the highest quality care without having it be equitable care.”

With this mindset, the Institute applied the concept of health equity across 4 key programmatic areas to identify ways to provide better outcomes for patients. They include:

• Maternal and Birth Equity
• Mental Health Equity
• Chronic Disease Equity
• Equity in Care Transitions

Through partnerships at multiple levels both within the Institute and within the communities they serve, the Institute has been successful by applying a specific framework to every initiative it undertakes. This framework includes 4 domains:

• Metrics and Insights to measure what matters
• Solutions and Innovations to accelerate scientific innovation
• Advocacy and Community to become a trusted partner
• Workforce Readiness to prepare care teams

This framework has led to some exciting initiatives and programs, including the launch of the nation’s very first Health Equity Nursing Fellowship through its partnership with Samuel Merritt University, to help grow nurse leaders who will focus on reducing health disparities.

Sutter Health is making waves in the world of health equity and has shown the value and promise of health equity institutes on the greater healthcare landscape.

Rania Emara is a senior editor and medical writer for the Association of Community Cancer Centers.