Health Equity
Mar 15, 2024
The Social Determinants of Health: What Medical Professionals Need to Know
Each day, patients’ health is affected—for better or for worse—by factors like income, education, access to fresh food, access to green space, or access to a safe living space and neighborhood. Healthcare professionals witness how these aspects of a person’s day-to-day living environment, together known as the social determinants of health (SDOH), influence the arc of a person’s life.
Jan 16, 2024
What U.S. Healthcare Will Look Like in 2033
American healthcare faces persistent issues with consolidation, workforce shortages, integration of new technologies, and unrelenting economic pressure. Technologies such as clinical decision support (CDS) and other artificial intelligence (AI) tools have continued to emerge, offering both promise and risk. Meanwhile, even as long-standing care and business models are upended, the ripple effects of COVID-19 continue.
Video Dec 18, 2023
Is American Healthcare in Crisis?
Richard E. Anderson, MD, FACP, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Doctors Company and TDC Group, discusses the current state of the American healthcare system.
Dec 07, 2023
ADA Accessibility for Healthcare Websites: How Practices Can Avoid Suits and Attract Patients
Healthcare practices and organizations may be sued by web users who allege that there are site-use access barriers for those with disabilities and impairments that violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and various state laws. Those caught up in these lawsuits can pay millions of dollars and be bound by the settlement to make specific changes to their websites.
Nov 27, 2023
Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Patients: Top FAQs
Healthcare professionals who accept Medicare and Medicaid patients must comply with federal laws pertaining to language assistance for LEP patients. We answer frequently asked questions.
From
The Doctor’s Advocate
Video Oct 12, 2023
Two Unanticipated Forces in 2020-2023: Health Equity and COVID-19
The Institute of Medicine (IOM), now the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), defined quality in healthcare with six domains: safe, effective, efficient, timely, patient-centered, and equitable. Looking at that sixth domain, equitable, means being aware of characteristics and factors that could make patients less likely to receive quality care. These include gender, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and location. To meet the commitment to providing the same quality of care to everyone, medical professionals can make quality their north star. Presented by Mark D. Smith, MD, MBA, Clinical Professor of Medicine, UCSF; Founding President, California Health Care Foundation.
Sep 01, 2023
Thinking About How We Think: How Implicit Bias Creeps Into Diagnosis
David Feldman, MD, MBA, FACS, investigates how implicit biases can contribute to malpractice claims and offers strategies to improve diagnostic safety, mitigate risks, and combat healthcare disparities.
From
The Doctor’s Advocate
Aug 18, 2023
Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Patients: Frequently Asked Questions
To help you understand LEP requirements, we have compiled a list of frequently asked questions with strategies to ensure compliance.
May 30, 2023
Americans with Disabilities Act: Frequently Asked Questions
Practitioners can face steep penalties for failing to comply with federal mandates that protect individuals with disabilities.
May 11, 2023
Postpartum Malpractice Claims: Can We Understand Preventable Harms and Socioeconomic Factors?
Rates for maternal morbidity and mortality are higher in the U.S. than in any other developed country—and many of the harms suffered by patients are preventable. In a multifactorial study, David L. Feldman, MD, MBA, FACS, Chief Medical Officer, The Doctors Company and TDC Group; Jacqueline Ross, PhD, RN, CPAN, Coding Director, Department of Patient Safety and Risk Management, The Doctors Company, and Shelise Valentine, RNC, MSN, Director of Clinical Education, Healthcare Risk Advisors, part of TDC Group, investigated postpartum claims to develop clinical recommendations to decrease the risks of postpartum morbidity and mortality.
Apr 24, 2023
Childhood Obesity: Communication Strategies for Healthcare Practitioners
Conversations about weight between healthcare professionals and pediatric patients and their parents can have profound, long-term effects on a child or adolescent.
Mar 21, 2023
Addressing Bias in Healthcare: Solutions for Racial and Ethnic Disparities
Many medical professionals have encountered explicit racial bias in healthcare and are committed to addressing it when they see it. However, implicit racial bias, which can linger below conscious awareness, is widespread, often unaccounted for, and just as dangerous, said physician leaders during a recent panel discussion hosted by TDC Group.
Feb 28, 2023
Improving Diagnostic Safety for Patients of Color
Diagnostic error is the number one cause of serious harm among medical errors that are followed by medical malpractice suits. BIPOC patients may be at greater risk of these harms.
Feb 07, 2023
An Unequal Burden: Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Maternal Health Outcomes
Because BIPOC patients bear the brunt of risks for maternal morbidity and mortality, improving maternal patient safety requires understanding the scope of racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare.
Video Dec 08, 2022
How Does the Overturn of Roe v. Wade Create Additional Healthcare Inequities?
In this short video from our recent "Navigating Healthcare in a Post-Roe World" webinar, Daniel Grossman, MD, Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) Director, University of California, San Francisco discusses some of the ways the overturn of Roe v. Wade has created additional healthcare inequities.
Nov 30, 2022
Healthcare Inequities Post-Roe: Clinician Perspectives
Many states with abortion bans are also states with higher proportions of people of color, increasing the uneven impacts of the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade.
Nov 17, 2022
Telemedicine and Patient Care Access: Challenges in the Post-Roe Landscape
Telemedicine offers the potential both to bridge geographic gaps and to increase access to in-clinic appointments for pregnant patients. However, varying state laws and patient disparities continue to provide challenges for physicians.
Video Oct 12, 2022
What Not to Do: Telehealth Lessons Learned (Equity Considerations)
In this video, created in partnership with Candello, experts discuss how to anticipate and address barriers to telehealth access for patients, including varying levels of digital literacy and access to appropriate technology and adequate internet speeds.
Professional Education
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Healthcare for Advanced Practice Clinicians
Diversity, equity, and inclusion of all patients can lead to better health outcomes in the community in which we work. Creating a culture of inclusion and understanding our own biases, will help us improve patient care. It is important to understand how we are the same and how we are different in language, education, race, ethnicity, gender, gender identify, sexual orientation, age, social class, physical ability, religion, political beliefs, and morals. Providers may not be aware of how diversity, equity, and inclusion problems can hinder their care and relationships with patients. Some states are requiring all clinical professionals to have continuing education on cultural and linguistic competency and implicit bias.
Feb 23, 2022
Pediatrics: Addressing Social Determinants of Health and Adverse Childhood Experiences
The role of the pediatrician, which encompasses the management of a child’s physical, behavioral, and mental health, is critical in preventing and mitigating childhood adversity and trauma.
Video Jun 25, 2020
How Does AI Reflect Human Biases and Impact Inequalities?
Biases can emerge when coding and testing artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms. Eric Topol, MD, founder and director of The Scripps Research Translational Institute and author of “Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again,” addresses how we must deal with these biases to make sure the problem of inequalities are not worsened, but improved, with AI.