Health Equity Education: Quality Improvement and Systems Change

Learners should understand the process of quality improvement, use of population health data and EMR data, advocacy tools.

Resources

• VoterVoice compiled resources for an online resource “7 Effective Strategies for Health Policy Advocacy Campaigns”
• The American Medical Association (AMA) ChangeMedEd has several Learning Modules on their AMA Health Systems Science Learning Series (https://edhub.ama-assn.org/health-systems-science). There is a module called the Essentials of Quality Improvement
• The American Medical Association (AMA) ChangeMedEd has several Learning Modules on their AMA Health Systems Science Learning Series (https://edhub.ama-assn.org/health-systems-science). There is a module called What is Health Systems Science
• The Institution for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is a national resource for quality improvement work. They provide many free tutorials, videos, descriptions, and tools/templates for quality improvement.
• The mission of the LGBTQ+ Health Initiative LGBTQ+ Health Initiative is to reduce disparities experienced by gender and sexually diverse populations by helping health and human services agencies that are a part of the NYS HHS LGBT Network more effectively reach and serve these groups.

Learners should gain competence in incorporating health equity into quality improvement projects, and the use of data to initiate QI projects.

Resources:

• URMC is committed to Quality, Safety and Service. Check out the Quality Institute Project Tracker that lists quality improvement projects throughout the URMC.
• The AMA created learning modules in the AMA Ed Hub; “Upstream Quality Improvement & Management” This is a course defining quality improvement and performance management concepts as they relate to upstream issues.  This module helps to describe how to develop quality improvement (QI) projects to improve health equity.
• The Improvement Guide: A Practical Approach to Enhancing Organizational Performance (2nd Edition) -
• The Healthcare Data Guide: Learning from Data for Improvement
• Public Health Grand Rounds: Michelle A. Williams, ScD, Joan and Julius Jacobson Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Bold Steps American Health Care Systems Must Take to Ensure an Equitable and Healthier Future 
• Public Health Grand Rounds: Mahala Schlagman, MD, physician, Strong Internal Medicine and assistant professor, Department of Medicine, General Medicine (SMD); Rebecca Russo, supervising attorney Legal Assistance of Western New York, Inc.; Medical Legal Partnership – A Tool for Community Advocacy

Learners should increase Involvement in departmental or institutional strategic plans and ensure the incorporation of equity, advocating for policy and system improvement.

Resources:

• The URMC has created a strategic plan for health equity called The Equity and Anti-Racism Action Plan, read more here.
• The University of Rochester has a strategic plan for the institution including the medical center. Learn more about the strategic plan, Boundless Possibilities
• Non-Profit hospitals must create a community health needs assessment and improvement plan every three years, and must make those plans easily publicly accessible.  In Monroe County, the community health improvement plans can be found here.
• Academy Health published the “Roadmap for Researchers: Navigating the Research Process with an Equity Lens” in April 2024.
  • This “Roadmap” is divided into 10 key steps that occur across the research lifecycle, from forming a team and developing ideas, to disseminating your findings and reflecting on the implications.
  • Each step contains a contextual overview, questions for teams to answer, and references and resources for further study.
• ChangeLab Solutions has expanded their interactive web tool: “Undoing the Drivers of Health Inequity,” with new resources to support policy strategies that can advance health and justice throughout communities.
• The Center for Public Health Law Research has created a tool to compare each of the state’s laws as they relate to racial equity.  Some factors to filter through include, healthcare access, data collection, education access, housing instability, environmental justice, discrimination and bias, criminal justice, civic engagement, and workforce development.  Explore the Network for Public Law and their “2021-2022 Racial Equity Dataset: A Searchable Collection of Laws Related to Racial Equity.”
• Public Health Grand Rounds:  Julia Iyasere, MD, MBA, Executive Director, Dalio Center for Health Justice; Senior Vice President, Health Justice and Equity at New York-Presbyterian; Assistant Professor of Medicine at CUIMC; Advancing Health Justice Through Data: Dalio Center for Health Justice