?? Health Equity ?? Who Am I? ????♂? Cape Town Sunset ??

Health equity through rapid digital health transformations?

The digitization of healthcare has really emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. More and more health ecosystems are implementing a digital platform at rapid speeds to enable tools to enhance the in-person quality of care.?Amazon,?Apple,?Cerebral,?Carbon Health,?Google?& many others are in the ecosystem.

Using digital communication, education, and remote care management, digital health is on the rise with many efforts calling for it to be a bigger part of the solution to close the inequality gap in good and affordable healthcare.

What often may not be discussed is the potential harm to healthcare equity if the digitally enabled ecosystem moves forward without engagement, planning, and implementation.

Yesterday, I posted my weekly 'Sonny's Straw Poll' and so far from a small sample, it looks like we are split. Insightful comments by Jonathan Goldfinger & Matthew Evans highlight the importance of how there are more going that sustain inequalities, such as payment issues and widening gaps with technologies.

Jonathan Goldfinger shared about the payment issues with mental health services that:

"legitimized forms of discrimination baked into laws where government and other inefficient actors are granted the right to control and influence payment for mental health and substance use care in ways we don’t see in the rest of healthcare—it’s a legacy of the days when no one wanted to care for those with mental health needs so it fell to government."

Matthew Evans outlined the following gaps:

• "People who are less comfortable with technology"
• "Age, insofar as it relates to technology adoption"
• "Urban vs. Rural with an asterisk: It IMPROVES equity for people who can get healthcare without travelling to an urban area but it may be a detractor for people without high quality internet access which disproportionally affects rural areas"

?Indeed, the problem of healthcare inequities runs deeper than a simplistic one-solution-to-fix-all approach and mentality. It was great to read and learn from the experiences and insights from Jonathan and Matthew. Like most answering the poll, I think there is a place for digital health to move the needle towards equality to receiving high-quality of healthcare. Many of aspects shared in the comments are things healthcare professionals (and government programs) are striving to aid with but better engagement with communities is needed to move this needle faster in reducing the existing gaps. There are growing resources and passionate healthcare professionals that can help close the gap but still the connections to communities are being missed. Rightly said by Matthew. Jonathan, and many others who privately commented to me, there is no shortage of work to do in this area, and thank you again for adding to yesterday's weekly 'Sonny's Straw Poll' and conversation.

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As promised from the comments in last week's newletter post, please let me re-welcome everyone to our 'A Clean Bill of Health' newsletter community!

We are building a newsletter community that constantly educates, empowers, and connects all the various ways we strive for a clean bill of health.

Welcome and thank you again for subscribing to my newsletter and following me on LinkedIn . My name is Sonny, and I am a Public Health Executive, Social Impact Advisor, and non-profit do-gooder. Specifically, I work in the spaces of public health, healthcare technologies, and resiliency. I am an author, researcher and practitioner, who worked and lived in many communities around the world - now based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

I am?a former The National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Center at NIH Global Health Scholar, and I am currently a Presidential Fellow in Transcultural Conflict and Violence Initiative at Georgia State University and a Visiting Scientist at Harvard Humanitarian Initiative , Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

I am excited to also share that I have my first big book based on my past research about community resilience against severe flooding coming to a?Barnes & Noble, Inc.,?Amazon,?Google?and most bookstores soon, entitled Community Resilience When Disaster Strikes! The book is published by?Springer Nature Group?as a hardcover book and e-book. In this book, I write about my past research (methods, results and all) that explores the security and community health issues in some of the United Kingdom flood zones. With flooding being more prominent, the findings and takeaways present unique insights and transferable knowledge that can help in other community and countries facing severe flooding.

Quote of the Week

“Never allow waiting to become a habit. Live your dreams and take risks. Life is happening now."

- Paulo Coelho

(Image: I took this gorgeous sunset photo in Cape Town, South Africa)

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This newsletter will bring you news headlines, conversations and events on how the resilient health professionals innovate, heal, & collaborate to provide better outcomes in our communities. In midst of all the crises in our world, science and technology have been the continued spark in finding health solutions and even helping to heal communities around the world.?This newsletter is built to constantly empower and connect all the various ways we strive for a clean bill of health.

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