Humanity Centered; Equity Aligned

The past few weeks have been fraught with emotional ups and downs as we have been battling the sweeping realization of the continuous threat to women’s health, especially for those on Medicaid.?Add to that the monkeypox global health emergency and Omicron BA.5 surge leading to the extension of the public health emergency through October 2022 (which is currently protecting more than 14 million people on Medicaid), it has been a time of volatility.?

As HT4M has been honing our impact model over the past 6 months and settling into our new organizational independence, we have been collaborating with like-minded thought leaders to push new tools, skills and concepts to our greater community.?Recently, we have been collaborating on Human-Centered Design tools for more inclusive Medicaid health products and movement in the health tech sector. We are continuing to uncover support gaps in health technology and co-design solution prototypes in discussions with others through design workshops, highlighting the potential of design thinking as a tool for centering equity in public health practice and health technology as a field.?

In the continued struggle for equity,

Adimika Arthur

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Health Equity Heroes

We are excited to announce our newest?Health Equity Heroes!?Our?Health Equity Heroes series is focused on individuals who have?dedicated their career and work to advancing health equity and creating real, lasting impacts in the lives of marginalized patient populations.?

This quarter's heroes are?Jeff Oxendine, Co-Founder and President of?Health Career Connection?and Co-Director of?California Health Professions Consortium,?Dr.?Rebekah Gee, CEO & Founder of?Nest Health?and Professor of Public Health and Medicine at?Louisiana State University,?Paul Leon, CEO of?Illumination Foundation, and?Dr. Camara Jones, former President of the?American Public Health Association,?UCSF Presidential Chair, and Professor at both Emory University's?Rollins School of Public Health?and?Morehouse School of Medicine.?

Jeff Oxendine?is the President and co-founder of Health Career Connections, a national nonprofit that empowers undergraduate students to pursue health careers.?Jeff works closely with health employers, health professions schools, foundations, professional associations, advocates and government agencies to determine future health workforce needs and develop strategies to ensure a robust, well-trained and diverse health workforce.?He recently served as Co-Director of the California Future Health Workforce Commission, co-leading?design, planning, and support of the Commission’s work to develop an actionable statewide health workforce strategy for California.

Dr. Rebekah Gee?is the CEO and Founder of Nest Health,?a primary care company that offers whole person, whole family care for families from birth through age five in urban areas. She is also a professor of Public Health and Medicine at Louisiana State University, CEO of Health Care Services for LSU Health, and she formerly served as?Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health.?While Secretary, Dr. Gee oversaw the implementation of Medicaid expansion which extended coverage to over 500,000 Louisianans.?

Paul Leon?is the CEO and President of the Illumination Foundation, a grassroots nonprofit whose mission is to disrupt the cycle of homelessness.?As CEO, Paul Leon innovated Illumination?Foundation’s recuperative care program, which manages the discharge of homeless patients from hospitals.?The model he?created at Illumination Foundation connects clients to permanent supportive housing in?adjacent micro-communities, provides on-site medical care, mental health therapy and?substance use counseling.

Dr. Camara Jones?is a family physician and epidemiologist, known for her work naming, measuring, and addressing the impacts of racism on the health and well-being of the nation.?She is a past president of the American Public Health Association and was the 2019-2020 Evelyn Green Davis Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. She has taught at the Harvard School of Public Health, Morehouse School of Medicine, and Rollins School of Public Health and served as a medical officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

?Nominate a future Health Equity Hero here!

State of Maternal Health Equity: An OB/GYN's Perspective

This webinar is the first in a series convening thought leaders across the Medicaid ecosphere to highlight opportunities and hear from voices representing?our collective interests in knitting together a patchwork of maternal health standards and mobilizing to fix ingrained health disparities.

The United States has one of the highest maternal mortality rates of any developed country, and is the only developed country where maternal mortality is on the rise. Following the revocation of Roe V. Wade, state laws and regulations limiting or impacting abortion are increasing the barriers and difficulties to obtaining safe and effective reproductive and maternal health care. For instance, the six states with the highest maternal mortality rates in the nation each quickly banned abortion following the?decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, fueling concerns about more children being born in areas with poor health outcomes and with fewer safety net programs for mothers and children. The risks are especially severe for women of color, women from low-income backgrounds, and women living in rural areas, including Medicaid recipients.

Join us on?August 16th at 9am PST / 12pm EST?for a conversation on maternal health.?"State of Maternal Health Equity: An OBGYN's Perspective"?will feature?Dr. Amanda Williams, Clinical Innovation Advisor at?California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative?and former Director of Maternity Services & OB/GYN Physician at?Kaiser Permanente.

Register Here!

An Unconscionable Ruling

We stand in protest of the Supreme Court’s unethical and discriminatory decision of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, overturning the 50-year precedent set by Roe v. Wade protecting birthing persons from being forced by law to carry pregnancies to term.??

This unjust restriction of reproductive health care will only accelerate and worsen the rising maternal mortality rates and pervasive health inequities for Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC).?

Additionally, while the U.S. faces a growing physician shortage, this ruling threatens the very safety, careers, and moral obligations of health care workers nationwide.??

During a national baby formula shortage – in a country without access to free contraceptives, universal health care, affordable childcare, and paid family leave – and in a developed nation with the highest maternal mortality rate – six Supreme Court Justices deliberately empowered at least 26 states to eradicate more than 52% of birthing persons’ rights to bodily autonomy.??

This ruling will not decrease abortions – it will only limit access to safe abortions that not only save birthing persons’ lives, but also protect future fertility. These restrictive state laws typically make zero exceptions for medically dangerous pregnancies, including patients with cancer, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, fetal anomalies, or even for those traumatized by rape, incest, and domestic violence.??

Dr. Jack Resneck, president of American Medical Association, summarized the ruling as “an egregious allowance of government intrusion into the medical examination room,” a “direct attack on the practice of medicine and the patient-physician relationships,” and “a brazen violation of patients’ rights to evidence-based reproductive health services.”?

We also agree with Dr. Rachel Villanueva, OB-GYN, president of National Medical Association, that this decision is meant to “actively harm – not [help] – women’s health,” as “women of color, poor women, and other disadvantaged individuals who don’t have the resources to travel to obtain the medical care they need will be disproportionately impacted.”?

Read the rest of the article, written by Executive Director of HealthTech4Medicaid, Adimika Arthur, President and CEO of National Medical Fellowships, Michellene Davis, and President and CEO of International Black Women’s Public Policy Institute, Barbara A. Perkins, here.?

Human Centered Design + Equity Workshop Wrap Up

On June 23rd, Health Tech for Medicaid?partnered with IDEO to hold a workshop on Human Centered Design + Equity.?

Human-centered design is about understanding human needs and how design can respond to these needs. With its systemic, empathetic approach and creativity, human-centered design can play an essential role in dealing with today’s care, wellness and healthcare challenges. ‘Design’ refers to both the process of designing and the outcome of that process, which includes physical products, experiences, services, procedures, processes, strategies and policies. Recently, there has been increased interest in the use of design-thinking within health. But too often, this theory fails to acknowledge the role of determinants of health, systemic/institutional bias and individual blind spots.

Human-centered design consists of three phases, Inspiration, Ideation and Implementation. Our workshop focused on the Inspiration Phase, where you learn directly from the people you’re designing for as you immerse yourself in their lives and come to deeply understand their needs.?

The workshop highlighted how sustainable changes in the system are built on empathy and respect of the experiences of patients, providers, families, staff and all who are impacted by the ecosystem of care. Good design better enables patients to engage in healthy behaviors and simplifies the complex when it comes to the pursuit of health. We explored how human-centered approaches to problem solving are necessary to create change that better serves the people who work within and rely on the system rather than serving the system itself.?

During this interactive workshop, designers at IDEO, staff at HT4M and over 50 participants shared hands-on strategies, practices, and lessons learned with other equity-minded practitioners interested in making their human-centered design work more inclusive and equitable.

We addressed three key characteristics of human-centered design and equity, focusing on its INSPIRATION phase in health care: (1) developing an understanding of people and their needs; (2) engaging stakeholders from early on and throughout the design process; (3) adopting a systems approach by systematically addressing interactions between the multifaceted determinants of health and implications on care systems, and the transition from individual interests to collective interests.

?Are you interested in topics around design and health equity? Fill out this?quick survey?to let us know what type of programming you'd like to see from HT4M in the future.?

For more information, or to collaborate further with us on human centered design and equity, please email?[email protected].