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04-20-23HACKENSACK MERIDIAN HEALTH
BY ROBERT C. GARRETT FOR HACKENSACK MERIDIAN HEALTH
4 MINUTE READ
Sharing your medical history can lead to some highly personal conversations in a hospital or physician’s office, but full disclosure is necessary to achieve the best health.
There’s another equally important request you should expect from your healthcare provider: questions about your race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Collecting this demographic data is a priority for our health network and many other health systems throughout the nation so that we can provide culturally competent care and address unacceptable gaps that impact far too many people.
Black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women in the U.S., according to the CDC.
Nearly half of Hispanic Americans say they don’t have access to quality medical care where they live, and 44% say that problems from language or cultural differences are a major reason why they have worse health outcomes than other adults, according to the Pew Research Center.
1 in 8 LGBTQ+ people live in a state where healthcare providers can legally refuse to treat them based on religious grounds, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ think tank.
ACCESSING FOCUSED DATA
Advances in healthcare are not limited to developing a blockbuster drug or implementing new robotic or diagnostic tools, as welcome as these are. An organization’s deep understanding of the needs of all communities is also at the center of real change in patient outcomes and well-being. This is why we get personal. We believe that access to high-quality healthcare—no matter where you live, the color of your skin, or who you love—is everyone’s right. And we can’t tackle this problem without having credible and timely data.
Be it sexual orientation, gender, age, race, or ethnicity, these factors present an opportunity for us to individualize our plans of care and create initiatives that promote health and wellness within whole populations of patients. And keep in mind that while members of our care team will access this information, it will be kept highly confidential as mandated by regulatory and privacy requirements.
In practical terms, here are a few examples of how health systems are making progress:
The Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Healthcare Equality Index, a national benchmarking tool that evaluates health system policies and practices regarding the LGBTQ+ community, reports that more than 900 hospitals in the U.S. are embracing inclusive practices. These practices include staff sensitivity training, gender-neutral bathrooms, or the creation of specialized clinics for youth or adult transgender patients. I’m proud of our team at Hackensack Meridian Health, where 13 of our hospitals received top honors as a “leader” or as being “high performing.”
Hospitals first created new services to address cultural, ethnic and other specialized needs years ago, but these programs continue to expand to meet the needs of growing and diverse populations. Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation’s largest systems, operates the Latino Health Center, which provides bilingual services, greater access to care, and targeted screenings. UC San Francisco’s Asian Heart and Vascular Center provides specialists who can understand, communicate about, and treat heart disease and who also engage in research to better understand the metabolic and genetic differences of the Asian community.
To improve maternal health and target racial disparities in outcomes, Hackensack Meridian Health has made major strides in reducing prenatal and postpartum hemorrhage. In the U.S., Black women are almost more than two times as likely than white women to die of hemorrhage or embolism. Because of our many advances, Hackensack University Medical Center, our network’s academic flagship hospital, is the first in the nation to earn the Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval for Advanced Certification in Perinatal Care.
In addition, we have begun removing the requirement for a prescription to undergo a mammogram. Black women are 40% more likely than white women to die from breast cancer, even though the cancer incidence rate among Black and white women is approximately the same. Reducing barriers to screening will no doubt save lives.
COMPREHENSIVE, CONSTRUCTIVE CARE
Our mission as New Jersey’s largest health system is to transform healthcare and we cannot achieve our goal if we don’t continue to improve outcomes and experiences for all patients. We can never forget that healthcare is more than statistics; it’s about people and their hopes and dreams and desire to be treated with dignity. I came across a moving quote included in the Healthcare Equality Index national report. A transgender woman undergoing her first physical in years described her experience. “When I walked toward the women’s bathroom in the waiting area, the receptionist jumped up and told me to use a McDonald’s restroom down the street. I felt like leaving and never going back.” This unfortunate incident is a powerful reminder of why we are on this journey.
Robert C. Garrett, FACHE, is the CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health, New Jersey’s largest health system, with 18 hospitals, more than 500 patient care locations, and the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine
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