Published by: Bruce Siegel on 7/18/2011 1:59:44 PM
This is personal:
This morning I was a part of a National Call to Action to End Disparities - http://www.equityofcare.org - here at the AHA Summit. For me it was more than the usual press event.
For years before coming to NAPH, I worked with a talented team at George Washington University to raise awareness and take action in disparities. We knew that equity was a neglected domain of quality. We also knew that just about everywhere you looked in US health care, there were glaring differences in the quality of care minority Americans received. Any national push to raise the bar on safety or quality would collide with this sad reality. Within a few decades, America will be “majority minority.” If these populations are shut out of good health care, then all our efforts to improve will have been for little.
Several years ago, I also saw what happened when my mother, a Haitian immigrant, was on the receiving end of a health care system that just did not get it. With no one to speak her language and a host of (erroneous) stereotypes coming into play, my mother’s diagnosis with a life-threatening blood-borne infection was needlessly delayed. She eventually recovered, but a lack of cultural and linguistic competence combined with real bias almost killed her.
So watching the AHA, AAMC, CHA, us and others make a public commitment to take action had special meaning for me. As America changes we cannot hide from this issue, nor can we assume it is “someone else’s problem.” High quality health care can ONLY mean no disparities.