Burness reposted this
Nurse, Policymaker, and Executive Director of The Institute for Policy Solutions at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing
A new critically-important report on healthcare system inequities is out now: Ending Unequal Treatment: Strategies to Achieve Equitable Healthcare and Optimal Health for All. This report highlights that the poorer health outcomes seen in racial and ethnic minoritized populations are emblematic of injustices not only in the U.S. healthcare system but in society at large. I wish I could boast that the U.S. is well on its way to achieving health equity but in the two decades between this report and the original landmark Unequal Treatment report released in 2003, little progress has been made. Sadly, racial and ethnic inequities remain a fundamental flaw of our healthcare system. The new Ending Unequal Treatment report demonstrates that investments in health equity for minoritized groups benefit everyone, and provides a set of concrete goals and actions that can get us there. The challenge lies in achieving the political will to make change. As the only nurse serving on The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) committee on Unequal Treatment, I am proud of the report’s recognition that the expert and highly skilled nursing workforce is instrumental in the health care reform needed to achieve health equity. At the Institute for Policy Solutions, we are determined to translate the new report’s findings into action and make health inequities a relic of the past. We will be amplifying many of the report’s recommendations, with a special focus on the roles that nurses can play as change agents in eliminating health care inequities. Find my statement and a link to the full report here: #Nurses4HealthEquity