Stefany Goradia’s Post

A new term I've been toying with: "Health AND Equity" vs. "Health Equity." I was on a community nonprofit tour awhile back, and the folks I was chatting with (who were big philanthropic donors) didn't immediately resonate with the term "health equity." I didn't expect them to, not coming from public health or healthcare, but it was interesting to see fierce supporters of upstream service/community providers addressing homelessness, poverty, food insecurity, etc., not immediately making the connection to downstream health and healthcare. I explained the connections, both upstream and health-related social needs, but it got me thinking. Could this represent a broader gap in awareness in the public? If so, it is one that those of us working in any of these spaces can address through our messaging and advocacy, but more importantly: pooling resources and working together for systemic change that advances health AND equity. And health equity :) What do you see in your region? Similar disconnect or no? Do you consider them very distinct or the same? ----------------------- And for giggles because I love the quirky images I always get, my ChatGPT prompt: can you please make me a graphic for a social media post that represents NO LONGER using the term "health equity" but instead using "health AND equity"

Anyone in my network doing side gig/project work, specifically with ESRI/geospatial and open source data? A colleague is looking for a temp-to-possibly-hire hands-on contractor/consultant to get plugged into some very interesting public health/community outreach work. Open-source SDOH data familiarity a big plus. Send me a DM if so. ------------ Pic for attention, because who doesn't love a good choropleth? The map below shows drug-related crime per 1,000 Albuquerque residents from CrimeGrade

Please consider helping my colleague’s study by sharing your thoughts on Design Thinking in Health and Human Services with him. I would personally be interested to hear about your findings Sean Pearson!!! 😁

Question for my network: how do you evaluate your digital health and health tech initiatives? Do you use any frameworks or services, etc? I am not one of those "tech can solve everything" people, but I do think it is a primary enabler for the future of health, equity, and "doing more with less" since we can't seem to magically triple our workforce or funding for it. Digital Health initiatives have been a little willy nilly and certainly aren't a silver bullet. But—for that reason, more and more attention is now being given to both evaluating digital health/health tech initiatives (finally!), AND bringing the health equity lens into their development/implementation (heck yes!) For the latter, I was interested to read the development of this Digital Health Equity-Focused Implementation Research (DH-EquIR) model! This framework outlines how you might start to integrate considerations of health equity into the implementation of your digital health technologies. Key takeaways: 👏 Inclusive Design: Technologies must be accessible and culturally sensitive, designed with input from diverse communities. 👏 Equity-Focused Planning: Integrate health equity considerations at every stage to reduce disparities. 👏 Continuous Evaluation: Monitor and adapt interventions to meet the needs of underserved populations. 👏 Sustainability: Ensure financial sustainability and interoperability for long-term success. 👏 Collaboration: Engage stakeholders from all sectors to drive impactful health solutions. It is promising to see health equity being promoted through thoughtful and inclusive digital health solutions designed to meet people where their real challenge is at, and I recognize that tech, people, and workflows go ✋in ✋ Frameworks like this are helpful as directional guidance to start with. I am also seeing a lot of "Digital Determinants of Health" crop up, though still meaning different things by different groups. Source: Construction of the Digital Health Equity Focused Implementation Research Conceptual Model - Bridging the Divide Between Equity-focused Digital Health and Implementation Research (https://buff.ly/3RbWmDQ) ----------------------------- (AI was used to generate this strange and misshapen/spelled image, but I actually kind of liked it!!)

Please consider supporting the great work of the New Mexico Kidney Foundation, dedicated to improving the quality of life in individuals with or at risk of kidney disease, decreasing kidney failure rates and increasing transplant rates in New Mexico.

I've seen something like this before, particularly with transportation claims. TLDR: non-emergency medical transportation vendor allegedly billed for rides that didn't occur, billed multiple times for the same ride, and allegedly paid kickbacks to Medicaid enrollees for using their transportation service and providing their patient information to help facilitate the fraud. Also, what? "Oneonta Police Chief Christopher Witzenberg added the kickbacks most likely helped to fuel "substance abuse issues for vulnerable people, resulting in a host of other complications in our community." I feel like this needs a bit more context, but okay. In any event, this went on for 4 years. I've seen payers scan for dates of service on the same day as the transportation occurred, and there are certainly tools out there to surface trends where providers are billing more services than peers, duplicate services, and signifcantly more frequency or dollar amounts by CPT (not always illegitimately, mind you), but it doesn't surprise me that this flew under the radar for 4 years. It is very hard to see small signals like this among the copious amounts of noise unless they're egregious. $1M over 4 years can easily fly under the radar of a large health plan. Though situations like this will likely go unnoticed for many years, there are resources out there, such as the state investigators, who regularly share and compare identified fraud schemes and even share codes/logic. Besides CMS looking for fraud in claims, so do our states, agencies, payers. It is frustrating because this does take service, trust, and dollars away from people who need it, and adds to the cost of healthcare. Not to mention the amount of resources and dedicated departments devoted solely to identifying "fraud, waste, and abuse."

Leading up to this quarter's HealthInno NM event topic—Tribal Healthcare: Past, Present, Future—on July 18th, this is timely. SriVani Ganti, MSHC makes a tangible corellary to other traditions, cultures, faiths, and mindset which is a good reminder that there is always room to understand our patients/members (and colleagues, friends, etc.) better. Looking at this graphic, I'm also reminded that barriers (determinants) to health/wealth/wellbeing is multi- (and in some cases multi-multi-multi-) generational, more than meets the eye and certainly not changed overnight. More on the ISDOH from my Nov Health Data Guru issue: https://lnkd.in/gPA6kFHu ----------- HealthInno NM is an education+networking event for healthcare thought leaders that we at HealthTech Rx curates every quarter, with the support of some other wonderful volunteers. If you're in ABQ, join us on July 18th: https://lnkd.in/gXybcpzS

Today is Juneteenth. This will be the fourth year since the day was recognized as a federal holiday, but I still had some questions about how to acknowledge it respectfully. I didn't want to misspeak or say something inadvertently inappropriate out of unawareness, which I probably have done in the past. But I also didn't want to just not say anything for that reason alone. So as usual, I did some research. And as usual, opinions varied on things like "can you say 'happy' Juneteenth?" For example, one article I read stated, "This is debated in Black communities. Some people would rather not hear the phrase at all, while others think it is okay to say indiscriminately on a social media post or as a general statement. This stems from the possible microaggressions of exclusively saying “Happy Juneteenth” to Black people in particular. It’s considered presumptive, as not all Black people are African Americans who resonate with the day." And after my research, I'm still torn. So I will just say: while I can't put myself in anyone else's shoes, I'm grateful that we have made SOME progress but extremely disheartened that we have not made MORE progress in dismantling structural racism and inequality (if anything, we've actually lost some headway). And I hope that we can band together to create an even better future because I recognize that change certainly can't occur in a silo. As more of these hard, emotionally-charged topics come into focus—like race/ethnicity, sexual orientation/gender identity, physical/mental abilities, and other typically marginalized characteristics—I worry this happens more often than we think, which makes me wonder if broader awareness/progress could be stymied before it even starts because of language/communication gaps on how to start a conversation about it, or even more fundamentally: what words to use. For example, are people inclined to just not saying anything at all to "play it safe?" And on the flip side, these visceral emotions are valid, pent up for generations in fact. How can we facilitate more honest and open conversation around it for those who truly want to support? This is not a post for people to comment and rant about how "everything offends everyone" these days. In fact, in doing so you would just illustrate the exact issue (and problem) that I'm talking about here. But it is an open question about how we can create more safe, curious dialogue about language and communication on these topics so that we can move forward in awareness, compassion, and—most importantly—work to fix things together. Especially if you're working in a healthcare, equity, or any kind of public/social domain. What do you think?