Throughout the course of the pandemic, it’s been repeatedly demonstrated that racial and ethnic minority groups are disproportionately affected by COVID-19. On a broader level, the health disparities highlighted in this specific crisis call attention to historical injustices that have long troubled the healthcare system and society.
Aiming to address these issues, in February, the Atlanta-based Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) launched a COVID-19 Network with a national coalition board to inform community-driven response, recovery, and resiliency strategies for addressing the impact of the pandemic on communities. The launch of the National COVID-19 Resiliency Network (NCRN) occurred alongside the release of digital technology developed in collaboration with KPMG and Venture Leadership Consulting.
With support from KPMG, Morehouse School of Medicine built a platform designed to disseminate COVID-related information to minority populations accessible through the NCRN website. The technology platform uses advanced data and analytics to reach target populations and pair them with the services and support that they need, such as finding a COVID-19 test, filling prescriptions and getting a COVID-19 vaccine, according to officials.
“Our national network connects individuals, families, community organizations and clinical providers to timely and relevant COVID-19 information and services in their neighborhood,” Dominic Mack, M.D., professor of family medicine and principal investigator of the National COVID-19 Resiliency Network in the National Center for Primary Care at MSM, said in a February statement.
The NCRN launch follows a $40 million award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health (OMH), given last June, to coordinate a strategic network focused on delivering COVID-19-related information to communities hardest hit by the pandemic.
MSM is one of four HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) medical schools in the nation, and throughout last year the organization conducted research illustrating how COVID-19 was affecting communities of color more than other groups. From there, the technology platform, developed in conjunction with KPMG, was created to collect crucial resources and data on COVID-19, and connect disproportionately impacted communities to COVID-19-related services.
The data network and digital elements are being developed by KPMG and its alliance partner Salesforce.com, and some of the features of this network include: making information available in 35 languages to help a variety of populations; searches mapped to zip codes for resources tied to care delivery and vaccines, as well as COVID-19 risks; and a COVID-19 symptom checker and additional reference materials.
The dissemination platform is simply about linking critical services to these underserved communities, Mack reiterates in a recent interview with Healthcare Innovation. “The problem is that you have a higher rate of chronic disease morbidity and mortality [with these populations], even before COVID-19, but there is also a higher rate of mistrust and access [that they have with the system] compared to other groups. So how do you overcome that? You have to do it through a different type of messaging or partnership, and the partnership has to be effective within those communities.”
As such, Mack explains that MSM has done the research around engaging partnering communities, having focus groups, analyzing the information it gets, developing the messaging, and retesting that messaging to make sure it’s properly tailored. “We have outcome measures developed by a research team in conjunction with OMH to measure our success. But we have to also think about how we can share best practices, so that means looking at what did and did not work among these communities. All communities cannot be reached by the technology. The platform that we've developed KPMG allows us to put out content within the technology, and to reach those communities in a matter that they understand,” Mack says.
Mack offers one example in which MSM worked with a Pacific Island community-based organization (CBO) called Papa Ola Lōkahi, based in Honolulu. He notes that one trait unique to many Pacific Islander groups is that it could be just one person in the cohort who has connectivity to the technology platform that links you to services. So that one person in the group may have to read the information on the app to 40 other people. In the U.S., of course, most people have their own phones. “We have to think about how to overcome those language and communication barriers for communicating the messages, but also for capturing the information that we need to show how effective we are in the program. So, truly knowing these communities and how they operate is critical, and our [CBO] partners really help with that. They have those connections and they know those populations. They have done existing work with them around other health-related issues. They know the languages and they know the methodologies that have worked in the past,” Mack says.
To that end, Todd Ellis, partner, KPMG Health and Government Solutions, points out that it would be unreasonable to expect one community-based organization “to be the end-all-be-all for every different type of ethnicity or race out there.” He notes that it’s complex because every one of the community-based organizations brings unique aspects to the communities in which they serve. But every geography is different. “So one thing that I love about this platform, and the engagement of community-based organizations of many different complexities and flavors, is that we're going to be learning, based on geography, what may work best for an African American in Atlanta may not work best for an African American on the West Coast of Los Angeles, or an Asian Pacific Islander in Chicago,” says Ellis.
Ellis believes that looking to curb disparities based on understanding behaviors, challenges, and social determinants of health (SDOH) issues for different groups throughout the U.S. “will lead to some pretty amazing insights.” He adds, “I don't think anyone has ever looked at this to that level of complexity. And now we're talking about—and I love this term—precision community engagement. You can have a more precise look into a certain group or population that is being negatively impacted by a disease, health crisis, or natural disaster. And you are going to be able to pinpoint how to do that outreach to a particular population based on zip code and based on historical information.”
Today, more than 50 community-based organizations across the country are accessing information via the NCRN community health portal. Mack notes that measuring success will depend on not only getting the messaging out but also how helpful that communication is, and what actions it leads to. He offers, “Are you turning the corner in terms of getting people to get the vaccines, for example? If you provide a message within a community, who is that messaging going to, and how do you measure how effective that messaging is?”
