Three Indiana health systems — Indiana University Health, Eskenazi Health and Community Health Network — are launching a campaign to explain to patients the importance of gathering information on race, ethnicity and language (often referred to as “REaL” data).
The health systems note that the current information they have on race, ethnicity, and preferred language is limited or in some cases inaccurate. The “We Ask Because We Care” campaign includes a radio spot that will run in both English and Spanish on Central Indiana radio stations as well as other informative materials that will be available in physician offices, outpatient clinics and surgery centers. Registrars also will soon be provided printed information to help patients request interpretation services in more than two dozen languages.
In a recent expert panel discussion hosted by the Alliance for Health Policy, Samantha Artiga, vice president and director of the racial equity and health policy program at the Kaiser Family Foundation, noted that gathering this demographic data is essential for having a complete picture of the status of disparities, for understanding how different factors drive disparities, for guiding resources and efforts to advance equity and for measuring progress and establishing accountability toward achieving equity, as well as for identifying best practices or strategies to advance equity. “When we lack data or when the data have quality issues, it is much harder to achieve all these goals,” she said.
“Health disparities are a very real threat to the health and well-being of the communities we serve,” said Diane McDaniel, chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer, Community Health Network, in a statement. “This is an important collaboration between our institutions to confront that challenge and Community is proud to be a part of it.”
“Without accurate baseline data about their race, ethnicity and language, it’s impossible to really understand the specific nature and drivers of racial and ethnic disparities in patients’ experiences and outcomes of care. It’s critical that we measure the size of these disparity gaps; and monitor our progress in closing those gaps over time,” said Brownsyne Tucker Edmonds, M.D., vice president and chief health equity officer for IU Health, in a statement.
“By working together, we can help team members and patients understand why this information is so important to improve the quality of care and to move the needle on health equity.” Having this information available on a broad scale will help the health systems know more about the communities they serve and the additional services they can provide. “The pandemic brought forth many challenges including re-emphasizing disparities of health that exist among our community,” said Angela Smith Jones, J.D., vice president of diversity and inclusion for Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County, for which Eskenazi Health serves as the public hospital division, in a statement. “The ‘We Ask because We Care’ campaign is centered around providing the highest quality of personalized care by better understanding our diverse patent population and their unique needs.”
