Health Equity

Health disparities among Medicare Advantage patients in rural areas widened in 2023, a new CMS report shows.

Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai is handing out $20 million in grants this fiscal year to local nonprofits to promote health equity in homelessness and housing, access to care and community response, the health system confirmed to Becker's.

Health equity is a massive topic for hospitals to address, with hundreds of avenues that can be taken in confronting the issue. It's no wonder many leaders are often overwhelmed and unsure where to begin. 

Health systems across the nation are working to improve health equity for patients, but many systems approach the issue with an outcomes-focused lens, which may actually make equity harder to achieve.

Between 34.6% and 50.7% of Medicare beneficiaries with modest incomes may lack sufficient to cover a hospital stay out of pocket, according to a study published Oct. 29 in Annals of Internal Medicine. 

The Biden administration will allocate nearly $9 million in grants aimed at improving women's health access in 14 states and Washington, D.C. 

The Association of American Medical Colleges has awarded UChicago Medicine and the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine with the 2024 Spencer Foreman Award for Outstanding Community Engagement. 

To fill operating rooms and financial incentives, obstetricians are often performing unneeded cesarean sections on Black women, according to researchers who analyzed about 1 million births across 68 New Jersey hospitals. 

Black Directors Health Equity Agenda, a Chicago-based coalition of Black board directors, seeks to address health disparities in public hospitals and community health centers with a $1.5 million grant from Kaiser Permanente.

In just three years, NYC Health + Hospitals has addressed the social needs of more than 25,000 patients through its community health workers program.