Why Access to Care Is Essential to Health Equity

What’s Trending: Redefining Patient Access to Care Is Key to Achieving Health Equity

As serious systemic inequities have come into focus in recent years, health equity is top of mind for many of today’s healthcare leaders. And as leaders renew their efforts to improve high reliability care and address social determinants of health, one very important aspect of health equity that should not be overlooked is access to care.

Why It Matters:

While a key part of access is being able to get an appointment as quickly as possible when sick, it’s also much broader. Access is also about receiving acute, chronic, and preventive care and being able to tap into accurate health information to make informed health decisions in a timely manner. Without equitable access, patients will not experience equitable outcomes.

Several factors in the current healthcare model contribute to inequitable access to care. These can include a person’s zip code, their ability to pay, language barriers, and biased algorithms built into automated clinical decision-making tools, among others. Researchers have found that these factors can be so influential that in 56 of the largest U.S. cities, life expectancy disparities are as high as 20 to 30 years between people in different neighborhoods.

Yet many organizations do not trend patient outcomes data to assess whether access to care or delivery of care is equitable across all of the communities they serve. The result is that many organizations may not even know where inequities in access exist.

Additionally, health systems and communities need to expand their concept of access beyond a patient’s ability to receive timely care. Hospitals tend to focus on social needs only after patients walk in the door, but the conversation on access should begin long before then. Addressing social needs and equipping communities with the right resources to promote general health and wellbeing—before patients set foot in their provider’s office or other setting—is critical to moving the needle on patient outcomes.

Another emerging access-related challenge is having enough providers to meet the needs of the community. Nursing and other staffing shortages, clinician burnout, and turnover—along with political influences that make practicing in certain states challenging—are all contributing to growing wait times, even in areas where access has traditionally not been a problem.

What’s Next:

One way to increase access to care is by providing care beyond the traditional hospital or office setting. Delivering care at home via telehealth options, for instance, can dramatically improve access for those who may face challenges just traveling to a facility for in-person care. At the same time, organizations need to plan how they will address digital equity to help ensure these additional options increase access for everyone.

As provider organizations define and redefine access, we recommend the following five strategies to move the needle toward equitable access to care:

1. Form partnerships. Experts agree that provider organizations can’t solve the access to care issue completely on their own. They need to partner with payers, community organizations, local nursing homes, federally qualified health centers, and others. And patient partnerships are equally important.
2. Address physician burnout. Provider shortages and physician burnout go hand in hand, and addressing burnout can potentially alleviate access challenges.
3. Increase capacity. Some strategies can help improve the practice environment for physicians and increase the organization’s capacity to see patients. Better leveraging other practitioners is one such strategy, while leveraging patient navigators to alleviate burnout is another.
4. Experiment with new models. Along with a push toward moving preventive care upstream, some communities have also embraced paramedicine, a new and evolving healthcare model in which paramedics and emergency medical technicians assist with public health efforts by providing primary healthcare and preventive services to underserved populations.
5. Leverage outcomes data. Provider organizations that analyze internal data and integrate external patient data can help hospitals identify and address inequities within their communities.

Creating equal access paves a foundation for health equity, and it’s something that all provider organizations have an opportunity to improve. Acknowledging this challenge and taking measurable action to address it is an important step toward achieving health equity.

For more insights around achieving health equity, click through to our latest podcast.

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ABOUT THE CHARTIS GROUP

The Chartis Group® (Chartis) is a leading healthcare advisory services firm serving healthcare providers, payers, service organizations, and investors. Different by design, Chartis brings an unparalleled breadth and depth of expertise in strategy, performance improvement, digital and technology, clinical quality and patient safety, health equity and belonging, and strategic communications. For more information, visit www.chartis.com.

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