Driving Equity in Healthcare: Can VBC Be the Ultimate Push

Driving Equity in Healthcare: Can VBC Be the Ultimate Push?
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‍A couple of weeks back, in our first FLAVVRR of the week episode, we wrote about why you should care about Value-Based Care. How this healthcare philosophy focuses on the whole patient care cycle, rewards quality of care, and aligns patient outcomes with reducing healthcare costs. But we left out, perhaps on purpose, one of the most important reasons why you should care about VBC.  Equity. Equity in diagnosis. Equity in treatment.Equity in outcomes. We know this continues to be a goal unmet in America. And that the disparities found in healthcare have deep roots in the social factors of health: the circumstances in which our people are born, grow, live, work, and age.In 2002, two decades ago. The Institute of Medicine report, Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care shined a spotlight on disparities across the healthcare system, and called for research-driven solutions. Urgently.In 2023, People of Color lower income groups, women, older adults, people living in rural areas, and other underserved groups continue to experience disparities in accessing and receiving care. For instance, in Undefeated’s 2020 Survey on Race and Health, 70% of Black adults believe race-based discrimination in health care happens often.Now, this is not to say that efforts haven't been made to welcome different cultures, languages, and religions. Take, for instance, the Think Cultural Health program by the OMH, or the Language Access Program by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. There have been decades of effort and commitment. It’s just that change has never happened at the root of the cause. The systems that promote these health inequities were never challenged at this scale. Until now. The patient-centric approach VBC brings to the table and the removal of “the more the merrier” payment systems, systems that more often affect groups bracing inequity in healthcare, is exciting. It presents, for the very first time, an opportunity to make real and measurable progress in closing the gap.  But the work’s not done. To pull this off, we need to give birth to incentives that seek to understand the complexities of caring for the unheard and underserved AND reward them fairly. Habits aren’t kicked with good intentions.  We need to look at Electronic Health Records with resolve. We need to take health equity research with the seriousness it commands. Invest in it.Doing this, might as well position Value-Based Care as the ultimate push to drive equity into healthcare. Do you agree?