Addressing Health Care Disparities and the Needs of Special Populations

A recent report by the Boston Public Health Commission highlighted that Boston’s racial and ethnic groups continue to have strikingly different risks of illness and death. Data shows that infant mortality among Black infants is nearly three times as high as among White infants in Boston. The death rate from asthma is more than four times as high for Latino as for White residents, and prostate cancer deaths among Black men are more than twice those among White men. Even when researchers account for income and education, racial and ethnic disparities in health still exist.

In June 2005, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino called on hospitals, insurers, and community health centers to take concrete steps to eliminate disparities in care.

www.massgeneral.org/disparitiessolutions/

• measuring the quality of patient care and patient satisfaction by race, ethnicity, language, and education

• improving education and cultural competence for doctors, nurses and other caregivers, and staff and patients

• helping patients take an active role in their care

• working to diversity their professional workforce and governing boards

• collaborating closely with members of the community

Combined, Partners HealthCare, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital have committed more than $6 million to identify and address disparities in health and health care. BWH has established the Health Equity Program to reduce disparities in neighboring communities. The hospital’s new Center for Surgery and Public Health will, among other things, examine disparities in surgical care. MGH created the Disparities Solutions Center to tackle racial and ethnic inequities in care and is already working with providers, insurers and community groups in Boston and nationwide through the nation’s first Disparities Leadership Program.

• workforce development. Partners HealthCare collaborates with Project Hope to help homeless and low income Boston residents move into entry-level jobs at BWH, MGH, and SRH through the Partners in Career and Workforce Development Program (PCWD);

• care for homeless veterans. At the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans, the shelter’s First Aid and Referral Office is operated in partnership with physicians from Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Since 1991, BWH physician volunteers and medical students have provided all the evening services.

• clinical care in hospitals, shelters, a medical respite care facility, and on the street with Boston Health Care for the Homeless and Pine Street Inn (Link to their websites?).

Through community benefit programs, Partners and MGH have provided more than $1.5 million in operating support for the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP) clinic at MGH during the past 11 years. MGH was the first private hospital in the nation to host a BHCHP clinic, which is designed to meet the special health care needs of vulnerable homeless people and to coordinate the care of homeless individuals who are seen each year in the emergency department (ED), inpatient units, and the Medical Walk-In Unit of MGH. In 2006, Partners HealthCare made a $2.5 million charitable contribution to BHCHP’s capital campaign to renovate the Mallory Building, which will serve as an anchor for BHCHP’sfar-reaching program and house an expanded medical respite facility.

In June 2006, Partners provided $100,000 to Pine Street Inn to operate a new daytime mobile outreach van designed to increase homeless access to healthcare, substance abuse treatment and housing options. The van is based in Downtown Crossing and Boston Common.

Homeless patients experience high rates of illness and death. They routinely face the most severe health risks from exposure to the extremes of heat and cold, trauma, violence, complex and chronic medical illnesses, persistent mental illness, and substance abuse.

Community Benefit Programs Annual Report

© Copyright 2007 Partners HealthCare System, Inc.