Summary
- A cross-sector coalition focused on advancing health equity and health justice helped to create community and accelerate knowledge exchange across health plans.
What does it look like for a cross-sector health care coalition to align forces and share knowledge in service of advancing health equity? Is it possible for health care organizations, often competing in the same markets for the same resources, to join together and exchange best practices? The Rise to Health Coalition, launched in December 2022 and co-convened by IHI and health care and racial justice partners, sought to prove that we can all work together to achieve equitable health. The Coalition started with five key audiences within health care: individual practitioners, health care delivery organizations, professional societies, pharmaceutical and biotech, and health plans.
Uniquely, the Coalition was able to bring together a rare combination of organizations – across the health care ecosystem – to engage in coordinated action to structurally and systemically improve health equity and racial justice outcomes for the populations they serve. Through the Coalition’s actions and activities, participants from across the five key audiences were invited on a journey to achieve health equity. For many, this created the opportunity to look inward at their own institutional processes and practices, and get information and support to make impactful improvements.
Health plans and payers are often regarded as barriers to health equity in health care, whether due to rigid benefit design, cumbersome administrative processes to authorize care, or over-emphasis on profit margins and shareholder equity. Yet, to the contrary, the Rise to Health Coalition discovered that health plans were eager to come together, to share openly and honestly about health equity strategy and implementation, and to use Rise to Health Coalition resources to accelerate their efforts. Indeed, health plans were front and center and willing to collaborate to improve health care for the most underserved populations.
Throughout 2024, a cohort of health equity leaders from health plans across the United States came together twice a month to hear from national subject matter experts through a series of roundtables, and to share in closed-door coaching sessions with a health equity expert. The roundtables followed a staged learning journey over the Rise to Health Coalition’s key action steps for advancing health equity, which include: committing to acting for equity; getting grounded in history; identifying opportunities for improvement; making equity a strategic priority; taking initiative with others; and aligning, investing, and advocating for thriving communities.
Participating health plans were encouraged to identify an improvement project to undertake throughout 2024 by advancing specific Rise to Health Coalition activities aimed at decreasing disparities in care and promoting health justice.
CareOregon, a non-profit organization providing Medicaid health insurance benefits and a Medicare Advantage D-SNP plan, was an active participant in the Rise to Health Coalition. CareOregon’s Shellie Holk, RN, BSN, Director of Quality of Care and Accreditation, shared insights about how her organization benefited from its participation in the Rise to Health Coalition.
“Having the opportunity to network and meet folks from other health plans that have similar goals around health equity was greatly beneficial for our relatively small, community health plan. Participating in the round tables, coaching and capsule exercises demonstrated for us that many of the barriers we’ve faced in moving forward equity-focused initiatives are consistent with those experienced by other health plans. It has been helpful to know that we are not alone in this journey and has led us to think differently about which barriers are systemic and how we can make real impact.
“It was inspiring to hear how other health plans are innovating in this space and explore how we might apply learnings to our work at CareOregon. One specific learning that stands out was around new ways of thinking about collecting and using member data. We’ve taken these learnings back to our broader organization and are excited to incorporate them into our equity-first approach to quality work.
“The capsule exercises brought fresh perspectives to our work – pushing us to think beyond our assumptions to challenges with which we’ve been wresting. The IHI/Rise to Health Payor Platform session reinvigorated us to continue advancing our health equity goals.”
The power of Rise to Health truly lives within the Coalition’s sense of community and the accessibility of its actions to advance health equity, as demonstrated by CareOregon’s experience. While the Rise to Health Coalition provides the staged learning journey, opportunities for convening, and key activities, the transformation and acceleration of improvements in health equity come from the knowledge exchange and peer to peer learning across participants. IHI continues to build momentum among cross-sector health care leaders who are committed to advancing health equity and racial justice. The coalition building continues.
Nikki Tennermann, LICSW, MBA, is a Senior Project Director at IHI. Shellie Holk, RN, BSN, is the Director of Quality of Care and Accreditation at CareOregon. Nicky Jepeal is the Senior Quality Specialist at CareOregon.
Photo by Matt Foxx on Unsplash.
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