Preparing for the Changing Healthcare Landscape

A conference at The New York Academy of Sciences will focus on how to effectively train physicians and health researchers to provide high-quality, equitable care in light of widespread health disparities.

Published September 25, 2012

By Diana Friedman

The American healthcare landscape is changing rapidly due to shifting demographics, rising costs, and policy changes such as the Affordable Care Act. In light of these changes, physicians and clinical researchers are challenged to acquire the necessary tools to provide high-quality, affordable, and equitable care to all. On Tuesday, October 2, representatives from medical schools will convene to discuss Prioritizing Health Disparities in Medical Education to Improve Care, presented by The Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, the Associated Medical Schools of New York, NYU School of Medicine, and The New York Academy of Sciences.

“There is national emphasis on the priorities of reducing healthcare cost and improving quality,” says Marc Nivet, EdD, Chief Diversity Officer, Association of American Medical Colleges. “These are laudable goals, but these efforts alone will not be sufficient to tackle health disparities with deep structural and societal origin. Ensuring a diverse, linguistically and culturally competent clinical and biomedical research workforce must also be a national priority, if we’re serious about health equity.” Nivet will be speaking on the topic of “Diversity as a Driver of Health Equity.”

Reducing inequities in healthcare will require broadening medical training to include health disparities education and research beyond the current focus on race and ethnicity to consider determinants such as socioeconomic status, environmental conditions, gender identity, sexual orientation, behavioral choices, and access to medical care.

“Understanding and correcting health disparities is an important national priority. Educating the next generation of students in this area is essential if we are to achieve that goal,” says George Thibault, MD, President, The Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation.

Three Major Topics

Designed for medical school administrators, policy makers, clinicians, researchers, and medical students, the conference, to be held at the Academy’s headquarters in New York City, will convene representatives from medical schools that have incorporated emerging health disparities themes into their curricula to discuss three major topics. These topics include:

• innovative teaching models for incorporating health disparities research into the curriculum while emphasizing the role of physicians in preserving health;
• attracting medical trainees to health disparities research; and
• improving the recruitment of underrepresented minority medical students with a health disparities curriculum.

“To adapt the training of 21st century physicians to the ever-changing and increasingly diverse population healthcare landscape, it is critical to not only teach bedside skills for culturally competent care of the individual patient, but also to take the vitals of a family, a neighborhood, or a community linked to that patient in order to address possible barriers to achieving and maintaining optimal health,” says Conference Organizer and Chair Fritz François, MD, MSc, FACG, Associate Dean for Diversity and Academic Affairs, NYU School of Medicine, who will be giving a lecture on “Addressing Health Disparities through Molecular Epidemiology.”

Improving Student Training

A special panel discussion organized in collaboration with the Academy’s Science Alliance program will allow medical students from health disparities research programs at various institutions to discuss their own experiences and provide recommendations to further improve student training.

“Now more than ever before there is a clear understanding that cross-cultural medical education is critical in preparing our healthcare workforce to deliver high-quality, equitable care to an increasingly diverse population. Our rapidly changing healthcare system requires that we are all prepared to take care of any patient, at anytime, anywhere, and students recognize this need and are calling for our leadership in preparing them to meet this challenge,” says Conference Chair Joseph Betancourt, MD, MPH, Director, The Disparities Solutions Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, who will be giving a lecture on “Improving Quality and Achieving Equity through Cross-cultural Education.”

“The NYS medical schools are training a diverse and culturally competent workforce that recognizes that part of their collective responsibility is to address issues of access and health equity,” says Jo Wiederhorn, President and CEO of the Associated Medical Schools of New York (AMSNY). “AMSNY remains committed to promoting diversity in medicine as a means to eliminate health disparities and significantly improve healthcare outcomes.”

Additional lectures will cover topics such as linking university health resources to social determinants in the community, training medical students to deliver comprehensive LGBT patient care, and health disparities and social justice. A networking reception will follow the conference programming.

Also read: Ethics and Equity: Navigating Inclusive Excellence in Healthcare and Health Research