JACKSON - West Tennessee Healthcare was recently selected as an honoree for the 2016 American Hospital Association’s Equity of Care Award. The American Hospital Association Equity of Care Award was created to recognize outstanding efforts among hospitals and care systems to advance equity of care to all patients and to spread lessons learned and progress toward achieving health equity. The Cleveland Clinic received the 2016 Equity of Care Award while West Tennessee Healthcare; MetroHealth in Cleveland, Ohio; Navicent Health in Macon, Georgia; and CHRISTUS Health in Irvine, Texas were recognized as honorees. The awards were presented during the Health Forum/American Hospital Association Leadership Summit in San Diego in July.
In 2014 West Tennessee Healthcare created a Diversity and Cultural Competency Task Team that includes a physician, nurses, department directors and senior executive management to help in the collection and use of race, ethnicity and language preference data. The data is used to assist in developing strategies to improve health outcomes. West Tennessee Healthcare also works with community partners in a 17-county service area on efforts to eliminate health disparities. Some of these efforts include working with churches on various initiatives, hosting community health expos in underserved communities and providing medications for individuals without health insurance.
The Equity of Care Award is presented annually by the American Hospital Association. Hospitals were required to complete an application describing their efforts to provide equitable care and had to participate in the Institute for Diversity in Health Management’s most recent benchmarking survey on diversity and disparities and sign on to the AHA’s Pledge Campaign.
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