Health equity & Medicaid
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Health equity & Medicaid
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Workforce diversity and health equity initiative
Through this initiative launched in 2020, IHPI members study faculty recruitment, retention, and promotion at U-M and assess health equity at Michigan Medicine to recommend system improvements. Specific activities focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) include support for career advancement and leadership development efforts at the university, a recruitment and retention climate survey including interviews with current and former IHPI members about how DEI has affected their work at U-M, and an equity review of care delivery, system policies, and measurement of clinical health disparities at Michigan Medicine with interviews with key informants. More than 100 IHPI members are engaged in the initiative.
Healthy Michigan Plan Evaluation
Another important piece of IHPI’s work in health equity is its evaluation of the Healthy Michigan Plan (HMP), which is Michigan’s expansion of the public health insurance program for low-income individuals known as Medicaid. Launched in 2014, HMP provides health insurance coverage to some 1 million working-age adults in Michigan.
Since 2014, IHPI has evaluated the impact of HMP on the health of Michiganders, including access to healthcare, and healthcare spending in partnership with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS). The findings from the first five years of the program (2014-2018) have been informing critical policy decisions in Michigan and throughout the nation. The team presented key findings from the interim report for the current evaluation period (2019-2023) at an August 2022 public meeting about the program’s renewal. Read more in Evaluating Michigan’s Healthcare Safety Net.
Highlights
Michael Sjoding, M.D., was honored with a 2021 IHPI Policy Impact Award (formerly the Impact Accelerator Award) for his research that has uncovered racial disparities in the accuracy of pulse oximeters, which has particular relevance for patients with respiratory issues due to COVID-19. Sjoding’s research found that Black patients were significantly more likely than white patients to have low oxygen levels that were missed by pulse oximeters. Sjoding has connected with national and international policymakers, news organizations, and other stakeholders to raise awareness of this issue of biased medical tech and discuss opportunities to correct it. Read more >
IHPI funds four projects focused on advancing health equity
2022 Policy Sprint awardees will receive support for timely, policy-relevant projects that inform system-level solutions to advance health equity; these projects and principal investigators are:
Communicated bias and its downstream effects on racial inequities in pain treatment in the emergency department
Project leads: Pooja Lagisetty, M.D., M.Sc., and Christopher Fung, M.D.
Impact of geography on abortion care access in Michigan
Project lead: Lauren Owens, M.D., M.P.H.
Racial and ethnic disparities in timely treatment initiation following emergency department visits for non-fatal opioid overdose
Project lead: Thuy Nguyen, Ph.D., M.P.A.
Leveraging population-based surveillance to identify individuals with sickle cell disease eligible for expanded benefits through Children’s Special Health Care Services
U-M project lead: Sarah Reeves, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Featured News
How nurses hold a key role in improving health equity: Expert Q&A
Sheria Robinson-Lane is working to engage a broader audience around her life’s work, demonstrating how nurses can be some of the most impactful champions for health equity.
Black COVID patients: Less medical follow-up, longer return-to-work delays, more hospital readmissions
Black COVID-19 patients had the least physician follow-up and the longest delays in returning to work, a U-M study found.
Medicaid expansion closed health gaps for low-income adults across racial and ethnic groups, study shows
Michigan data show improvements in access to care and overall health, and could inform non-expansion states.
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