Friday Five – Celebrating Black Excellence in Health IT
HealthcareNOW Radio celebrates Black History Month, a time to recognize the achievements and honor the impact African Americans have made throughout United States history in all aspects of life. This week’s Friday Five recognizes trailblazing African Americans in the Health IT industry who have been recent guests on our shows discussing what the pandemic has taught us, systemic racism in the health care system, health disparities, innovation, patient experience and much more.
Hosts Gil Bashe and Gregg Masters welcome Chief Medical Officer at Ernst & Young, Yele Aluko MD MBA, for a discussion on the significance and impact of the social determinants of health, its slow uptake by the acute health system, missed opportunities, and rightful mitigation of health disparities and equity. Dr Aluko speaks candidly, with global insight preferring a balanced perspective unique to his leadership vision as a prominent national voice in the conversation.
Host Tammy Hawes, Virsys12 founder and CEO, and her co-host Clark Buckner talk with DP Brightful about his vision for the future of the industry. He also explains how the changes we’ve seen during the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to drive innovation well into the future. DP Brightful knows technology can directly improve people’s lives and experiences; it’s why he was so excited to bring his years of tech industry expertise into the healthcare space when he joined Salesforce. Brightful believes that with the proper innovation and application, healthcare companies can leverage technology to improve every aspect of the customer experience.
Host David Harlow speaks with Osagie Ebekozien MD the CMO of T1D Exchange. Osagie shares recent research on the effects of COVID-19 on persons with diabetes, on implicit bias and systemic racism in the health care system, and the virtuous cycle of prompt feedback based on the data yielding improvements in care.
Hosts Gregg Masters and Fred Goldstein meet Abner Mason, Founder and CEO, SameSky Health Inc, formerly known as ConsejoSano Health. They discuss the business of SameSky Health which is a digitally empowered patient engagement initiative focused on promoting health equity and reducing healthcare outcomes disparities.
Dr. Cameron Webb, White House Senior Policy Adviser for COVID-19 Equity, is navigating a tricky situation — as he advocates for vaccines, the university where he works just dropped its student vaccine mandate. Webb tells Conversations on Health Care hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter that he realizes the University of Virginia has some new dynamics to navigate. “There’s this rush to roll back a lot of the strategies that have gotten us to a point where we’re seeing less death,” he says. “This pandemic has been politicized to a point that it’s indistinguishable from the rest of our political rhetoric…rhetoric often meant to motivate a voter base.” Webb also discusses the administration’s efforts to address COVID equity issues, including the need to collect better data about race and ethnicity vaccination rates.
ICYMI – Our other Friday Fives and Blog posts from HCNR’s Nurse Lauren.
