Editor's Note The annual Commonwealth Fund’s Scorecard on State Health System Performance, released June 22, finds an increase in preventable deaths in all states in 2021, especially among Blacks and American Indian/Alaska Native people, and a nearly two-fold increase in maternal mortality from 2018 to 2021. Massachusetts, Hawaii, and New…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on June 7, announced that it has added new resources to its Health Care Equity Certification Resource Center, including those from NorthShore-Edward-Elmhurst Health in northeastern Illinois, Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts, and HealthPartners headquartered in Bloomington, Minnesota. The Joint Commission regularly updates its Health Care…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on May 3, announced the launch of its new Health Care Equity Certification Resource Center, which provides practical strategies for meeting the new certification program’s standards and elements of performance. Resources, such as tools, templates, and guides, are organized in the center by certification domains…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on April 12, announced that it and Kaiser Permanente are still accepting applications for the 2023 Bernard J. Tyson National Award for Excellence in Pursuit of Healthcare Equity. The award, now in its third year, gives national recognition to a healthcare organization for an intervention…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on April 5, announced that it had updated its Health Care Equity Accreditation Standards & Resource Center to assist organizations in meeting their healthcare equity standards. The new resources include: Six new Snapshots (brief synopses of approaches used by other organizations) from Cook County Health…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission and Kaiser Permanente on March 15 announced that they are now accepting applications for the 2023 Bernard J. Tyson National Award for Excellence in Pursuit of Healthcare Equity. The award, now in its 3rd year, recognizes a healthcare organization for an intervention that led to…

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Editor's Note This study led by researchers at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System and David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, finds that postoperative mortality was higher in Black men than Black women, White men, and White women. A total of 1,868,036 Black and White Medicare…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission, National Committee for Quality Assurance, and National Quality Forum announced, February 22, the release of a joint statement on digital health data exchange of social determinants of health (SDOH) assessments.  The statement begins with: “Collecting and exchanging data on SDOH connects individuals, healthcare organizations, and…

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Editor's Note This study led by researchers at Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, finds that underrepresentation of minorities persists across all surgical specialties, while representation of females improves. The cross-sectional study examined race, ethnicity and attrition data of 112,205 surgical residents across 18 years (2001-2018) in 10 surgical specialties.…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on February 1, announced that new resources are now available in its Health Care Equity Accreditation Standards & Resource Center, chronicling efforts by Boston Medical Center in its healthcare equity journey. The new resources include: Six “Snapshots” (brief synopses) focusing on challenges, successes, and lessons…

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