Elevating Healthcare Equity

SIDM is at the forefront of the movement to achieve health equity. SIDM board member Ron Wyatt has been working tirelessly for years on efforts to put health equity on the national agenda. Thanks to that work, the Joint Commission announced in January 2023 that it is elevating health equity as a new National Patient Safety Goal. We congratulate Ron Wyatt for his work and invite others to join the push to eliminate health safety disparities associated with race, age, income, and other systemic biases that exist in healthcare and the diagnostic process.

On the heels of that announcement, came an article calling for organizations to commit to health equity from the top down, starting with the boardroom. A matter of trust: Commitment to act for health equity, published by Elsevier's Science Direct, states, “The stark health care inequities that have long existed in the United States are primary evidence of structural racism and a legitimate basis for distrust. Organizations that directly face health equity as an explicit goal are on the critical path toward demonstrating trustworthiness to the communities they serve.” Authors of the paper include SIDM Board Member Ron Wyatt, SIDM Policy Advisor Leslie Tucker, and several others who are longtime affiliates and advocates for change in achieving excellence in diagnosis. They offer practical guidelines for leaders to follow in raising the bar on healthcare equity.

Finally, we are excited to announce that the SIDM conference, The Future of Diagnosis: Achieving Excellence and Equity will be in Cleveland, Ohio on October 8-11, 2023. Incorporating equity into our theme this year will help to continue the focus on eliminating biases in the diagnostic process. Stay tuned for more info on this and the conference in Utrecht, Netherlands on July 3-4.