Empowering Health Care Consumers

Project Title

Combining Clinical and Cost Information to Advance Shared Decision-Making

Grant Amount

$145,272

Priority Area

Empowering Health Care Consumers

Date Awarded

April 30, 2021

Region

NYC

Statewide

Status

Closed

Website

https://www.fairhealth.org/

SEE GRANT OUTCOMES

For NYHealth, health equity is achieved when all people have the opportunities and resources they need to be as healthy as possible and no one is disadvantaged.

But in practice, patients—particularly people of color—are often marginalized rather than placed at the center of the health care system. Although all patients should be valued as partners, patients of color can face unique obstacles, including racism, bias, mistrust, and gaps in communication between patients and physicians. Engaging patients of color is an important step toward the development of a more equitable health system. To help ensure that patients’ priorities, preferences, and experiences guide efforts to create a more equitable health care system, NYHealth issued a Request for Proposals (RFP), “Patients as Partners: Advancing Equity.” Through this RFP, NYHealth is supporting projects that seek to implement system improvements, practice innovations, or interventions designed to give patients of color a meaningful role in their health care. In 2021, NYHealth awarded FAIR Health a grant to participate in this initiative.

Under this grant, FAIR Health piloted shared decision-making approaches that were especially relevant to patients of color. Shared decision-making—the process by which patients and providers decide on treatment, balancing clinical options with patients’ needs, values, and preferences—can better engage patients as partners in their health care and shows promise for improving health outcomes and reducing health care costs. In collaboration with Dr. Chima Ndumele, an Associate Professor of Health Policy at the Yale School of Public Health and a Faculty Associate at the Institute for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University, FAIR Health developed and disseminated shared decision-making tools that combined clinical information and cost data drawn from FAIR Health’s private claims repository. The project team conducted focus groups with patients and providers of color to identify health care conditions that were particularly important to communities of color: slow-growing prostate cancer, Type 2 diabetes, and uterine fibroids. FAIR Health conducted outreach and focus groups to assess the most pressing needs and concerns of patients of color when navigating the health care system. Relevant and culturally sensitive tools and educational content were tailored and implemented for shared decision-making. A broad range of New York State health care and community partners—including patient advocacy groups, survivor groups, hospital systems and associations, medical societies, and individual health care providers of color—engaged to promote and use the tools in practice. FAIR Health disseminated the tools on its consumer website and social media, through train-the-trainer sessions, and with patient ambassadors and champions. Additionally, FAIR Health developed and shared a report to describe patients’ and providers’ perceptions of the tools and highlight key program learnings.

Access the shared decision-making tools here.

Read an issue brief on lessons learned to advance shared decision-making tools among patients of color.

See a full list of grantees working to engage patients as partners to advance racial health equity across New York State.