Eugene A. Woods and Rodney B. Jones, SR, two African American healthcare leaders, offered policy recommendations to curb racial health disparities during a Special Committee on Aging hearing Tuesday.
Two African American hospital leaders shared insights at a Senate special committee this week regarding the health disparities faced by communities of color during the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
Both Atrium Health CEO Eugene A. Woods and East Liberty Family Health Care Center CEO Rodney B. Jones, Sr. made statements at the Senate's Special Committee on Aging hearing Tuesday entitled "The COVID-19 Pandemic and Seniors: A Look at Racial Health Disparities.”
Atrium Health serves 7.8 million people in its 41 not-for-profit hospitals located in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. East Liberty Family Health Care Center, a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), serves 11,294 patients from 69 zip codes in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairs the special committee and introduced the hearing with a focus on COVID-19's “disproportionate health impacts on black and Latino seniors, as well as seniors from other racial and ethnic minority communities."
Collins added that, "According to a New York Times analysis, black and Latino residents are infected with the virus at three times the rate of their white neighbors, and they are nearly twice as likely to die from COVID-19."
Woods and Jones were among a "distinguished panel of experts" to help the Senate "better understand the challenges and identify meaningful solutions" to the disparities Collins said.
Atrium Health policy recommendations
- "Support Medicare Advanced Payment loan forgiveness" in the next COVID-19 relief package
- Create a national registry to allocate testing supplies based on need with support from the Department of Health and Human Services
- Urging the Special Committee on Aging to "consider using its oversight authority" to mitigate supply shortages and mass vaccination preparation
- Maintain permanent Medicare payments for telemedicine services
- Urging Congress to "reinvest in public health analytics" to ensure resources are more consistently shared across the country
- Help share resources and best practices across communities by reducing "barrier to establishing hospital systems"
- Provide "Medicare and Medicaid payments for interpreters and translators" for non-English speaking patients
- Encouraging "private-public communications partnerships" to create trust in a COVID-19 vaccine
East Liberty Family Health Care Center policy recommendations
- Statistics of their patients support the effect of social determinants of health
- Increased availability of telehealth has been "critical" in meeting the needs of the patients
- Cited effectiveness of Medicaid expansion in Pennsylvania, which has expanded coverage to over 780,000 people
- It is "critical that health centers continue to receive funding to continue to serve our patients"
Melanie Blackman is a contributing editor for strategy, marketing, and human resources at HealthLeaders, an HCPro brand.