Health Equity Effort Engages Community Partners, Progress Measures

April 22, 2021 - Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) announced a national health equity strategy that focuses on measuring racial health disparities, forming community and clinical partnerships, scaling effective programs, and influencing local and federal policy decisions.

The strategy is centered around improving racial health disparities in maternal health, behavioral health, diabetes, and cardiovascular conditions.

BCBSA will first focus on maternal health, with a public goal of reducing racial disparities in maternal health by 50 percent in five years.

"BCBS companies are fully committed to reach this goal," President and CEO of BCBSA Kim Keck said in a press release. "We will continue to collaborate with our local partners and providers to continually improve our programs and build momentum, and we will seek out new ideas and proven initiatives that accelerate health equity reform."

To measure its progress in tackling maternal health disparities, the payer will use the CDC Severe Maternal Morbidity metric and report results annually.

BCBSA's National Health Equity Strategy will focus heavily on community partnerships. For instance, in recent months BCBS companies have fostered relationships with local leaders to provide vulnerable communities with COVID-19 vaccine access.

"Your health shouldn't depend on the color of your skin or the neighborhood you live in," said Keck. "The crisis in racial disparities in our country's health care is unconscionable and unacceptable. While BCBS companies have made great strides in addressing racial health disparities in our local communities, there is so much more to be done.”

“Our deep roots in the local communities we serve, combined with the scale and scope of our national reach, enable all of us at Blue Cross Blue Shield companies to drive this new strategy and bring real change,” Keck continued.

The national Health Equity Strategy comes alongside broad commitment from BCBS companies to addressing racial health disparities. BCBSA has convened a national advisory panel of doctors, community leaders, and public health experts to provide guidance.

Additionally, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (Blue Cross) has convened its own advisory council of leading local and national experts in health inequities to help guide and shape the company's health equity strategy from a variety of stakeholder perspectives.

As part of its health equity strategy, the payer will create metrics and programs that address racial health disparities in care access and quality of care.

In January, Blue Cross invited its 2.8 million beneficiaries to share information about their race, ethnicity, and preferred language on its member portal. The payer will use this data to improve quality of care through community and clinical partnerships that reduce racial and ethnic health disparities.

"Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts has committed to making broad and sustained improvements in the equity of health care," said Mark Friedberg, MD, Blue Cross senior vice president of performance measurement & improvement.

"Our work begins with measurement, which is critical to identifying inequities and holding ourselves accountable for improvement over time. We look forward to collaborating with our clinical partners, community leaders, and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association in these important long-term efforts."

The payer will create an enhanced scorecard that measures progress against comparable companies to demonstrate accountability.

The Blue Cross health equity strategy will also change the company's current Diversity, Equity & Inclusion governance structure to include health equity issues.

Lastly, the payer announced that it will ramp up employee education efforts about the way social determinants of health, such as race and ethnicity, impact Blue Cross members. The health plan will also review existing vendor contracts to assess their strategies for detecting and addressing health inequities.