Although there is broad agreement that measurement is an essential tool, the best way to measure health inequities is an open question. Leaders at Humana have taken actions to better understand disparities in members’ health by developing a new health equity measure. First, they developed a composite measure that includes eight individual measures of health behaviors. Next, they stratified the composite measure results by racial/ethnic subgroups as well as by dual eligibility for Medicare and Medicaid. Finally, they calculated health equity scores that illustrated disparities both between and within the subgroups. Importantly, this approach will help to identify where disparities are largest in order to set strategic goals and take action. For instance, Humana leaders saw that patients in the Black dual-eligible and white dual-eligible subgroups had the lowest average rate of engaging in recommended health behaviors. They also saw large disparities within both the Black dual-eligible and white dual-eligible subgroups. Understanding common characteristics of the patients with the lowest rates within each of these subgroups enables the design of more personalized and effective solutions. While this measure is a work in progress, the authors believe that it is important to share their learnings to create early transparency and drive synergy across the industry. In the meantime, they are working to operationalize this measure to impact how Humana prioritizes investments, decides what capabilities to build, and determines where to focus efforts.
Read the full article: https://catalyst.nejm.org/doi/abs/10.1056/CAT.22.0068
