L.A. Care is committed to advancing health equity for our members and their communities. By health equity, we mean everyone has a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible.
Health Equity Work
L.A. Care's Health Equity Action Plan involves a number of internal and external efforts:
Organizational Structure
- Adopting an official Statement of Principles on Social Justice and Systemic Racism.
- Creating a Quality, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Medical Director position to prioritize and oversee the health plan's equity, diversity and inclusion efforts.
- Implementing an Equity Council Steering Committee with three subcommittees focused on Members, Providers & Vendors, and Employees.
→ Equity Council Steering Committee meeting on a weekly basis since July 2020.
- Passing a Board Resolution on gun violence prevention
- Training all L.A. Care leadership and staff on Diversity and Inclusion, including concepts of implicit bias and cultural humility.
→ Introduced Cultural Humility training to some departments as part of California Improvement Network grant for quality improvement.
- Launching a health equity disparities education campaign for employees.
→ Launched the MOSAIC (Maximizing Opportunities that Support An Inclusive Culture) Book Club to both broaden and deepen a collective knowledge of equity, inclusion and social justice.
- Following best practices for recruiting a diverse workforce.
Members
- Identifying and addressing the Social Determinants of Health that greatly impact our members.
- Launching L.A. Care Community Link to connect members to food, housing, and other resources.
- Creating a Social Services Department that helps members connect to the right programs in the community for the social services they need.
- Soliciting input from community advisory council members to inform disparities interventions.
→ Launched the Consumer Health Equity Council to hear member feedback on L.A. Care programs and services pertaining to health equity.
- Providing care management to support the health of our members.
Providers
- Addressing the underrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities among health professionals by expanding on L.A. Care's Elevating the Safety Net Initiative.
- Ensuring that the L.A. Care provider network is reflective of the languages and race/ethnicities of the members they serve.
- Educating providers and community partners about health disparities.
- Including equity and disparities metrics in clinical and quality outcomes dashboards.
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Promoting resources to address the Social Determinants of Health
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See these curated resources under the "Related Links" section.
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Community Partnerships
- Awarding sponsorships that address equity and social determinants of health.
- Providing grants to organizations serving marginalized communities.
- Collaborating with various partners in the community to discuss health disparities and develop community-level interventions.
- Partnering with Los Angeles County for inaugural L.A. vs. Hate United Against Hate Week, November 30th – December 6th.
- Hosted two conferences for Black History Month: one on Black Maternal Health and the other on Mental Health.