Andrea D. Willis
- Andrea D. Willis, MD, MPH, FAAP, is senior vice president and chief medical officer at BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.
Imagine you’re talking to a mother of three who just turned 45. She shares how she is working two jobs to make ends meet, caring for an elderly parent and struggling to get her children to and from school, sports games and ballet lessons.
She also shares that she does not see a primary care provider and has never had a mammogram.
Like many, she is also unaware that other black women like her in Tennessee have the ninth highest breast cancer death rate in the US.
Access to this vital care and early screening is a major disparity in cancer mortality rates among all minority populations, raising the issue of health equity.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines health equity as “the state in which everyone has a fair and just opportunity to achieve the highest level of health”. For everyone to have these opportunities, all of us in health care, community, education, business and public policy positions must lay the groundwork.
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The new health equity report tracks 20 key metrics
At BlueCross, health equity is one of our values. We realized that to help address it, we first needed to understand the scope of the challenge.
That’s why we developed our first annual health equity report released this month. This initial report shows our baseline for certain clinical care metrics (the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set, or HEDIS); subsequent reports will show our progress on a subset of these measures.
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated health disparities. We have long served vulnerable populations, but the pandemic forced us to evaluate how we can do more.
Our first health equity report tracks 20 of the top health metrics for BlueCross’ 2 million members. The data was compiled from BlueCross claims.
Within this report we identify the social vulnerabilities and factors we see across Black, White, Asian, and Hispanic populations that may contribute to health disparities. Our measures fall into four broad categories: maternal health, well-being of children and adolescents, cancer screening and chronic condition management.
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Here’s what the data tells us about different communities
Research shows that in Tennessee:
- Black women have higher mortality rates than white women.
- Black patients were 2.5 times more likely to have a pregnancy-related death than white patients.
- Black adults are 40% more likely to have high blood pressure and less likely to have it under control than white adults.
- Native Tennesseans — culturally distinct groups descended from our state’s earliest known inhabitants — reported 10 days per month of poor mental health, more than any other group.
- The Hispanic population accounted for 8% of COVID-related deaths for those 40 and younger.
This comprehensive data led us to examine our data to see how we could contribute to telling the story of all Tennesseans.
Our objective is not only to create awareness, but to demonstrate our commitment to making health equity an ongoing priority. Our efforts will include:
- Ensuring health equity is part of the value-based care conversation.
- By focusing our energy and leading the efforts of Tennessee Blue centers to focus on social drivers of health.
This report aims to provide valuable insights, start conversations and lead to decisive action. Metrics in subsequent reports will show progress on specific goals. But they will serve more broadly as moving forward indicators of barriers being broken down and gaps in care being addressed to drive lasting change. We hope these examples inspire others to join us in advancing health equity in our communities.
Andrea D. Willis, MD, MPH, FAAP, is senior vice president and chief medical officer at BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.
