Health Equity and Belonging

Our Commitment to Health Equity and Belonging

At Cape Cod Healthcare, we are dedicated to fostering a culture of health equity, inclusion, fairness and opportunity. We strive to ensure that every patient, colleague and community partner feels valued, respected and supported. This commitment is deeply woven into our mission, empowering us to create a healthcare environment where everyone has equitable access to the care and resources they need. By championing these values, we further our mission to provide the highest-quality, accessible healthcare services, enhancing the well-being of all Cape Cod residents and visitors.

Health Equity Strategic Pillars and Focus Areas

As part of our commitment, we have established a foundation of strategic pillars and focus areas to address health equity in our system, beginning with our health equity vision statement to:

Improve health equity and be a provider of choice in equitable, highest-quality care.

The below graphic provides an overview of our three health equity strategic pillars and the specific focus areas we will address within each:

Health Equity Roadmap

Our roadmap to achieving our health equity goals is multi-faceted and incorporates patient education, staff training, quality measurement and feedback from our community and employees, collaborative partnerships within the community and more. The below graphic outlines our pathway to health equity at Cape Cod Healthcare:

Health Disparity Focus: High Blood Pressure Control

Identifying and addressing health disparities in medical conditions is a key element of health equity work at Cape Cod Healthcare (CCHC). In 2023, our health equity team analyzed the adequacy of blood pressure control for CCHC patients using data for factors such as race, ethnicity and language to identify health disparities. As a result, health disparities were identified in Black patients, with the percent of Black patients with adequate blood pressure control (systolic blood pressure < 140 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure < 90 mm Hg based on HEDIS Healthcare Quality standards) at 61.9%, while the average percent of those with controlled blood pressure when all races were combined was 77%. Among white patients, the group used for benchmark comparison due to it being the largest volume of patients, blood pressure control was 78.6%. No heatlh disparities were identified in Hispanics or Portuguese speaking patients.

Results of this analysis

• Intervention support was offered by CCHC for 'all-comers' - for all those in need, not for selective groups.
• Results showed that all groups showed improvement.
  • The % with blood pressure control for all races combined increased from 77.6% to 85.7% by the end of 2024.
  • The % of Blacks with blood pressure control increased from 61.9% to 85.5% by the end of 2024.
  • The % of whites with blood pressure control increased from 78.6% to 85.6% by the end of 2024.

Additional interventions and solutions implemented (2023-current)

• Building trust through staff training and education
  • Communication to clinical providers, health equity training for staff, Human Library program
• Social determinants of health screening and referrals
  • Food insecurity (DASH diet for high blood pressure) financial difficulties for medication costs including co-pays, transportation barriers to medical visiits
• Enhancing access
  • Enhanced care management through hospital-ACO care coordination, free home blood pressure monitors, trauma-recovery support referrals
• Community outreach
  • Health equity committee input, community ambassador program, community engagement events

Next steps

• CCHC will continue to:
  • Monitor progress in this effort and adjust support/interventions as needed.
  • Communicate to the stakeholders (both internal and in the community) with updates.