Michigan Child Health Equity Collaborative To Study "Pediatric Care Inequity"

Michigan's largest pediatric hospitals have created a new entity - The Michigan Child Health Equity Collaborative (Mi-CHEC) - to ferret out perceived racism in children's health care:

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2023/07/13/childrens-cs-mott-devos-hospitals-launch-pediatric-health-care-inequity-collaborative/70405586007/

Michigan's largest children's hospitals team up to study pediatric care inequity
By Jania Clowers - July 13, 2023

Michigan's largest pediatric hospitals are joining forces to better understand inequities in pediatric care, an issue that the collaborative's leaders say hasn't been well-studied.

The Michigan Child Health Equity Collaborative is believed to be the first partnership of its kind in the nation, bringing together C.S Mott Children's Hospital, Children's Hospital of Michigan and Corewell Health Helen DeVos Children's Hospital.

The collaborative's founder and director, Dr. Gary L. Freed, said the effort aims to build a body of research about equity in pediatric health care, as well as to develop solutions that address inequities.

Exterior and signage photos of DMC Children’s Hospital of Michigan. December 13, 2022, Detroit, MI.
"Our goal is not to simply find problems, but if we actually find where there is an inequity, then we are all committed to finding something to do about it," said Freed, who is also a pediatrician at Mott Children's Hospital. "... I had an idea that we ought to try and do something about child health equity; instead of just talking about making a difference, we should actually put something into action."

The collaborative seeks to understand where children and their families might be treated differently because of their gender, ability status, weight, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity or income gradient.

"Not because people are evil, it's just because we all have biases, and we don’t think those biases go away easily with an hour-long course or a town hall meeting or a blog post," said Freed.

Equity issues in health care have been studied among adults, but there is not much research on them in pediatric populations, and even fewer interventions to address equity issues for kids, Freed said.

The first phase of Mi-CHEC's work has already begun, with researchers at each hospital conducting focus groups of physicians, nurses, social workers, parents, administrators and others to better understand where pediatric care inequities might exist in each hospital.

Those focus groups will give the hospitals a place to investigate more deeply and develop interventions to address any inequities they find, Freed said.

"The hospitals will work together to find solutions to either put protocols into place or do quality improvement efforts to be able to actually make a difference in lives of children and their families," he said.

Interventions will be evaluated, and the collaborative's findings will be disseminated to inform local, state, and national decision-makers, officials said in a press release.

Leaders from each participating hospital described the partnership as part of a wider institutional commitment to make health care more equitable.

"Our participation in this state-wide collaborative reflects our organizational pledge to improve health and health equity through collaboration and courage," said Adam Nicholson, M.D., the medical director of quality, safety and experience and a pediatric emergency medicine physician at DeVos. "We are committed to facing the difficult challenge of eliminating inequities in health care and look forward to this learning journey with the other members of Mi-CHEC."

Archie Drake, CEO of Children's Hospital of Michigan, said in a statement that health care is a right and wants to see what the collaboration discovers.

"For the most vulnerable, our children, we cannot accept inequity in health care — be it access, treatment or medications," said Drake.

It is a shame that Tom Wolfe is no longer around to report on these racialist efforts.