The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated already challenging health disparities. Many marginalized populations were adversely affected by the coronavirus with less access to telehealth and other services.
As your customers, providers, and payers continue to work on their health equity initiatives, your commercial team has an opportunity to support and improve these efforts. To do so, you must understand your customers’ environment, their patients’ environment, and your company’s resources and tools that may be able to support your customers’ initiatives.
Review your customer’s website or start a discussion
Review with their staff to gather information on current health equity priorities and programs they’ve initiated. The website might also provide insights into how health equity figures into your customer’s mission, strategic plan, or both.
Understand health disparities in your area or territory
Tax-exempt hospitals are required to complete community health needs assessments (CHNA) every three years. These assessments can sometimes be completed in partnership with other community stakeholders, organizations, or agencies. Consider if there are areas for collaboration with these groups identifiable in your customer’s assessment, what program needs are noted, and what your company offers that could assist the community and your customers.
Identify opportunities for provider and patient education
Your company may offer educational programs that help uncover bias, support underserved patient populations, and improve outcomes for your customers.
Offer population health approaches
Such approaches help your customers improve the health of their entire population while also supporting subgroups of the population that may need extra help due to healthcare and resource inequities.
If you are a team leader, the following questions can help you better support your team, their customers, and their patients and help reduce disparities in health equity:
- What would your team describe as the key barriers to equitable care in their territories?
- Can your team identify which populations are most affected by health disparities?
- What are your customers doing to address these inequities? Which social determinants of health (eg, poverty, poor health literacy, lack of transportation) are the primary focus for customers?
- How has your company helped address health inequities? Are your sales teams prepared to convey this message and explore new opportunities to lead change with customers?
By supporting your team as they form lasting and mutually beneficial relationships with their customers and in their community, you can also meet and exceed your goals. CMR’s proactive, customized learning pathways empower teams to become their very best. Our curated learning library is updated regularly and vetted by industry-leading healthcare
experts to ensure your teams have everything they need to advance their knowledge, connect with customers, and drive sales. Contact us below to learn more about our customized learning pathways for supporting social determinants of health, health equity, population health, and improving the patient experience.
