Health Equity, the Quality Professional’s Dilemma

In the midst of #HTLH2022 I've read some great posts about what #healthEquity means to different healthcare providers.

For me It's a simple proposition. Black men and women are usually on the wrong end of most #healthdisparities in the United States. Health equity (or the lack thereof) means me, my mother and father, my nephews and niece… anyone who look like me suffering disease needlessly.

The professional me? I've spent almost the entirety of my career as a #Quality/#Regulatory professional in the med device industry. I’ve managed complaints and recall programs, worked the regulatory/submissions side, run corporate audit groups, been fully responsible for defining, implementing, and managing global Quality Systems, and seen more inspections than I care to count. In each capacity, I have had one continuous goal: ensuring the products we developed would keep the patients we serve as safe, and as healthy as possible. Because as a Quality Professional, safety and effectiveness is the job.

It's that "effectiveness" part of the job that feels right at home with Health Equity. Afterall, if the life saving products we develop are less effective for one group of people, isn’t it my responsibility to drive better performance for that cohort – and by extension, the product overall?

COVID highlighted for us how the pitfalls of pulse oximeters (which rely on light transmission through the skin) can lead to delayed care for patients of darker complexions. (https://lnkd.in/ekfJff2E)

An NIH study highlighted how an industry common method of identifying vitamin D (the vitamin we commonly absorb from sunlight) deficiency routinely misdiagnosis people of darker complexions. (https://lnkd.in/ebFfCQhg)

So as I reflect on what Health Equity should mean to a Quality Professional, I look to examples like these and remind myself that it's part of the day job. It's not an extracurricular. That me and my teams have a part to play in ensuring the tools we use to fight the next pandemic don't leave whole populations of people at unnecessary risk. That the tests we develop don't mislead clinicians for one type of patient and not another.

It reminds me that as I search for my next opportunity, that it's imperative I make Health Equity a part of my job. That it fits squarely in the mandate of ensuring product effectivity. And that not only can society benefit from the resulting reduced health disparities, but the organization will benefit in the marketplace from rolling out the "better mousetrap" to better serve customers and patients.