Health Equity. Health Equity. Health Equity.

Candyman. Candyman. Candyman. Candyman. Candyman.

Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice.

Health equity.

Saying the first sentence in the mirror may get you murdered. Saying the second sentence may get you supernatural help you don’t want. But will saying the third sentence get your healthcare organization in hot water with the anti-DEI Trump regime?

I don’t think so as the regime is too busy ginning up reasons to declare martial law and suspend the mid-term elections. But I think many of the nation’s healthcare leaders think so. I’m hearing anecdotally that many healthcare organizations are scrubbing their websites of the words “health equity” lest they lose everything from government contracts to medical research grants to their tax-exempt status.

You remember the COVID pandemic, right? That was just five years ago. Remember how the pandemic exposed long-standing health disparities, health inequities and systematic racism in care delivery, right? Remember how everyone vowed to remedy these problems with grand initiative after grand initiative to reduce health disparities, improve health equity and end race, ethnic, gender and sexual orientation bias in care delivery, right?

The Joint Commission was one of the many organizations that launched such a grand initiative. On Oct. 26, 2022, The Joint Commission announced the creation of its Health Care Equity Resource Center. You can read about it here in an article by Becker’s Clinical Leadership. You can also read about it here in an article by the American Organization for Nursing Leadership of the American Hospital Association.

The one place you can’t read about it is on The Joint Commission’s own website. The press release is gone. According to the above articles and many others, The Joint Commission launched its Health Care Equity Resource Center to support healthcare organizations that sought to meet its new health care equity standards, which went into effect in January 2023.

According to this toolkit from the New Jersey Hospital Association, healthcare organizations like hospitals and health systems must meet the following six standards to obtain health equity certification from The Joint Commission:

• The organization designates an individual to lead activities to reduce health care disparities for the organization’s patients.
• The organization assesses the patient’s health-related social needs and provides information about community resources and support services.
• The organization identifies health care disparities in its patient population by stratifying quality and safety data using the social demographic characteristics of the organization’s patients.
• The organization develops a written action plan that describes how it will address at least one of the health care disparities identified in its patient population.
• The organization acts when it does not achieve or sustain the goals in its action plan to reduce health care disparities.
• At least annually, the organization informs key stakeholders, including leaders, licensed practitioners, and staff, about its progress to reduce identified health care disparities.

In February 2024, The Joint Commission announced the first eight hospitals to obtain health equity certification, according to this article in Healthcare Innovation.

Well, at some point between then and now, The Joint Commission changed the name of its Health Care Equity Resource Center to the Excellent Health Outcomes for All Resource Center.

Another thing that happened between then and now was Trump being elected president. Overnight, “health equity” and “DEI” became four-letter words. Organizations that continued to use them were instant targets for the regime’s search term goons, regardless of context or facts.

Let’s not forget, The Joint Commission enjoys “deemed status” under federal Medicare regulations. That means healthcare organizations that meet The Joint Commission accreditation standards are deemed to meet Medicare’s Conditions of Participation and are eligible to treat Medicare patients.

How many healthcare organizations would voluntarily seek Joint Commission accreditation if it wasn’t a shortcut to Medicare certification? Better to be surveyed by an industry peer than inspected by a federal or state regulator.

I asked The Joint Commission the following questions via email upon request after I called:

• When did the Joint Commission change the name of the Health Care Equity Certification Center to the Excellent Health Outcomes for All Certification Center?
• Was there a public announcement of the name change?
• Why did The Joint Commission change the name?
• What is the status of the equity certification standards?
• Did the name of the equity certification standards change?
• Did any of the standards themselves change?
• Have you awarded Excellent Health Outcomes for All certification to any hospitals yet? If not, when do you expect those to happen?

The Joint Commission via email politely and simply said, “The Joint Commission continues to offer its Health Care Equity Certification.”

That’s great, and I applaud The Joint Commission.

But you don’t have to be a stable genius to figure out what happened. It’s easier to change the name of something than put your business model at risk no matter how important and needed that name is.

When someone writes this chapter of healthcare history, it will be short profiles in courage. If you don’t believe me, read this great piece in Stat, “Lawmakers lobby doctors to keep quiet — or speak up — on Medicaid cuts in Trump’s tax bill.”

So, I’ll say it for you if you can’t bring yourself to do it: health equity, health equity, health equity.