But equity-focused initiatives often fall to the bottom of the priority list because they are seen as mission-driven projects that are not necessarily considered financially lucrative. Demonstrating an immediate ROI for health equity projects is challenging. But a recent analysis found that health inequity could cost the U.S. health system approximately $320 billion annually and could reach $1 trillion in spending by 2040 if left unaddressed — making the need for health equity advancement even more imperative.⁶

For life sciences organizations, making a dent in patient outcome inequities is hard. One way life sciences organizations focus on patient outcomes is clinical trial diversification.⁷ While a worthy cause, clinical trial diversification often does not directly improve bigger inequities within the healthcare system. Additionally, life sciences organizations’ interactions with patients are indirect and often mediated by physicians, making it challenging to understand where organizations can best inflect patient outcomes. Life sciences organizations can make a stronger commitment to health equity and patient outcomes by:

1. Fostering organization-wide accountability

   Leaders often over-delegate the responsibility of advancing equity to a head of DEI or community health, but that single person can't be expected to improve equity for an entire organization. Other times, health equity is relegated to side-of-desk passion projects. But often there’s no “back-up plan” for when the key individuals running these initiatives become too busy or leave the organization, causing these projects to lose steam or fall apart before they can make an impact.

   The entire organization should feel personally accountable for making progress, meaning health equity must be embedded in all parts of the strategy. Goals must have measurable outcomes (top-down approach) and programmatic, achievable goals, like launching identity-specific employee resource groups (ERGs) (bottom-up approach). Health equity metrics should be tied to performance goals and compensation, and leaders should be held accountable for advancing DEI within own teams.

2. Conducting equity impact assessments for current and planned initiatives and educate staff on bias

   An equity impact assessment (EIA) is a tool that can help staff determine if projects will further progress on patient outcome inequities. Organizations can use this tool to proactively mitigate negative impacts and maximize positive impacts. The goal is to reduce existing disparities, prevent further inequities, and enable more equitable solutions. EIAs can help you identify where you are best positioned to help providers, and where they can help you.

   It's also important to supplement the EIA work with bias education. Inequity can manifest in different ways, such as implicit bias. Educating staff on how bias manifests in healthcare can help them address and avoid perpetuating these biases.

3. Prioritizing partnerships with community-based and rural systems and FQHCs

   Community hospitals and small and rural-based systems and Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) likely need more help advancing health equity than large integrated delivery networks and academic medical centers, which often have access to more resources. Collecting real-world evidence and data from these smaller providers will enable you to better iterate on products, creating something that will work better for more patients. The patient stories garnered from these partnerships can help build the business case and gain buy-in for further health equity investment.

   But in order to have successful partnerships, you must work with organizations who have the same vision of what long-term success looks like. Ideally, that vision is backed up by similar incentives and business models. Partners must be willing to work towards evolving their business models to align on shared equity goals that are specific, measurable, and actionable.

Advancing health equity requires committing to transparency about wins and losses. This is difficult work, but it's necessary to ensure accountability. Transparency builds trust and comradery between stakeholders, but beyond that, it allows us to better see and fix the real problems hindering health equity.