RSNA Webinar Examines Strategies for Advancing Value-Based Health Care

In the webinar, Radiology Strategies to Advance Value-Based Health Care, expert radiologists examined factors perpetuating disparities, discussed ways to ensure equitable resource distribution across patient populations and presented potential solutions—including the use of AI—to decrease disparities in health care outcomes.

Opening the webinar with a look at racism as an underlying cause for existing health care disparities, Jinel Scott, MD, MBA, associate professor of clinical radiology in the Department of Radiology at State University of New York Downstate Health Sciences University, and chief quality officer at New York Health and Hospitals/Kings County, in New York City, said, “A lot of people sort of internalize and get very defensive when we talk about some of these things, but the point is that it persists and exists even though you, yourself, may not be racially prejudiced.”

Dr. Scott is an at-large director on the RSNA Board of Directors and serves as RSNA’s representative to the Radiology Health Equity Coalition. She explored patient, provider and systemic factors that perpetuate health care disparities and stressed the importance of engaging with the community to provide education and access to care.

“Most of us got into this field to help people; we have to meet people where they are,” Dr. Scott said.

Shifting the Focus from Spending Control to Increased Access

Value-based health care is designed to improve health outcomes among all patient populations without increasing costs. However, substantial barriers prevent marginalized populations from accessing available care.

Critical barriers to access include transportation, language, costs and trust—or lack thereof—in the health system, according to Yoshimi Anzai, MD, MPH, professor of radiology and director of value and safety for integrated enterprise radiology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. At the university, Dr. Anzai serves as co-director of Women in Health, Medicine & Science and on the Gender-Based Violence Consortium.

Dr. Anzai offered data from several studies demonstrating the importance of the ethnic and racial profile alignment between a care team and the patient population it serves. This proportionate representation helps facilitate trust which, she said, is a very important contributor to care outcomes.

Health care spending in the U.S. rose to $4 trillion in 2020, according to Dr. Anzai, who noted that health care cost increases, combined with increased out-of-pocket expenses for patients, have led to care avoidance and delay particularly in women, younger people and lower-income families.

“Are we going to continue to provide the latest and greatest of advanced care only to those patients who can afford it and not to the rest of the people who need access?” she asked.