Cooper recently shared its diversity statement to highlight our commitment to encouraging an environment in which all team members feel valued, respected, and included. The patients and communities we serve come from various backgrounds, and it is important to ensure our team members are aware of a variety of available resources to address their needs in an equitable manner. Cooper has been on a journey to cultivate a system for health equity; please see below for the strategies and tools available to meet our patients’ needs.
Social determinants of health (SDOH) are the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wide set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life. Research indicates that factors, or barriers, can impact up to 80% to 90% of a person’ modifiable health outcomes. Two strategies we use to address social determinants are as follows:
- Assessing patients for social and community barriers in addition to their medical needs. Within Epic, there is a social determinant assessment tool that identifies a patient’s risk level and can be administered at the point of contact. The assessment results can be found within the storyboard section of the patient chart and evaluates patient risk for food, housing, transportation, and more.
- Connecting patients to free and low-cost resources within the communities we serve through Cooper Unite. This is Cooper’s tool for searching, identifying, and connecting to community-based services. Patients or community members can access the site at cooperunite.org, and team members can log in through single sign-on at Cooperstaff.findhelp.com. Within the site, you can search by zip code for a variety of resources to address social resource needs, connect with organizations, and refer patients.
Dashboards are also being developed to look at the social determinant impact to our patient population and can be analyzed by race, ethnicity, and gender.
Cooper Learning Network modules address cultural competence in health care. It is important to foster a culture of competence that is inclusive of all patient populations and takes race, ethnicity, and gender preferences into account.
A Community Health Needs Assessment is completed every three years to identify, assess, and impact the health-related needs of the communities we serve. It incorporates a robust set of patient-level statistics, regional and national data sets, and includes the voice of our community to better understand the issues they are facing. The report and impact plan can be found on the Cooper website: Community Health Needs Assessment | Cooper University Health Care (cooperhealth.org).