Your practice likely sees a variety of patients with health disparities, specific needs, health goals and pain points.
When treating patients, you know every circumstance is unique, meaning you’ll have to adjust certain parts of their patient experience. For patients with certain health disparities, you’ll need to take these adjustments even further to ensure you’re overcoming all the logical obstacles to care that might stand in their way.
This article shares a few ways DCs can account for and acknowledge health disparities in patients while providing quality chiropractic care and assistance.
What are health disparities?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), health disparities are “preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence or opportunities to achieve optimal health that are experienced by socially disadvantaged populations.”
The definitions of health disparities and health equities might not always be clear, as stated in a report published in the National Library of Medicine, but it’s crucial for DCs to have a solid understanding of what disparities are, how they affect patients and what they can do to better serve patients facing these disparities.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, many factors contribute to health disparities. Though it’s impossible to define every health disparity your patients might face, we’ve included a few examples from a book published in the National Library of Medicine to give you an idea of what these disparities might include:
- Mental health
- Burden of disease
- Cognitive or physical disability
- Individuals who identify as LGBTQ+
- Lack of access to care
- Life expectancy and mortality
- Geographic location/access to care
- Healthcare literacy
- Uninsured or underinsured
- Racial and ethnic inequality
- Gender
Four ways to assist your patients with health disparities
1. Evaluate your patient experience process through a new lens
You’ve likely spent time perfecting your patients’ experience with your practice. But have you evaluated what that experience is like for those facing health disparities?
Consider patients who may not have access to healthcare literacy. Have you included educational resources in your practice that can help them advocate for themselves? Do you have educational processes in place to provide necessary healthcare literature that can ensure they make informed decisions?
Putting your patient experience under a microscope with new perspectives, such as those from patients facing health disparities, could give you the insight needed to provide better care for them.
2. Advance health equity through evidence-based clinical knowledge
Take your involvement to the governmental level. Engage with policymakers and advocate for action to help communities impacted by factors that contribute to health disparities.
Support those patients with health disparities by reviewing evidence-based clinical knowledge that supports needs for expanding healthcare coverage and boosting healthcare literacy and access.
3. Advocate for health literacy in impacted communities
Get involved on the local level. Reach out to affected communities nearby with the goal of increasing health and healthcare literacy. Offer educational programming, create support programs and answer questions for these communities.
Explain patient advocacy, share patient best practices and create programs that walk those with health disparities through what positive and negative interactions with healthcare providers look like.
4. Raise awareness among other DCs and healthcare providers
Don’t just take a hands-on approach with potential patients; encourage your community of DCs, practitioners and healthcare providers to get involved, too.
Host seminars and classes explaining the responsibilities associated with minimizing health disparity among patients.
Offer best practices for mitigating health disparities and share your insight on how they can change the way they work with patients who might be facing disparities.
Final thoughts
By thinking about how you could better serve patients affected by health disparities and then taking action in your own practice as well as in the larger healthcare community, you are helping make higher-quality care accessible to all.
For more insights from the chiropractic care world and guidance on how you can better serve your patients (including those with certain health disparities), we recommend subscribing to Chiropractic Economics magazine.
