Kenzie Schumaker attended one of the 2021 MN HIMSS & Minnesota e-Health Initiative Virtual Series on September 28th. Session two: “Can HIT help improve health equity? Does technology equalize or further exacerbate systemic racism?”, was led by Umair Shah M.D., M.P.H., Secretary of Health, Washington State Department of Health. Dr. Shah provided past examples and experiences of how he believes HIT can improve health equity. Some of his examples include tracking COVID-19 by ethnicity and race and improved accessibility to vaccination sites.

Panelists Jan Malcolm, Rahshana Price-Isuk, Pleasant Radford Jr., and Jennifer Lundblad joined from their respective organizations to discuss their experience. Everyone agreed the benefits that HIT can provide, but to provide value, we need to build a system with the right tools and data. If HIT is not used correctly, there is the chance of exacerbating systematic racism. As a call to action and to continue in the right direction of health equity, we need to keep telehealth and telemedicine options available and accessible, allow remote patient monitoring, and continue to break down silos within and across organizations.

To learn more about Trexin’s Health Equity Practice Area, please click here.