b'Health Care DisparitiesOur work on improving health equity and eliminating health care disparities in our communities in 2019 included several notable accomplishments. Dr. Alvin Powell was appointed chief health equity officer for the system and we published a community health needs assessment.This report contains input from community members and local partners about the health of those we serve. We identified five priorityAlvin C. Powell, MDareas for work over the next three years:Preventing chronic disease, especially diabetes Preventing addiction and promoting strong mental healthOffering access to high-quality, affordable health care Creating living conditions that nurture health Eliminating bias and discrimination in health careCone Health analyzes its health outcomes by race, ethnicity and language to determine where health disparities exist for our patients and community. In 2018, we discovered two additional health disparitiesone for colorectal cancer screenings among people of minority races and the other for readmissions due to postpartum high blood pressure issues in Black and African-American women.To reduce these the disparities, Cone Health:Formed a Colorectal Cancer Screening Taskforce with ConeHealth Medical Group to support screenings among Asianpatients. The Taskforce partnered with local interpreter agencies to better understand cultural and linguistic barriers, particularly withour patients who speak Vietnamese.Formed a team at Womens Hospital to address readmissions dueto high blood pressure for women who had recently deliveredbabies. Physicians met with a national speaker, Mona Liza Hamlin,who led a discussion about unconscious bias and the role itplays in health care, and one of Cone Healths data scientists,Patrick McCarter, also led a review of the current data.From there,Womens Hospital leaders worked alongside physicians to offera pilot program to address postpartum readmissions for womendue to high blood pressure. The pilot was successful in that noneof the 26 patients receiving the interventions was readmitted. Alarger pilot program is planned for 2020.1920'