This timely and thought-provoking book addresses the full range of health equity issues that impact the practice of hospital medicine, offering a fresh and comprehensive examination of the topic. Drawing from vast clinical experience, as well as from the latest evidence-based literature, the well-published hospitalist author encourages readers to reevaluate established practices and embrace that equitable hospital care must be applied with a systematic framework to ensure that social factors are deeply incorporated into the care provided -- so that it is truly equitable. Indeed, health equity is defined by the World Health Organization as "the absence of avoidable, unfair, or remediable differences among groups of people, whether those groups are defined socially, economically, demographically, or geographically, or by other means of stratification." Health equity has not traditionally been incorporated into inpatient care in an intentional manner, says the author;yet, it is impossible to take care of patients who are acutely ill without taking into consideration the social milieu to which they will return. In fact, although hospital-based physicians are privy to some of the most meaningful moments of people's lives, including life-changing diagnoses, pivotal medical procedures, complex medical decisions, and critical end-of-life decisions, they still have no framework for how to incorporate into clinical decision-making the varied social factors that impact care such as race, gender identity, cultural background, immigration status, sexual orientation, primary language, housing status, and poverty. The goal, emphasizes the author, should be to provide culturally humble healthcare that not only goes beyond speaking in the patient's primary language but that also includes active listening and truly takes into consideration the life experiences and culture that have made patients who they are. Organized in three parts, thebook covers 1) the foundations of health equity 2) specific populations and various issues and 3) a framework and action plan for moving hospital medicine closer to offering consistent, systematic, equitable care. Health Equity in Hospital Medicine: Foundations, Populations, and Action is a call to action and an invaluable addition to the clinical literature. The title will be of great interest to hospital medicine physicians, to allied health personnel working in a hospital setting, and to trainees.
Autorentext
Sujatha Sankaran is an Associate Professor of Medicine with the Division of Hospital Medicine. She received her medical degree from the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and subsequently completed her training in Internal Medicine at the Georgetown Universty/Washington Hospital Center program in June 2005. She then worked as an Academic Hospitalist at Columbia University in New York City, where she was actively involved in resident education. Subsequently, Sujatha volunteered in sub Saharan Africa. After returning from Africa, Sujatha switched to primarily providing outpatient medical practice for five years before joining the Division of Hospital Medicine as an Assistant Clinical Professor. During this time, Sujatha started a non-governmental organization aimed at training health workers in the developing world to prevent chronic cardiovascular disease. Her current career interest involves providing high quality and safe care to patients in under-resourced regions, both domestically and globally. In 2015, Sujatha was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study mechanisms for cardiovascular disease.