Inside Health Care #116: Fighting Structural Racism and Promoting Virtual Care

Quality Matters: A Podcast by NCQA

In this episode of “Inside Health Care,” we meet two guests, in two interviews. Our first guest advocates for birth, racial and gender equity, driven by her own distressing experiences as a patient. Our second guest developed effective ways to implement virtual care on a large scale to improve equity and representation for rural communities.

Sinsi Hernández-Cancio, JD, is a vice president at the National Partnership for Women & Families, where she leads the Health Justice team. Born in Puerto Rico, Sinsi is a national health and health care equity policy and advocacy thought leader dedicated to advancing equal opportunities for women and families of color. The Partnership worked with health care experts and partner organizations to develop a report that includes recommendations for improvement in resolving gaps in health equity that executive leaders can tailor to their organizations.

Debbie Welle-Powell, MPA, is CEO of DWP Advisors and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Colorado Executive MBA. But Debbie is best and widely known in the health care world as the former Chief Population Health Officer at Essentia Health. Headquartered in Duluth, Essentia is an integrated delivery system of 14 hospitals and 1,500 providers spanning the states of Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin. Debbie designed, built and operationalized Essentia’s $2.5 billion transition from a primarily fee-for-service model of care to one that focuses on value.

Later in our “Fast Facts” segment, we observe Breast Cancer Awareness month for October 2023. We discuss the CDC’s guidance on how to help people with cancer "Stay Mentally and Emotionally Healthy.” We also discuss NCQA’s Breast Cancer Screening HEDIS measure, which assesses women 50–74 years of age who had at least one mammogram to screen for breast cancer in the past 2 years.