The American Medical Association assembled a new advisory group of 14 healthcare leaders focused on improving equitable innovation in healthcare and among marginalized communities, the association announced Aug. 12.
The Equity and Innovation Advisory Group will offer guidance to support the AMA's push for equitable innovation, which is part of the organization's three-year strategic plan focused on embedding racial justice and advancing health equity.
The group will guide the AMA's vision for a healthcare innovation sector that embodies two main ideas: prioritization of resources and allocation for meaningful solutions that advance health, racial and social justice; and ensure that race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity of innovators and investors are reflective of the U.S. population.
"The health innovation sector has incredible potential to advance health equity, but most industry models do not incorporate an equity lens – risking automation, scaling, and exacerbation of health, racial, and social inequities," AMA Chief Health Equity Officer Aletha Maybank, MD, said in the news release. "The external Equity and Innovation Advisory Group exists to hold us accountable in meaningful ways to ensure that historically marginalized communities have equitable access to health innovation design, start-up development, and investment opportunities…"
The group's 14 members are:
- Abner Mason: Founder and CEO of ConsejoSano
- Andrey Ostrovsky, MD: Managing partner of Social Innovation Ventures
- Chris Gibbons, MD: Founder and CEO of The Greystone Group
- Courtney D. Cogburn, PhD: Associate professor at Columbia University School of Social Work
- Ivelyse Andino: CEO and founder of Radical Health
- Ivor Braden Horn, MD: Director of health equity and product inclusion at Google
- Katie Drasser: CEO of RockHealth.org
- Lisa Fitzpatrick, MD: Founder and CEO of Grapevine Health
- Michael Penn, MD, PhD: Founding partner of Health Equity Ventures
- Monique Smith, MD: Founding director of Health DesignED at Emory University
- Nathalie Molina Niño: Managing director of Known Holdings
- Sandee Kastrul: President and co-founder of I.C.Stars
- Shantanu Nundy, MD: Primary care physician and technologist at Accolade Health
- Urmimala Sarkar, MD: Professor of medicine at University of California San Francisco