Today, TruLite Health announced the launch of Truity™, the industry’s first comprehensive health equity platform.

The Humana Foundation, the philanthropic arm of health insurance company Humana, invested $13 million to advance health equity.

Streamlining patient flow would not only improve patient care and reduce costs, but is also focal to achieving health equity, wrote Eugene Litvak, PhD, Mark Smith, MD, and Harvey FiIneberg, MD, PhD, for The Hill Oct. 7.

Here are five health equity studies Becker's has covered since Sept. 16:

Addressing health disparities in the U.S. will require a multi-front approach, including data collection and financial investments, according to an Oct. 4 report from the Healthcare Leadership Council.

One week after the mayor of Atlanta blocked the redevelopment of Wellstar Atlanta Medical Center, a city councilman proposed repurposing it as an equity center, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Oct. 4. 

Healthcare access and data company DexCare has been selected to work on a three-year, $40 million Amazon Web Services health equity initiative.

Chicago health systems are hiring specialists to improve patients' health literacy, a skill in which only 12 percent of Americans are proficient, Chicago Health reported Sept. 29. 

Black COVID-19 patients may have faced 4.5-hour treatment delays due to pulse oximeters' inability to accurately read their blood oxygen levels, according to researchers at Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health. 

The same small group of San Francisco, Calif.-residents — most of them homeless — frequently cycle through the city's hospitals and criminal justice system. The cost is high and the health outcomes are poor, according to a recent study reported Sept. 27 by the San Francisco Chronicle.  

Researchers at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff received a $21 million grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, part of the National Institutes of Health, KNAU reported Sept. 28.

Although Black and Hispanic men are disproportionately hospitalized for COVID-19, white women pay visit COVID recovery centers most often, leading leaders to question where underserved populations are getting post-acute care. 

Robert Kahn, MD, has been promoted to vice president of Cincinnati Children's and will lead its new Michael Fisher Child Health Equity Center. 

Research increasingly suggests physicians can convey bias under "the guise of objective descriptions" found in medical records, Kaiser Health News reported Sept. 26.

Homelessness has been linked to negative health outcomes, but some health systems have trouble reaching these patients and discharging them safely at the care course's conclusion. 

As serious systemic inequities have come into focus in recent years, health equity is top of mind for many of today’s healthcare leaders. This includes providing high reliability care (i.e., patient care that is consistently excellent and safe over long periods across all services and settings), addressing social determinants of health, increasing the diversity of healthcare leadership, and more.

HHS, through its Office of Minority Health, announced more than $3 million in grants Sept. 21 to eight organizations for a new initiative promoting Black youth mental health. 

Here are four health equity investments over $10 million that Becker's has covered since Aug. 30:

New York City-based NYU Langone Health appointed Garfield Clunie, MD, as its inaugural diversity, equity and inclusion vice chair for the department of obstetrics and gynecology Sept. 20, Longview News Journal reported.

Research ties poor social determinants of health and health equity issues to disproportionate rates of dementia in minority populations, according to the National Institute on Aging. Furthermore, Alzheimer's disease and other dementia disproportionately affect older Black and Hispanic Americans compared to older white Americans, according to the Alzheimer's Association.