SHARP MARY BIRCH HOSPITAL FOR WOMEN AND NEWBORNS

1. Top 10 Disparities

2. Equity Plan

Sharp Mary Birch Hospital is actively working to advance health equity through strategic initiatives. The hospital collaborates with Sharp Healthcare on both entity-specific and system-wide efforts. These initiatives focus on identifying priority populations experiencing health disparities, setting health equity goals, developing action plans to achieve these goals, and engaging key stakeholders across the organization. This comprehensive approach aims to address and reduce health disparities especially as it relates.
Any efforts designed to be impactful must first be driven by high quality data. For many years, we encountered the challenge of missing or incomplete race and ethnicity data, particularly on our Birth Certificates (a significant data source for CMDC). Many of our patients of color were initially hesitant to disclose their race and ethnicity information. While the reasons for this reluctance are understandable, we recognized the importance of encouraging the reporting of such data to effectively track potential health disparities. To address this, early in 2024 our clerks were provided with scripting adapted from CMDC's data collection guidelines, and we made a concerted effort to enhance our data collection processes. As a result, our completion rates have significantly improved from approximately 70% in early 2024 to an impressive 92% by the end of 2024.
All our top disparity data are related to readmissions. Readmissions within 30 days of hospital discharge are reviewed each month including stratification by race
and ethnicity. Indication for readmission is reviewed in addition to whether appropriate discharge education and care coordination was received during index admission. Patient education materials regarding when to contact the physician or hospital after discharge have been developed in multiple languages to ensure patient education in an understandable format. An emphasis on hypertensive disorders in pregnancy, which accounts for a significant proportion of readmissions, particularly for our patients of color, has been the focus of improved educational materials and nursing/physician education projects such as grand rounds on the topic of hypertension disorders and readmissions. Following the grand grounds presentation, our Chief Medical Officer began creating an order set intended to treat women with hypertensive disorders in the immediate post-partum period in the hopes of preventing readmissions for hypertensive medication management admissions (which account for approximately half of our readmissions). This order set will be presented at our peer supervisory committees and is intended to be adopted by the end of 2025. Complications like hemorrhage, hypertension, coagulopathy, and other maternal morbidities are significant risk factors for readmission. Review of readmissions by payor and age has been added to the review process to seek opportunities to improve disparities identified in the data listed above. The report shows increased readmissions for Medicare and Medicaid payor status as compared to "Private" insurance. This is an opportunity to identify and remediate any disparities identified in patient care and treatment. Comparison of readmissions for older patients as compared to patients age 18-34 (reference group) provides evidence of increased readmissions among patient age 65+ (Rate ratio 2.1) as well as patients age 50-64 (Rate ratio 1.4). Additional review of older patients will be conducted to identify opportunities for improvement.

3. Structural Measures

4. Web Address for Equity Report

https://www.sharp.com/about/quality

5. Download Equity Measures Report

Click on the link below to download the equity measures report.

6. Looking for Related Reports?

• Hospital Supplier Diversity Plan
• Hospital Fair Billing Policies
• Hospital Profile