INDIANAPOLIS and ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 13, 2013 /PRNewswire/ –

News Highlights:

• Lilly Diabetes donates $90,000 to the @AmDiabetesAssn 2013 #camp scholarship fund; six donations totaling $442,000 made since ’08
• Lilly Diabetes reaches 6th year of supporting @AmDiabetesAssn #camp scholarship fund with $90,000 donation, sends 90 kids to camp in 2013
• For a second time in two months, Lilly Diabetes donates funds to support scholarship programs for young people with #T1 #diabetes

Today Lilly Diabetes recognized six years of supporting the American Diabetes Association’s (Association) camp scholarship fund by donating 90 scholarships—one for each year Lilly Diabetes has supported the needs of those living with the disease, beginning in 1923 when Lilly introduced the world’s first commercial insulin.

Diabetes summer camps allow children with diabetes to take part in traditional camp activities with staff and medical professionals who are experts in type 1 diabetes.

For many children, camp is the first time they meet someone with whom they share a common bond: living with type 1 diabetes. Making that connection at camp can help set the stage for not only a fun-filled summer experience, but also a more positive outlook on a future with diabetes—an attitude that’s critical for a lifetime of good diabetes self-management. That is why Lilly Diabetes has continued to help children attend diabetes summer camps through its partnership with the Association, and, since 2008, has donated more than $440,000 in scholarships to help children from families in need experience that same summer rite of passage as their peers.

“This year would not have been possible financially without the generous support from your organization,” said Leetta, mother of a 13-year-old girl who received a camp scholarship from the Association. “Everyone I saw at camp was so excited to be there, and after we left my daughter shared story after story on our 8-hour ride home. We are very blessed to have been part of something so amazing.”

Today there are approximately 130 camps that operate nationwide. The American Diabetes Association is the single largest operator of U.S. camps for children with diabetes, with 41 camps offering 50 sessions in 25 states each summer. In the last decade, Lilly Diabetes has donated more than $20 million in insulin and other diabetes medicines, educational materials, volunteers, scholarships, and special guests. This makes Lilly Diabetes one of the largest supporters of diabetes camps in the country.

“There are so many children who build their self-esteem, establish life-long friendships and gain independence while spending time at diabetes summer camps,” said Dr. John E. Anderson , president, Medicine & Science, American Diabetes Association. “Lilly Diabetes has, for many years, continued to be an engaged and supportive partner in caring for these young individuals and their futures through its support of our scholarships and camping program.”

This year’s $90,000 donation to support Association camp scholarships will give 90 children with diabetes the opportunity to attend summer camp for approximately one week. Scholarships are awarded based on financial need.

“Our mission is to provide personalized resources that help support and care for people with diabetes. There couldn’t be a better, more empowering experience for a young child with type 1 diabetes than to attend a diabetes summer camp,” said Steve Sugino , vice president, Lilly Diabetes. “We are proud to be able to send these children to summer camp, as well as those who will follow them—children who might not otherwise have the opportunity for this kind of life-changing experience.”

In addition to ongoing scholarship donations since 2008, Lilly Diabetes’ support of camps stretches back more than 10 years and includes product donations and a broad range of programs that help bring the camp experience to life for each child. Lilly Diabetes offers camp visits by Olympic cross-country skier Kris Freeman , diabetes educational kits for campers contained in sturdy L.L. Bean ^® bookpacks, and caregiver educational materials as well as employee volunteers for camps that need an extra hand.

In the last two months alone, Lilly Diabetes has donated nearly $200,000 to support scholarship programs for young people with diabetes, having recently donated $100,000 to the Diabetes Scholars Foundation to help young adults with type 1 diabetes attend college.

For more information on the Association’s diabetes camps and how to apply for a scholarship, visit www.diabetes.org/camp. Additional information about Lilly Diabetes’ support of diabetes summer camps can be found at www.lillydiabetes.com.

About the American Diabetes Association
The American Diabetes Association is leading the fight to Stop Diabetes^® and its deadly consequences and fighting for those affected by diabetes. The Association funds research to prevent, cure, and manage diabetes; delivers services to hundreds of communities; provides objective and credible information; and gives voice to those denied their rights because of diabetes. Founded in 1940, our mission is to prevent and cure diabetes and to improve the lives of all people affected by diabetes. For more information, please call the American Diabetes Association at 1-800-DIABETES (1-800-342-2383) or visit www.diabetes.org. Information from both these sources is available in English and Spanish.

About Lilly Diabetes
Lilly has been a global leader in diabetes care since 1923, when we introduced the world’s first commercial insulin. Today we work to meet the diverse needs of people with diabetes through research and collaboration, a broad and growing product portfolio and a continued commitment to providing real solutions—from medicines to support programs and more—to make lives better. For more information, visit www.lillydiabetes.com.

About Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY)
Lilly, a leading innovation-driven corporation, is developing a growing portfolio of pharmaceutical products by applying the latest research from its own worldwide laboratories and from collaborations with eminent scientific organizations. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Ind., Lilly provides answers—through medicines and information—for some of the world’s most urgent medical needs. Information about Lilly is available at www.lilly.com.

LD82572   02/2013  ©Lilly USA, LLC 2013. All rights reserved.

P-LLY

For information, visit www.lillydiabetes.com or www.diabetes.org

The post Lilly Diabetes celebrates six years of scholarship support for American Diabetes Association diabetes summer camps by sending 90 children to camp in 2013 appeared first on DiversityInc.

A study from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) shows that while white women have a higher incidence of breast cancer, Black women have a 41 percent higher mortality rate—perhaps because more Black women are diagnosed with regional- or distant-stage cancer (45 percent versus 35 percent). Out of every 100 breast-cancer diagnoses, Black women have nine more deaths (27 versus 18).

The report, Vital Signs: Racial Disparities in Breast Cancer Severity, finds that the issue goes beyond genetics: Equity in healthcare access and the quality of that care are major contributors to breast-cancer prognoses.

“Breast-cancer death rates have been declining among U.S. women since 1990 because of early detection and advances in treatment; however, all racial groups have not benefited equally,” reads the report. “Black women experience inequities in breast-cancer screening, follow-up, and treatment after diagnosis, leading to greater mortality.”

Findings include:

• Only 62 percent of Black women start treatment within 30 days, compared with 82 percent of white women.
• Black women’s diagnosis-to-mammogram intervals are longer than white women, even when both individuals have the same insurance—20 percent of Black women had an interval of 60 days or more compared with 12 percent of white women.
• One study showed that equitable treatment could eliminate up to 19 percent of the mortality difference between Black and white women.

Eliminating Racial Disparities in Healthcare

“It’s a complex problem, but there are clearly avoidable components of this that we can address and resolve—the issues related to healthcare quality,” Dr. Marcus Plescia, Director of the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control at the CDC and one of the report’s authors, told The New York Times. “It’s time to step forward and say that this disparity is unacceptable.”

University Hospitals CEO Thomas Zenty recently discussed the impact of diversity management and new healthcare reform laws with DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti, noting the growing need for hospitals and other providers to take a proactive approach to eliminating racial gaps in healthcare coverage. University Hospitals, based in Cleveland, is one of DiversityInc’s Top 5 Hospital Systems.

“Many studies have shown that there is a direct correlation between people of diverse backgrounds being willing to seek care and knowing that people who look like them will actually be providing that care. So the intersection between diversity and disparities is rather significant,” explains Zenty in the video below. “We want to make certain that we’re doing everything that we can to make sure that people of color will be able to work in our organization, hold positions of leadership—caregivers, clinicians and support staff.” Read this Q&A with University Hospitals CEO Thomas Zenty for more.

Eli Lilly and Company Chairman, President and CEO John Lechleiter, who also was interviewed, agrees. He notes that disparities in healthcare have become a global issue—and it’s up to industry corporations and care providers to take the lead in eliminating healthcare disparities.

“The importance of diversity as an underpinning of our business success today and for the future has become more clear to me and more evident,” he says. “Our business is shifting in terms of serving different populations and different segments of different populations, both here in the U.S. and in emerging markets. It’s brought me and the whole company a greater awareness of how different we are with respect to the way in which medicine is practiced, the way in which treatment is sought, the way in which people understand disease and approach therapy.” Read this Q&A with Eli Lilly CEO John Lechleiter for more. Eli Lilly and Company is No. 29 in the DiversityInc Top 50.

But how can hospitals deliver higher quality care, reduce readmissions and earn maximum HCAHPS reimbursements? What impact can diversity have on clinical trials and retail pharmacies? Get answers to these questions and more at our upcoming diversity event Culturally Competent Care: How Diversity Creates Better Patient Outcomes.

Also, read these articles for more on diversity in healthcare:

What Disease Hits Black Men Most?

Ask the White Guy: The Business Case for Diversity in Healthcare

Improving Healthcare for 68,000 Black & Latino Children

The post Black Women Have 41% Higher Risk of Dying of Breast Cancer appeared first on DiversityInc.

Lechleiter accepted Lilly’s award as DiversityInc’s Top Company for Working Families at our October event in New York City. Go to www.DiversityInc.com/2012specialawards for the full video. Also view our digital edition to read this article and other CEO Interviews.

Luke Visconti: You’ve publicly stated the importance of diversity to Lilly’s mission and to its business goals. How did you come to this realization and why has it become an increasing focus of your tenure as CEO?

John Lechleiter: I’ve been CEO just over four years. The importance of diversity as an underpinning of our business success today and for the future has become more clear to me and more evident. There are a number of reasons why diversity has sprung to life as an important business issue and been magnified in my mind during this time. One is the opportunity I’ve had to travel even more around the world to meet so many willing people and so many of our customers who reflect different backgrounds and different cultures.

Secondly, it’s the increased diversity of our scientific workforce. As we recruit the very best scientists and physicians from universities and medical schools around the world, we see an increasingly diverse population among the group of individuals who really form the core of our company, based as we are on innovation. And the way that our business is shifting in terms of serving different populations and different segments of different populations than we have in the past, both here in the U.S. and in emerging markets, has brought me, and the whole company, a greater awareness of how different we are with respect to the way in which medicine is practiced, the way in which treatment is sought, the way in which people understand disease and approach therapy.

Visconti: You’re coming off of patent on a couple of things. How are you seeing this subject applied to innovation at your company, considering how important it is for you to develop new products?

Lechleiter: We’re in a very interesting place right now in this industry where the promise of the science and all of this knowledge we’ve accumulated about the human genome and about disease pathways is sitting there in front of us, sort of tempting us, waiting to be exploited. Yet so many of our companies are finding it difficult to really innovate in a way that is affordable, that is timely, that ultimately hits the target.

We believe that among the best approaches is to really enhance the innovations, to make sure that we’re able to effectively integrate the ideas, the energies, the passions of Lilly people around the world—Lilly people who come from all sorts of different backgrounds, who bring their diversity with them to work, who are proud of that, who really make their different perspectives and their different backgrounds work for us in terms of literally making that whole greater than the sum of the parts. We can harness that, really harness that; it gives us a real competitive advantage.

Visconti: Is there a personal reason that diversity is a subject that’s important to you?

Lechleiter: I’ve been here almost 33 years now. I joined Lilly as a scientist, and you could say I came from a nontraditional background in terms of going from that entry-level position as a chemist to becoming CEO. There have certainly been times along the way when diversity and the implications of diversity for the company have been really brought home to me.

About 20 years ago, when I was in my first executive management job, I had lunch with a group of gay and lesbian employees who happened to work in the area that I was responsible for. Leaving that lunch, I felt like I really had stepped into someone else’s shoes and recognized just how subtle and how almost imperceptible some of these issues are that magnify themselves and become really big deals for people who are not like most of the people they happen to be working with. I have never forgotten that. It really opened my eyes, and opened my ears as well, to listen better, to try to figuratively, if not literally, put myself in people’s shoes to try to understand their stories and their journey more completely, and then to try to deal with some of the things that represented obstacles for them, that kept them from realizing their potential, that made them feel maybe just a little less significant in the scheme of things because of the ways they might be treated or things that were said, opportunities that didn’t open up for them.

Visconti: You’ve put Shaun Hawkins, a line executive, in the role of chief diversity officer. What led you to this decision and how is it paying off for your business?

Lechleiter: That reflects our view that diversity needs to be owned and led and driven by our people in the line. This is not HR’s job, it’s not strictly the CEO’s role. The message here is that we picked one of our best and brightest to serve as the catalyst. While I’m proud of the progress that we’ve made—we were tremendously proud to join DiversityInc’s Top 50—there’s never been a time when we don’t see the opportunity for more progress to be made. We’re never going to be satisfied.

Visconti: What place do metrics have in diversity management?

Lechleiter: My view is we can’t zero in on any one metric and say that achieving that represents the epitome; it has to be looked at as a composite. I pay particular attention to retention rates. We have proven time and again that Lilly is able to hire many of the best and brightest from schools and companies all over the world.

But that’s just the first step. We want to retain these talented employees that we hire. We want, through that metric, to see a clear indication that this is a place people like to work, where they want to build a career, where they want to raise their families, where they feel valued and where they feel like they can make a contribution. Even at a challenging time for Lilly, those things that we can control, we’re making the kinds of progress that we expect and are pleased to see.

Visconti: You personally are chair of the diversity council. Why take such an active role, and how do you hold your senior executives and council members accountable for results?

Lechleiter: This year, for the first time, I sent very explicit guidance to the 13 people who comprise the executive committee along with me about what I expected them to do in terms of their own leadership for diversity as we enter into this challenging period at Lilly we call Years YZ, where we’re going to lose these patents and we’re going to have some ups and downs in our business. At this time, any of us might be tempted to say, “Let’s not worry too much about diversity; we’ve got these clear business objectives we need to hit, we need to reduce our cost, we need to move our pipeline forward.” And I think that would be exactly the wrong approach to take. This is the time we need to engage people like never before; this is the time when we need to take full advantage of the power, of the intellects we have here and the people we have who are committed to this company, who want to see us move forward.

Our resource groups are absolutely a critical part of the overall fabric of diversity and are responsible for a lot of the progress that we’re making. I try to ensure that the individual executives who have been given executive-leadership or executive-liaison responsibilities with these groups really are engaged with them. I sit down with some regularity with people who comprise those resource groups and I ask about that, and I try to also understand at a first-person level what the Lilly experience is for them, how we can improve, what suggestions or recommendations they would have for me or for any of our executives in terms of how we can be more effective leading diversity.

When I meet with our resource groups—this is typically an hour-long lunch that is almost never over at the one-hour point—I learn an enormous amount. We have a resource group for veterans, a group for people with physical handicaps, a group for our gay and lesbian employees. Every time I sit down with any of these groups I learn a lot, my eyes are opened up. And these are not gripe sessions. These are, ‘Hey, John, did you know this, this is happening over here, we are driving this initiative there, things are getting better,” or, “John, progress is just too slow.”

I met with a group of our Indian employees a few years ago and they said, “When you walk in our lobby you have ‘Welcome to Lilly’ in eight languages, but our language isn’t there.’” Well, gosh, how hard is it to add “Welcome to Lilly” in another language? It was a small thing, but every time these folks walked into work, they were reminded they didn’t see their language up there.

Visconti: What do you see as the greatest value diversity and inclusion bring to Lilly’s ability to create and market pharmaceuticals?

Lechleiter: Our vision is improving outcomes for individual patients. We know that while medicines are necessary, they are seldom sufficient. If you have diabetes and you’re prescribed Lilly insulin, that’s not the end of the story. There’s a whole lot of other things that need to comprise your care for you to meet current treatment standards, in addition to using that insulin. So if we want improved outcomes for individual patients, and our medicines figure prominently in that, we really have to understand the patient journey. We have to understand how Hispanic patients are different from African-American patients, are different from a Caucasian woman who lives in New York City.

Sometimes we can do this at the genetic level—in other words, differentiate a disease based on a genetic factor. Cancer is a good example. Today we’re able to say you don’t just have this type of cancer, you have a subtype of this type of cancer, and we know how to treat that more effectively than we did 10 years ago because we can target therapy. That’s really exciting; that’s the ultimate improved outcomes for individual patients. But in between there’s a whole lot of knowledge we can bring to bear about how communities of people think and live and approach medical care. We’re getting better at that. We have a couple of programs we are running for diabetes, in particular one with African Americans here in the U.S. And we have growing knowledge of how certain disease states are approached and thought about within the Hispanic communities in the U.S.

Imagine what might be possible for us from a business perspective if we can become more relevant to the prescribing physician based on a more detailed understanding of the differences among people who seek care and use our products.

Visconti: What is your vision for Lilly for the immediate future and then longer term?

Lechleiter: Lilly the company needs to be representative of the people we aim to serve. There are still many things that remain to be done to get even closer to our vision of having the company comprised of diverse individuals who as a group are innovative and who ultimately can deliver on this promise of improving outcomes for individual patients.

One of the things that is fundamental is ensuring that we continue to create opportunity for everyone to gain access to quality education. We put a lot of focus in terms of the way our foundation supports K–12 education, on encouraging women and minorities to pursue careers in math and science. We want to see more African-American graduates from schools of engineering; we want to see more women and Hispanics graduating from Ph.D. programs in chemistry and biology. Also, creating opportunities for people to expand their responsibilities within the company, to be promoted, to be able to be in positions of leadership as diverse individuals, is something we monitor, measure and strive for.

Visconti: Lilly is significantly more philanthropic than even the DiversityInc Top 50 companies. You are at about 2.3 percent of gross revenue going to philanthropy; the average for the DiversityInc Top 50 is 1.6 percent and my estimate for the Fortune 500 is 0.5 percent.

Lechleiter: We recognize that the Lilly family who started this company were in their own way visionaries way back when. They had a deep-seated belief that a successful firm should give back to the community and should engage with the community that it is a part of—for us that’s been Indianapolis for 136 years. Giving back is really in our DNA.

There’s been a trend in recent years to engage our employees more in that. A very successful program—we’re now in the second year—is called Connecting Hearts Abroad. We give about 200 employees an opportunity annually to spend two weeks in one of eight or nine locations all around the world, working on the ground in some sort of community-related activity. It could be supporting an orphanage, helping to build a new irrigation system. That’s really brought home to our employees the company’s commitment to social responsibility, but to also creating shared value among the people who ultimately, like any of us, could be patients someday.

The post Eli Lilly CEO John Lechleiter: ‘Engage People Like Never Before’ appeared first on DiversityInc.

Contact:          J. Scott MacGregor, Lilly

jsmacgregor@lilly.com; 317.651.1494

Jackie Koumpouras, Borshoff

jackie.koumpouras@borshoff.biz; 317.631.6400

90 million adults in the U.S. have difficulty understanding health information;
Lilly earns national honor for achievement in health literacy

INDIANAPOLIS – Imagine needing health care but being unable to understand the information you’re given by a doctor. For 90 million people in the U.S., it’s a reality with a long-lasting impact on health and finances.

Health literacy – defined as the ability to read, understand and act on health information – is vital to achieving the best possible health care results for each individual patient. It is being able to read an appointment card, follow a health care provider’s instructions, use medical equipment or understand medication information.

According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy survey, two in five American adults have difficulty processing health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.

Health literacy varies by context and setting and is not necessarily related to education level or reading ability. It highlights the struggle of understanding and acting on health information. The American Medical Association reports that the most commonly affected patients – low income, elderly, people with limited education, ethnic minorities, recent immigrants and individuals for whom English is a second language – have more medication errors, excess hospitalizations and a generally higher level of illness.

Those with poor health literacy also are more likely to have a chronic disease and less likely to get the health care they need, according to the National Adult Literacy Survey. The study showed that 75 percent of Americans who reported having a long-term illness had limited health literacy and knew less about their conditions or how to handle symptoms. The need for awareness and adherence to health literacy principles has become a public health concern, estimated to cost the U.S. economy in the range of $106 billion to $238 billion annually.

“The widespread but often unrecognized public health challenge of health literacy serves as both a warning and a call to action,” said Jack Harris, M.D., vice president of Eli Lilly and Company’s U.S. medical division. “Overcoming health disparities is a transformational and important journey. At Lilly we are working to develop communication and health education that connects with patients in a way that’s meaningful and understandable.”

Lilly has partnered with nationally recognized health literacy experts to implement new standards to ensure the company’s patient communications and resources adhere to health literacy principles. Lilly’s health education efforts recently received national recognition from the Institute for Healthcare Advancement (IHA), which awarded Lilly the Published Materials Award for outstanding achievements in health literacy for two bi-lingual educational pieces. The educational materials Eating to Feel Your Best and Being Active to Feel Your Best and their Spanish counterparts, Comer para sentirse lo mejor posible and Estar activo para sentirse lo mejor possible, address the importance of making healthy food choices at every meal and staying active. Using colorful pictures, clear and concise information, simple illustrations, quick tips and space for personalized notes, readers are inspired, directed and motivated to take action to feel their best. Both pieces are available in English and Spanish on the Lilly for Better Health™ website – www.lillyforbetterhealth.com.

“We were delighted to present Lilly USA with our 2012 IHA Health Literacy Award in the Published Materials category for their ‘Feel Your Best’ patient education brochure series,” said Gloria Mayer, RN, Ed.D, FAAN, president and CEO of the IHA. “These materials follow all the tenets of design for a low literate audience, and provide users with an easy-to-use resource to get and keep healthy.”

About the Institute for Healthcare Advancement

IHA is dedicated to empowering people to better health. It is nationally recognized for its efforts in health literacy and provides health care information through its various publishing efforts, the Internet, and its renowned local and national education programs.

About Eli Lilly and Company

Lilly, a leading innovation-driven corporation, is developing a growing portfolio of pharmaceutical products by applying the latest research from its own worldwide laboratories and from collaborations with eminent scientific organizations. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Ind., Lilly provides answers – through medicines and information – for some of the world’s most urgent medical needs. Additional information about Lilly is available at www.lilly.com.

###

The post RELEASE: Lilly earns national honor for achievement in health literacy. Eli Lilly and Company; Borshoff appeared first on DiversityInc.

Those organizations are most ready for the influx of an estimated 32 million new consumers, most of them lower-income Blacks and Latinos, and the need to care for them on a sustainable basis emphasizing wellness as opposed to constant crisis management. The critical factor in their business strategies, they tell us, is the ability to offer culturally competent healthcare and connect on a large scale to the communities they serve while being more cost effective.

“Our assessment is that the Supreme Court decision on health reform will accelerate existing trends in healthcare and the marketplace,” says Dr. Patricia Simmons, executive medical director for Health Policy at the Mayo Clinic. Those trends include consolidation of facilities, new organizations that combine hospitals and insurance companies, increased accountability for metrics-driven results, and a strong focus on community outreach.

Successful implementation of diversity-management initiatives is giving organizations such as Kaiser Permanente, Eli Lilly and Company, WellPoint, Mayo Clinic, University Hospitals, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Health Care Service Corporation, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, Massachusetts General, Cleveland Clinic and the Henry Ford Health System a competitive edge in the new world of expanding affordable healthcare.

“Healthcare reform challenges diversity and inclusion to keep and expand our place at the table,” says Linda Jimenez, chief diversity officer at WellPoint.

Diversity Management Connects to Community

In interviews with DiversityInc, these 11 organizations tell a similar story, with minor variations depending on their business model. All have been long-time diversity leaders, appearing either on The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list or The DiversityInc Top 5 Hospital Systems list (and one company is on The DiversityInc Top 10 Regional Companies list). All anticipate (and are already seeing) an influx of new patients/customers, mostly from lower-income families, predominantly Latino and Black.

They stress the need to offer culturally competent healthcare and to emphasize wellness prevention and disease management instead of frequent, costly trips to emergency rooms and urgent-care sessions. All are looking at ways to serve far more people, operating more efficiently and streamlining costs. Several of the hospital systems are worried that Medicare funding might not cover their increasing treatment costs.

The resounding sentiment from leaders in these organizations is that their long-term commitments to culturally competent care through diversity-management initiatives have left them in a better strategic position to improve market share. They point to the importance of resource groups in reaching the community and promoting health education. They cite diversity training for customer-facing employees and the need for an employee and leadership base that represents the communities they serve.

Here is an industry-by-industry look at their changing business models and how critical diversity management is to their sustainable success. 

The Affordable Care Act emphasizes preventive care, to save costs by helping more low-income Americans take care of themselves before expensive and life-threatening diseases such as diabetes, cancer, AIDS and high blood pressure develop and to minimize the damage of these diseases in those who already have them. The law specifically calls for investments in community health teams, community health centers and expanded initiatives to increase racial and ethnic diversity in healthcare teams.

Cost Containment: Hospitals

The dilemma for hospitals is how to provide more access while lowering costs at the same time.  “It really requires a lot of innovation to reduce costs, and no one’s figured out how to do it,” says Jeff Davis, senior vice president of Human Resources at Massachusetts General, No. 5 in The DiversityInc Top 5 Hospital Systems.

“It’s clear that the new normal in healthcare will involve getting paid less to do more,” says Oliver Henkel, chief external affairs officer at the Cleveland Clinic, No. 3 in The DiversityInc Top 5 Hospital Systems. “There will be more patients with access to healthcare, but private and government insurers will pay hospitals and doctors less and less to care for patients. Therefore, we have to drive efficiencies and cost containment to be able to accommodate the increased demand for healthcare.”

There are healthcare models in place, however, that offer best practices in increasing the prevalence of care to underserved communities without adding employees.

Kaiser Permanente, which has both hospitals and health insurance, has made eliminating healthcare disparities through community outreach a key part of its mission for decades.

“Many in the industry are trying to move toward an accountable care model and there will be more people in the marketplace trying to compete on that basis (alliances between insurance, hospitals and physicians). We’ve been in that business for over 60 years,” says Christine Paige, senior vice president of Marketing and Internet Services at Kaiser Permanente (No. 3 in the DiversityInc Top 50).

The difference now is in volume and the impact of having a substantial number of people entering the market in a short period of time, she says. To that end, Kaiser has been expanding its system capabilities through more bilingual employees, increased communications and more personalized experiences for patient populations through more detailed electronic health records. Kaiser Permanente shared its bilingual program at DiversityInc’s Innovation Fest!

University Hospitals, located in the greater Cleveland area, is moving toward an accountable care organization (ACO) to address the changing marketplace. ACOs rely on metrics and cost-care reductions for assigned groups of patients by making hospitals and doctors directly accountable to the patients and the insurance companies for the quality and efficiency of the healthcare delivery. ACOs were piloted with Medicare patients and now, under the Affordable Care Act, will be used for Medicaid patients as well.

“We are facing a doctor shortage in Ohio,” says Dr. Eric Bieber, chief medical officer for University Hospitals, No. 2 in The DiversityInc Top 5 Hospital Systems. “We can handle it but we need to be efficient and do what’s right for the patient. We now have an integrated delivery system that helps us touch more patients with our primary-care physicians—and not in the emergency rooms.”

At the Mayo Clinic, the hospital is working on creative reimbursement models for insurance companies to “control costs and increase value and make care more affordable,” says Dr. Simmons. Mayo Clinic is also working on improving relationships with other hospitals and medical institutions to provide better access. For example, an affiliate-practice network from various medical institutions sends physicians to treat patients at local affiliates and helps patients stay in their communities. Mayo Clinic is No. 4 in The DiversityInc Top 5 Hospital Systems.

The Henry Ford Health System in Detroit last year bought a Medicaid health-maintenance organization (HMO) so it can offer Medicaid patients comprehensive care. “Hospitals need to better provide care. It’s really about how we can survive financially when more people have insurance,” says CEO Nancy Schlichting. But she worries that the act, as it stands now, isn’t giving hospitals enough funding for the addition. “The population is the same; it’s just how we pay for them. We’re advocating very hard for the expansion of Medicaid funding.”

Henry Ford, she says, now receives more than $200 million a year in uncompensated healthcare, but under the act as it stands now, that amount is cut to $30 million. “It’s really how we can survive financially,” she says. “When people have insurance, as they now will, they won’t wait to go to the doctors. We don’t need to change our operations, just our payment system.” Henry Ford Health System is No. 1 in The DiversityInc Top 5 Hospital Systems.

At Massachusetts General, the situation is a little different because the state has had universal healthcare in effect since 2006 and 97 percent of state residents already have health insurance, according to Davis.

“We adjusted to meet access demands but are still trying to increase the number of primary-care physicians, nurses and physicians’ assistants. Nationally, the first few years of the law will be all about access. It will require a lot of innovation to reduce costs,” he says. He believes the increase in ACOs will allow more people community access.

Cost Containment: Insurance Companies

For the health-insurance companies, the Affordable Care Act literally turns the landscape upside down. In addition to providing insurance for millions of low-income Americans, they can no longer deny care to those with pre-existing, and often expensive, conditions.

For these organizations, the urgent business shift is in focusing on consumers rather than business sales. And cost-savings are critical. “Right now we know that we have to do a lot of work to be a viable player in the consumer market,” says Jon Urbanek, senior vice president, Sales and Marketing for Employer Markets, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida (BCBSF), No. 6 in The DiversityInc Top 10 Regional Companies. “Our focus is on significantly improving our consumer capabilities. At the same time, we’re the leader in the group market and we’ve got to maintain a significant presence there.”

BCBSF has addressed this in the long term by investing in retail centers throughout Florida that will put 90 percent of the population within 30 minutes’ drive of a center. In addition to selling health insurance at the centers, there will be free wellness and screening facilities as well as culturally competent health coaching. The organization also is putting much more health information online, as well as having bilingual call centers. “The information has always been out there, but it’s been in 10 different places in language you can’t understand, and there’s nothing like the ability to see it simply and in one place,” says Urbanek.

Like the hospitals, the insurance companies are often combining efforts to be more efficient. WellPoint, Health Care Service Corporation and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan (all part of the Blue Cross Blue Shield network) now have a joint effort to create a private exchange with a defined contribution approach to give employers information on managing their healthcare offerings.

These efficiencies enable them to focus more on healthcare disparities, says Carolyn Clift, chief diversity officer at Health Care Service Corporation (No. 19 in the DiversityInc Top 50). “We can offer the providers training. We can help them help us determine if they have a language capability they have not included before in a directory … these plans were in place before the Affordable Care Act started to take fold. As a result of the ACA, we’re moving more steadily to implementing more of these programs and projects so we can reach the broad diverse audience.”

Kirk Roy, vice president of National Health Reform at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (one of DiversityInc’s 25 Noteworthy Companies), notes that the act has direct regulations requiring insurers to communicate in a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner. To meet this requirement, the organization partnered with a translation service and now can communicate in more than 100 languages.

Innovation: Pharmas 

For pharmaceutical companies, the challenge to stay competitive is in new drugs that reach the increasingly diverse population. And that requires innovation, which all of the drug firms say requires diversity of thought, experience and background.

“The firms that are already there understand the benefit of a holistic diversity-management approach that makes them better run, have better leadership, have better creativity, better innovation, better productivity and better bottom-line impact,” says Shaun Hawkins, chief diversity officer of Eli Lilly and Company (No. 29 in the DiversityInc Top 50).

While drug manufacturers were relatively untouched by the Affordable Care Act’s specific regulations, they will be strongly affected by expanding rebates for Medicare and Medicaid that will enable more patients to have access to more drugs. That will create a rise in sales volume and patient demand, especially for the influx of new people who are insured.

Because health-insurance companies are looking to cut costs, pharmaceutical companies also will have to demonstrate more cost/benefit of their products. For a company like Eli Lilly, which has had a strong focus on clinical trials aimed at Blacks and Latinos, the emphasis is on developing drugs that effectively prevent and treat the diseases so prevalent in these populations: diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure.

“We are an innovation-based company in an innovation-based industry, focused on breakthroughs for the next round of diseases and how they impact race, ethnicity, gender and age,” Hawkins says.

Solutions: Diversity-Management Resources

For the hospitals, resource groups are an increasingly valuable means of connecting to the increasingly multicultural patient base. A critical part of that is the role they play in community education.

At University Hospitals, for example, the resource groups are working with Black and Latino community leaders to conduct prevention screenings and health-education screenings. They recently partnered with corporate and other Cleveland-area healthcare organizations to support a cultural arts fair called Fairfax, primarily aimed at Blacks. The resource groups helped the hospital bring in a team of nurses and health professionals to conduct screenings and encourage them to interact with primary-care physicians.

“Trust is often an issue in the community. The resource-group employees often live in those communities as well,” says Donnie Perkins, chief diversity officer at University Hospitals.

Increasing the level of cultural-competence training is a high priority for the hospitals as well. While Kaiser Permanente has been a leader in this area for years, other hospitals increasingly recognize the importance of this to the new marketplace.

“We are training clinicians to understand what health means and that preferences vary by culture,” says Dr. Sharonne Hayes, director, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Mayo Clinic. “The idea is that we are treating diverse populations and each individual in them. The tendency is to treat populations as market segments – we are customizing care to the culture and then further to the individual.”

Cultural-competence training is key for healthcare providers, notes Clift. “We have already required all of our internal clinicians to complete cultural-competency courses. Training is around attitudes and how patients actually may have trust issues with providers,” she says.

Jimenez has a good example from WellPoint: Its Latino resource group, SOMOS, has been encouraging healthcare providers to emphasize family care as opposed to individual care. Latino parents, she says, will go out of their way to provide preventive care for their children but are far less inclined to do it for themselves. WellPoint is No. 34 in the DiversityInc Top 50.

The Affordable Care Act also requires hospitals to increase the racial and ethnic diversity of doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals.  Hawkins notes that having a workforce representative of the new marketplace is a big plus for Lilly as it expands its clinical trials. “The patient population we serve is more likely to connect with customers from a sales standpoint,” says Hawkins.

Deep relationships with community organizations developed by companies that are diversity leaders is paying off in efforts to promote wellness and connect with the expanded patient base. Lilly has worked with organizations such as the National Council of La Raza and the Urban League on wellness programs in areas such as depression.

The end result for these companies is the diversity-management strategies that they have put in place are helping them negotiate this brave new world of healthcare accountability and expanded patient populations. Diversity management is critical to their very survival, they all say.

“Everyone is realizing how important diversity and inclusion is in the course of business,” says Health Care Service Corporation’s Clift.

–Barbara Frankel, with Robyn Heller Gerbush and Stacy Straczynski

The post Hospitals, Insurance Companies, Pharmas: Who Benefits From the Affordable Care Act? appeared first on DiversityInc.