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THE CHRISTIANA CARE WAY
Bruce Siegel, M.D., MPH, discusses social determinants of health at inaugural Robert J. Laskowski, M.D., Lecture
Lecture panelist LeRoi Hicks, M.D., MPH, FACP, the Hugh R. Sharp Jr. Chair of Medicine at Christiana Care; Janice E. Nevin, M.D., MPH, president and CEO of Christiana Care; lecturer Bruce Siegel, M.D., MPH, president and CEO of America’s Essential Hospitals; honoree Robert J. Laskowski, M.D.; panelists Lolita Lopez, FACHE, president and CEO of Westside Family Healthcare, and Bettina Tweardy Riveros, Esq., chief health equity officer at Christiana Care.
Delivering on the promise of The Christiana Care Way means more than providing health care services, said Bruce Siegel, M.D., MPH, president and CEO of America’s Essential Hospitals, during the inaugural Robert
J. Laskowski, M.D., Lecture Sept. 7 at Christiana Hospital.
It’s about being a partner in understand- ing and addressing the social determi- nants of health — access to fresh foods, safe places to live, play and work, secure employment and access to health and wellness services when and where people need them.
For example, childhood obesity is nearly twice as prevalent nationally among children in families with lower income compared to higher-income families, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Obesity is a precursor to Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease and can be an indicator of barriers to good nutrition, access to health care and health education and socioeconomic resources. The costs are life-threatening. Closer to home, wealthier men in Wilmington live on
average a decade longer than poorer men, Dr. Siegel said.
“Your ability to live a long and produc- tive life shouldn’t be determined by the ZIP code you’re born in,” Dr. Siegel said. Addressing these social determinants of health is a health system’s mission — and a moral imperative, he said.
Christiana Care has long been on the path to root out health disparities. As president and CEO of Christiana Care from 2003 to 2014, Dr. Laskowski established The Christiana Care Way as the health system’s value-driven mission statement: “We serve our neighbors as respectful, expert, caring partners in their health. We do this by creating innovative, effective, affordable systems of care that our neighbors value.”
“By bringing innovative leaders like Dr. Siegel to Christiana Care to share their experiences, the Laskowski Lecture carries on its namesake’s dedication to building healthy communities through measurable, value-based care,” said Christiana Care President and CEO Janice E. Nevin, M.D., MPH.
The lectureship was made possible by generous gifts from many contributors, including the Junior Board of Christiana Care, Don and Ann Franceschini and Arkadi Kuhlmann.
“Value at Christiana Care, rooted in Bob’s visionary commitment, means making a measurable difference in the lives of pa- tients and families in ways they appreci- ate and that they and society can afford,” Dr. Nevin said.
Dr. Siegel’s lecture on the social determi- nants of health speaks to how to achieve value, Dr. Laskowski said. Not to recog- nize the human context of health care delivery is to “risk being irrelevant and ineffective,” he said.
The social factors that affect health
are called “determinants” for a reason: Research-based evidence shows that non- clinical considerations such as education, employment and food security play a larger role in health than medical care.
A 2014 policy brief in the journal Health Affairs reported on research that behavior and social circumstances were generally found to control at least half of | CONTINUED
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