There Is Something for Everyone to Do to Improve Health Equity, Says Oncology Consultants’ Wagner

Health equity is not so big of an issue that nothing can be done to overcome care gaps, and this starts by finding out what your patients need and getting the word out on the services you provide, said Susan Sabo-Wagner, MSN, RN, OCN, executive director of clinical strategy at Oncology Consultants of Houston.

Transcript

Are there any misconceptions about health equity that you would like to dispel?

I think that we've come a long way in the last couple of years with health equity and really making it understood across the board. You know, it's been around a lot longer than just since COVID-19—we've really come a long way.

I think one of the biggest things that I would like to dispel is that it's so big that we can't do anything. I've heard a lot of people over the last few months that I've been sharing our initiative with, talking about, “Well, you know, what can we do? It's just such a big problem, and we're just a rheumatology clinic or we're just a whatever kind of clinic.”

You can do something. You can look at the needs of your patient population, and you can start to provide resources, or at least match resources or provide information about that. There's something everybody can do to at least get the word out there on what you can provide for patients.