Oracle Health has announced a partnership with Nashville-based Meharry Medical College aimed at helping students and residents spend more time with and better understand their patients. The company said it will also help with research in precision medicine, health informatics and public health.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
The new Healthcare Technology Education and Research Innovation Center and Community Care and Wellness Center in Nashville will leverage Oracle’s cloud-based and artificial intelligence-powered clinical tools to provide hands-on training and experiential learning opportunities, the company said in a recent announcement.
As one of four historically black academic health science centers in the country, this is a “pivotal moment” for Meharry, which has provided mission-driven care for nearly 150 years, said Dr. James E. K. Hildreth, president and CEO of the college.
“By combining our expertise with Oracle Health’s innovative technology, we will blaze a trail for other institutions and communities to follow,” Hildreth said in a statement.
The partners said they will engage community stakeholders to ensure their work is aligned and shaped in collaboration with regional health care providers, government officials, health plans, and community and patient advocacy organizations working to improve health and access to care in the region.
THE BIG TREND
Nashville’s health disparities by race and income are reportedly wide. NashvilleHealth and Metro Public Health Department revealed about statistics when the two teamed up in 2019 to conduct the first national health survey in more than 20 years.
According to Dr. Bill Frist, former majority leader of the US Senate from Tennessee, he writes Forbes in August, the healthcare capital of the US – so named by the Nashville Healthcare Council – experienced “a shocking paradox.”
“Our citizens have, on average, the worst health care in the entire country compared to cities of similar size,” he said story about how NashvilleHealth, of which he is the founder and chairman, is aligning resources to advance healthcare equity.
Two years ago, Dr. suggested Kedar Mate, president and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, identified health equity as a critical fifth goal for the ambitious IHI-developed framework that organizations look to as they strive to improve healthcare.
The COVID-19 pandemic “brought long-overdue and much-needed attention to the lack of health equity in the US and around the world,” he wrote of the new imperative in JAMA.
“All four dimensions of the Quadruple Aim were compromised by health equity considerations,” Mate explained Healthcare IT news last year.
ON THE RECORD
“This collaboration transcends education and will create a model for more compassionate, equitable and community-centered care, ensuring everyone has access to the care he or she needs and deserves,” Hildreth said in a statement.
“Our partnership with Meharry Medical College furthers our mission to transform the entire healthcare industry,” said Seema Verma, executive vice president and general manager of Oracle Health and Life Sciences.
“The research, technology and skills we cultivate will not only benefit the Nashville community, but will have broad reach as students enter the workforce and apply the insights and understanding they gain to shape the future of the shaping healthcare around the world.”
Andrea Fox is editor-in-chief of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.