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Baltimore Councilwoman Phylicia Porter has long had a focus on public health and health disparities. She is chair of the city's Public Health & Environment Committee and previously worked in research for the National Institutes of Health, in public policy for the Department of Health and Human Services and as a senior program manager at Yale New Haven Health, before starting her own consulting company.
She’s now working to modernize maternal health data, having in January released the Black Maternal Health Agenda, with initiatives led by organizations such as Baltimore Healthy Start and B'more for Healthy Babies.
Regardless of socio-economic status, Black mothers and children are still at a disparate rate of infant morbidity and mortality, Porter said.
“For me, I needed to figure out why that was happening,” she said. “The job as councilwoman, the role is very important. We control in the city of Baltimore a $4.2 billion budget. We need to make sure that our policies are addressing the issues we are seeing within our city.”
For more on the role of public policy in bridging the gap in healthcare disparities, please listen to the conversation between Porter and Susan Morse, executive editor of Healthcare Finance News.
This episode is brought to you by athenahealth.
Talking Points:
More than the coordination of services for the social determinants of health, Baltimore, city health officials and nonprofit partners are looking to bridge gaps in care coordination.
Interoperability is a concern. For instance, Porter asks, is information at the Women and Infants Center being shared with hospitals?
Primary and specialty care is not as aligned as it could be.
HIMSS is playing a role as a partner on gathering data and making it understandable to policy-makers.
Council members serve as the boots on the ground. “We are those front line workers,” she said.
Healthcare is at the federal, state and local level, but municipalities have the greatest impact and the opportunity for nimble program development.
More About This Episode:
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CMS seeks public input on inpatient hospital whole-person care
Alliance for Connected Care outlines policy requests to CMS
Connected health needs more provider collaboration for better data integration
Email the writer: SMorse@himss.org