As a member of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Pursuing Excellence, Healthcare Disparities Collaborative, Michigan Medicine has developed the Healthcare Equity and Quality Scholars Program to equip house officers with the skills they need to engage in systems-based approaches to deliver equitable, safe, and high-quality care throughout their careers.
This effort aims to strengthen the Michigan Medicine framework and fulfill the ACGME Common Program Requirements for engaging clinical learners in quality improvement to address health care disparities within the clinical learning environment (CLE), identifying opportunities to improve the care and outcomes for vulnerable patient populations. HEQSP fills a gap in the resident and fellow curriculum by addressing specific competencies within the Milestones Assessment System.
The Healthcare Equity and Quality Scholars Program (HEQSP) is a longitudinal healthcare disparities curriculum incorporating cultural humility, social determinants of health and quality improvement. This 10-month certificate program is designed to further develop house officers into leaders and change agents for healthcare equity.
Residents learn about cultural humility and the root causes of health disparities and apply what they learned by completing a structured quality improvement initiative aimed at reducing health or healthcare disparities.
Participants of the scholars program will be expected to attend a 3-hour learning session once per month (1 hour of the learning session is set aside for teams to work on their QI project)
In addition, participants spend 2-5 hours per month outside of the learning session meeting with their teams and completing tasks for the QI project. In total, HEQSP is a 10-month certificate program, and participants are involved in HEQSP for up to 8 hours per month.
May 2023
- Marcia A. Perry, MD
Director, House Officer Programs
Office of Health Equity and Inclusion
[email protected] - Andrew J. Dering, MD
Medical Director of Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Training
Office of Graduate Medical Education
[email protected] - Ali Von Au Douglas
Program Manager
Healthcare Equity and Quality Scholars Program
[email protected]
"As a result of my participation in this group, I try to approach all patient and professional encounter with cultural humility. Every patient has a unique lived experience, shaped by sociopolitical systems and structures, including healthcare, that may have historically disenfranchised communities they identify with."
"This program has been an incredible experience and has really opened my eyes to the complex interplay between a patient's social and cultural background and their health. I have gotten the opportunity to explore the disparities in health among different groups of people and become more aware of my own biases and how to address these challenges when providing care."
"By participating in this program, I've gained a better understanding of the historical context of the current systems at play. I appreciated hearing diverse perspectives on current issues affecting DEI, which ultimately have helped me question by own implicit biases and humbled me, making me realize I still have room for growth."
