Jay Bhatt of Deloitte gives guidance on health equity

Jay Bhatt still sees a great deal of inconsistency in efforts to improve health equity.

Bhatt is a managing director of Deloitte and directs Deloitte’s Health Equity Institute. He spoke with Chief Healthcare Executive® at the ViVE Conference about ways health systems can make real progress on health equity.

“There’s still challenges around organizations seeing how it engages with the business case,” Bhatt says.

In this video, Bhatt describes the potential for digital health and virtual health to close disparities. He talks about how health equity can’t be a “side hustle” but a central part of the health system’s business plans.

“it's got to be part of the business, embedded within your thinking, your strategy, your finance, your operations,” Bhatt says.

Hospital quality and health equity are two sides of the same coin, Bhatt says. “You can’t get to equity without quality,” he says.

As hospitals follow through with virtual care and gain more data on their patient populations, their encounters move from single episodes to “a series, like a Ted Lasso series.”

“You're seeing a holistic view of those digital biomarkers that then help you make decisions,” Bhatt says.