Yes, most health leaders will focus more on health equity in 2025

Many healthcare leaders say they will be giving more attention to health equity in the coming year, according to a new report from the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions.

Healthcare and life science executives are focusing on health equity, but they need to integrate those efforts into their business plans for lasting impact, says Dr. Jay Bhatt of Deloitte.

Most healthcare executives (64%) and life sciences leaders (75%) say they planned to focus more on health equity and closing disparities in 2025, the center said in a report released Tuesday.

The report suggests organizations are focusing on improving outcomes and developing products and services that will improve access to care and the health of disadvantaged groups.

Organizations that take a smart approach to health equity will not only see progress but they’ll see growth in their business, says Jay Bhatt, MD, managing director of Deloitte’s Center for Health Solutions & Health Equity Institute.

“I think that what executives are realizing is that when health equity is integrated as part of their strategic and operational business, it can pay dividends,” Bhatt says. “And I always say that health equity isn’t a side gig. It's got to be integrated as part of their everyday business.”

“And health equity investments can help ensure that more consumers have access to affordable healthcare services, medical devices, therapeutics and position organizations for growth,” he adds. “And so I think that was something that came out of the data as really important. And so I think as executives see that opportunity, I think they want to try to invest more and build on it.”

In an interview with Chief Healthcare Executive®, Bhatt talks about the mistakes some organizations make that hinder health equity strategies, keys to success, and the ties between the diversity of the workforce and progress in improving care for all.

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Better design and planning

Few executives said they would be cutting investments in health equity, with 40% saying they would boost spending and 49% responding that they would at least maintain current spending levels in the coming year.

Even with robust investments, some healthcare and life sciences organizations aren’t always putting themselves in the best position to make gains in health equity, and help their businesses, Bhatt says.

A significant number of executives in Deloitte’s survey said they were struggling to integrate those health equity efforts into the organizations. Nearly half of healthcare executives (48%) and life sciences leaders (43%) said it was challenging to combine health equity strategies into financial and strategic operations.

The survey found 36% of health equity leaders said they were highly involved in business growth decisions, and only about one-third (34%) of health equity leaders described themselves as “highly involved” in organization-wide strategy. Less than a quarter (24%) said they were engaged in product design.

Even fewer health equity leaders (14%) are involved in technology decisions, and only 12% were involved in decisions and planning related to artificial intelligence, Bhatt says.

“If you're going to design for a broader population and be able to make progress on addressing inequities and addressing unmet need, improving access, creating more affordable, high quality care, they need to be at the table helping design and implement the strategies,” Bhatt says.

“What's important is having a team and thinking about this from the beginning and designing for it,” Bhatt says.

Health systems struggle with health equity when they don’t display the same rigor in those efforts as they employ in financial and strategic operations. He says boards and leadership teams need to be talking about ways to close disparities and tie that into their business goals.

“Health equity should be a thread through those conversations, and then specific strategies to address it,” Bhatt says.

He also says it’s important to develop a dashboard to measure and monitor progress.

Healthcare organizations must have ways of evaluating their progress in health equity strategies, and that’s a stumbling block for some, the report found.

More than 40% of executives highlighted challenges in tracking improvement in health equity initiatives,

Bhatt notes that many health equity leaders aren’t measuring the impact of health equity efforts and key indicators of financial performance.

“For those that are, they're seeing an impact on their business,” Bhatt says.

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What hospitals can do

Hospitals and health systems need to establish benchmarks to help understand where they can improve in serving patients. Such steps involve looking at the outcomes of patients with chronic diseases and seeing if certain groups are doing better or worse.

“Hospitals will want to look at what's consistent with who they're serving and the outcomes that they're seeing among the different populations,” Bhatt says.

Health systems should also look at other areas, including prevention efforts such as cancer screenings, to see if some groups are less likely to engage in regular screenings.

Those efforts should involve ensuring there’s consistent access to care, and as Bhatt says, “not just to primary care but specialty care when needed.”

With more care being delivered virtually and in the home, hospitals should work to ensure that they are offering support to ensure equal access.

While the focus of the report is on raising the quality of care for all groups, Bhatt says there’s no getting around the importance of fostering a diverse workforce.

“Lived experience is an important perspective,” Bhatt says. “And we've seen data, time and time again, in the literature that supports that. When there's cultural concordance among clinicians and those consumers and patients they care for, then you see better outcomes.”

Some private sector companies, including Walmart, Target, Meta and others have been rolling back diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. President Trump has signed an executive order to end DEI programs in the federal government.

Bhatt argues that organizations should focus on developing a diverse workforce to help close gaps in care and to improve their financial strength.

Pursue partnerships

Some of the challenges in disadvantaged communities go beyond healthcare, such as food insecurity and insufficient affordable housing. Bhatt says health systems don’t need to tackle those problems individually.

Health systems should find ways to partner with other community organizations to address issues that are contributing to health problems for disadvantaged groups.

Smaller hospitals and healthcare organizations with modest resources should look to work with other groups to pursue efforts to address the social drivers of health.

Healthcare leaders must make health equity a priority for the entire organization, and commit to incorporating those goals and training throughout the workforce.

Organizations need to have teams “really focused on integrating health equity into the business and delivering on the goals that they identify,” Bhatt says.

Bhatt argues that healthcare organizations need to view health equity as something beyond an aspirational goal.

“It's taking what we know and putting it to work in a smarter, more effective, efficient, coordinated way to be successful,” Bhatt says. “And that means making real the notion that health equity is an economic imperative and has business solutions.”