Health Disparities

Back To Health Equity

Banner Health Plans (BHP) believes that understanding and addressing difference in health status, access and quality of care in communities we serve is critical to our mission of improving health outcomes for everyone.

Banner Health Plans has recently formalized two committee to help advance health equity, eliminate health disparities, and achieve the highest level of health for all people. 

  • Health Equity Committee
  • Enrollee Advisory Committee

In addition, Banner Health Plans has three additional structured forums that support health equity initiatives:

  • Cultural Competency Committee
  • Community Reinvestment Workgroup 
  • Neighborhood Advisory Councils

All four work collaboratively to advance health equity. Banner Health Plans has included each of their charters below and identify sponsor, membership, purpose, objectives, deliverable and cadence of meetings. 

Health Equity Committee 

A vital component of the Health Equity Plan, overseen by Banner Health Plans’ Health Equity Committee is the use of multiple qualitative and quantitative data sources to identify disparities in healthcare. Identifying and monitoring such disparities with data sources can lead to the development of programs better aligned to meet the needs and preferences of diverse members. The Health Equity Committee is building out its strategies, monitoring the success and continue socializing the health equity initiatives with its providers, vendors, community-based organizations, and other stakeholders in the community. 

Enrollee Advisory Committee 

The Banner Medicare Advantage Dual Enrollee Advisory Committee (EAC) includes a reasonable representative sample of the plan’s membership, the communities, and the geographic service areas. The EAC will solicit input on, among other topics, ways to improve access to covered services, coordination of services, and health equity for Dual members, families and community stakeholders served by the Banner Medicare Advantage Dual Plan.

The EAC activities include, but not limited to, the following objectives: 

  • Receive and act on direct feedback to inform plan decision and improve plan processes.
  • Resolving emerging issues.
  • Meet the needs and preferences of members. 
  • Identify and address health equity barriers for underserviced member populations.
  • Improve access to covered services and coordination of services. 
  • Addressing service and network challenges. 

Cultural Competency Committee 

The Cultural Competency Committee ensures health care services are delivered in a culturally competent manner. This includes member education, evaluating the cultural diversity of our members to assess needs and priorities, process improvement, and tracking of cultural competency training for providers, outsourced vendors, and health plan staff.

Duties of the Cultural Competency Program Committee include:

  • Review regulatory reports or assignments (deliverables) with imminent due dates.
  • Develop Cultural Competency training according to regulatory requirements.
  • Assign subcommittees and/or workgroups for identified implementations, information research, process updates, etc.
  • Tracking & Trending of any identifies Cultural Competency issues and document resolutions.

Community Reinvestment Workgroup 

This workgroup carries out the following activities:

  • Identify gaps in services to determine priorities for Community Reinvestment proposals.
  • Develop and implement a process for the allocation of Community Reinvestment funds.
  • Review and approve/reject community requests for funding and sponsorships.
  • Review quarterly reports from Community Reinvestment awardees.
  • Provide technical assistance to providers and community partners as it relates to the Community Reinvestment Program and application process.

Neighborhood Advisory Councils

Banner Health Plans has developed the Healthy Community Dashboard to work with the Neighborhood Advisory Councils to achieve the following objectives:

  • Identify the health conditions which are most prevalent in their community.
  • Identify health inequities for these health conditions.
  • Develop, implement and support interventions to address the health conditions and health inequities.