2018 - Challenge Topic

Empowering Patients and Communities

2018 Topic

This year’s Healthcare Entrepreneurship Community Challenge topic is Empowering Patients and Communities1. Did you know that despite its large investment in health care, the U.S. sees poorer results on several health outcome measures such as life expectancy and the prevalence of chronic diseases? Decreasing health care costs and increasing health equity2 requires a disruption of the established relationship between patients, providers and their communities.

This Challenge envisions a fresh look at outreach and interactions that brings individuals and communities into the center of their own care, sharing in the health decisions that affect them. There is extensive research on patient and community empowerment which we encourage you to read. We are particularly interested in solutions that promote health equity3 and address the differences in health status that exist by race/ethnicity, class, and geography. Specifically, we are looking for solutions that impact people and communities in New York City, the Long Island Region and the Hudson Valley Region.

Goals

The Healthcare Entrepreneurship Community Challenge will utilize a market-driven approach to individual and community empowerment with goals, including, but not limited to:

- Improving access to healthcare and prevention services

- Improving delivery of healthcare and prevention services

- Increasing healthcare utilization rates to improve wellness

- Promoting health literacy as a strategy to reduce health disparities and improve patient-centered care

- Addressing cultural competency and communications to improve outcomes and quality of care

- Identifying and removing inefficiency from health care and prevention systems

- Enhancing ability to measure population health outcomes at the individual and community level

1The World Health Organization defines patient empowerment as, “a process through which people gain a greater control over decisions and actions affecting their health.”

2The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that “health equity is achieved when every person has the opportunity to attain his or her full health potential and no one is disadvantaged from achieving this potential because of social position or other socially determined circumstances”.

3Examples of health disparities include:
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found that people with low health literacy are more likely to visit an ER, have more hospital stays, less likely to follow treatment plans, and have higher mortality rates.
- In New York City, new cases of breast cancer are highest among high-income white women, but low-income black women have the highest death rates.
- Residents of the poorest NYC neighborhoods die earlier than other residents, but the gap in years lost to premature death is closing.
- In Suffolk County (Long Island), between 2000 and 2013, the opioid overdose rate—among all ages, races, genders, and ethnicities—nearly quadrupled, increasing from 0.7 to 2.7 deaths per 100,000 (this is the highest in New York State).
- In Nassau County (Long Island), black children are hospitalized more than four times more often than white children for asthma.
- In Westchester County, a lack of reliable public transportation places an additional burden on lower income and elderly suburban residents to manage medical and social service appointments.

This website was prepared by Hofstra University using Federal funds under award ED17HDQ0200086 from the Economic Development Agency, U.S. Department of Commerce. The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Economic Development Agency or the U.S. Department of Commerce.

2018 - Challenge Topic

Empowering Patients
and Communities

2018 Topic

This year’s Healthcare Entrepreneurship Community Challenge topic is Empowering Patients and Communities1. Did you know that despite its large investment in health care, the U.S. sees poorer results on several health outcome measures such as life expectancy and the prevalence of chronic diseases? Decreasing health care costs and increasing health equity2 requires a disruption of the established relationship between patients, providers and their communities.

This Challenge envisions a fresh look at outreach and interactions that brings individuals and communities into the center of their own care, sharing in the health decisions that affect them. There is extensive research on patient and community empowerment which we encourage you to read. We are particularly interested in solutions that promote health equity3 and address the differences in health status that exist by race/ethnicity, class, and geography. Specifically, we are looking for solutions that impact people and communities in New York City, the Long Island Region and the Hudson Valley Region.

Goals

The Healthcare Entrepreneurship Community Challenge will utilize a market-driven approach to individual and community empowerment with goals, including, but not limited to:

- Improving access to healthcare and prevention services

- Improving delivery of healthcare and prevention services

- Increasing healthcare utilization rates to improve wellness

- Promoting health literacy as a strategy to reduce health disparities and improve patient-centered care

- Addressing cultural competency and communications to improve outcomes and quality of care

- Identifying and removing inefficiency from health care and prevention systems

- Enhancing ability to measure population health outcomes at the individual and community level

1The World Health Organization defines patient empowerment as, “a process through which people gain a greater control over decisions and actions affecting their health.”

2The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that “health equity is achieved when every person has the opportunity to attain his or her full health potential and no one is disadvantaged from achieving this potential because of social position or other socially determined circumstances”.

3Examples of health disparities include:
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found that people with low health literacy are more likely to visit an ER, have more hospital stays, less likely to follow treatment plans, and have higher mortality rates.
- In New York City, new cases of breast cancer are highest among high-income white women, but low-income black women have the highest death rates.
- Residents of the poorest NYC neighborhoods die earlier than other residents, but the gap in years lost to premature death is closing.
- In Suffolk County (Long Island), between 2000 and 2013, the opioid overdose rate—among all ages, races, genders, and ethnicities—nearly quadrupled, increasing from 0.7 to 2.7 deaths per 100,000 (this is the highest in New York State).
- In Nassau County (Long Island), black children are hospitalized more than four times more often than white children for asthma.
- In Westchester County, a lack of reliable public transportation places an additional burden on lower income and elderly suburban residents to manage medical and social service appointments.

This website was prepared by Hofstra University using Federal funds under award ED17HDQ0200086 from the Economic Development Agency, U.S. Department of Commerce. The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Economic Development Agency or the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Funded in part by the EDA.