Jill Goldstein, MA, MS, RN
At Mount Sinai, a key pillar in advancing health equity focuses on the collection and use of self-reported patient demographic data to identify gaps in care. The Health Equity Data Assessment (HEDA) team is engaging key stakeholders across the Health System and collaborating to address variances.
A highlight of these efforts is the Mount Sinai Queens Nurses Against Racism (NAR) system council, which endeavored to evaluate incidences of hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPI) using an equity lens.
A pressure injury is a localized injury to the skin and/or underlying tissue, resulting from compression between a bony prominence and an external surface for a prolonged time. Monitoring HAPI specifically focuses on the occurrence of these injuries during an inpatient hospital stay.
According to Jill Goldstein, MA, MS, RN, Deputy Chief Nursing Officer, Vice President of Nursing at Mount Sinai Queens, and NAR sponsor, their collaboration with HEDA began in January 2023, combining subject matter expertise and data modeling to evaluate differences in HAPI rates across patient populations. She noted that the interdisciplinary team explored the impact of race, gender, age, language, payor, length of stay, clinical service, and other factors on the incidences of hospital-acquired pressure injuries.
Further, the data showed that in terms of race, there were no meaningful differences observed between white, Black, or Hispanic patients in any model.
Notably, the most actionable finding was the elevated risk for patients who prefer to speak a language other than English or Spanish. In these patients, 40 percent were more likely to have documented HAPI when compared to English-speaking patients.
With the data the HEDA team helped to collect and interpret, the system-wide nursing team will seek interventions to eliminate this disparity. This interdisciplinary approach serves as a model to incorporate an equity lens into other quality work, according to Ms. Goldstein.