Essential Elements
What are the Essential Elements and why are they important?
The Essential Elements are three approaches to health equity work that inform how every other component of the Roadmap is conceptualized and conducted. They are not individual or time-limited activities. Each approach should be incorporated into each of the steps implementing the Roadmap.
Teams that actively incorporate each of the essential elements into all aspects of their work are more likely to succeed in reducing and eliminating health and healthcare inequities. Neglecting any one element will negatively impact a team’s success.
| The Three Essential Elements | |
|---|---|
| Partner with Patients and Community | Patients living with the health and healthcare inequities that your team is attempting to reduce and eliminate as well as the community-based organizations that serve them, hold unique and extremely valuable knowledge and expertise that individuals working within the healthcare system lack. There are no valid substitutes, proxies, or work arounds for partnering consistently and directly with people living with the inequities that you want to eliminate. Ideally they will have decision-making authority regarding how your work is conceptualized, defined, and implemented |
| Earn and Sustain Stakeholder Buy-in | Earn the trust and active commitment of leaders, staff, patients, and community partners to ensure your initiatives are adequately resourced and effectively implemented. Tacit or explicit approval of a health equity initiative does not constitute buy-in. Buy-in is defined by providing tangible resources and action to support the initiative. It requires actively building relationships and authentically earning trust. |
| Anticipating Data Challenges and Opportunities | Every component of the Roadmap requires data collection, reporting, sharing, and analysis. Most teams fail to fully anticipate the data challenges and opportunities that they will encounter. If they do anticipate specific data challenges, they underestimate the severity of the challenge. Teams that adequately anticipate data challenges and opportunities have a greater chance of success. |
The Essential Elements are not one-time activities. Return to all three of them whenever your team is planning, refining, or troubleshooting each of the other Roadmap components. If an initiative has stalled or faces unexpected barriers, revisiting these subcomponents can help your team realign and move forward.