The Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association (AzHHA) has partnered with key stakeholders statewide to address healthcare disparities in rural Arizona hospitals, federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) and post-acute care facilities through the Arizona Health Equity Organizational Assessment (HEOA) Collaborative. By utilizing the HEOA tool provided by the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the first year of the Arizona HEOA Collaborative identified opportunities to reduce health disparities and improve health outcomes and patient experience. For more information on the remarkable community health projects that emerged from this assessment, please refer to our 2023 HEOA Conference recap.
Why is this work important?
While health disparities have long been a challenge, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated healthcare needs and widened the inequity gap, particularly among many minority groups residing in rural communities. The Arizona HEOA Collaborative is dedicated to gathering and reviewing data from participating facilities to uncover existing health disparities. Each participating facility will receive personalized community data specific to their service area. Our objective is to assist these facilities in gaining a deeper understanding of the underlying causes of health inequities and foster community partnerships to address these inequities in both the present and beyond the pandemic.
Getting started
Any rural Arizona facility (excluding Maricopa and Pima counties) has the opportunity to join the growing and engaging Arizona HEOA Collaborative. There is no cost associated with joining, and participation is voluntary, without any requirement for facility licensure or certification. Funding for this collaborative will be available until June 2024.
Facilities participating in the Arizona HEOA Collaborative will have access to a wide range of resources, including:
- Facilitated learning sessions
- Networking opportunities
- Peer-to-peer mentoring
- Data technical assistance and support
- Personalized quarterly community data packets based on their service area
- Access to experts in organizational change, safety and quality improvement
Topics covered in these resources include:
- Internal Data Trends
- Social Determinants of Health
- Market Data
- Demographics and Psychographics
Additional Resources
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The Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association’s Healthcare SVI Dashboard displays 17 Arizona hospitals and their service area boundary using 2020 Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) data by census tract.
Contact a member of the AzHHA Care Improvement team by emailing [email protected] or calling 602-445-4300.