COVID-19 has illuminated the health care disparities that persist among the underrepresented populations essential hospitals serve. For association member Premier Health, in Dayton, Ohio, the pandemic also has provided an opportunity to build a valuable partnership with a community organization of Black health care professionals to confront disparities.
Andre Harris, MD, is chief medical officer of Premier Health’s Atrium Medical Center and president of Gem City Medical, Dental, and Pharmaceutical (MDP) Society, a coalition of Black and minority health professionals in the Miami Valley region. He says his dual role has helped him reignite a once-dormant society and better serve his patients at Premier Health.
“The organization started as a way for Black doctors to be able to coalesce together, work together at the time, to be able to [join a health insurance network], where they may have individually had more problems, but together they were able to do it with more of a united voice,” Harris says.
That united voice helped ensure equitable access to vaccines for the Black community in Dayton. In early 2021, when vaccines were first authorized by the Food and Drug Administration, supply was limited. Online appointment registration posed barriers for the low-income, older residents Premier Health clinics serve. Nearly 90 percent of patients at early vaccine clinics were not Premier Health patients—they were residents of other neighborhoods who came into the primarily Black community to get vaccinated.
That united voice helped ensure equitable access to vaccines for the Black community in Dayton. In early 2021, when vaccines were first authorized by the Food and Drug Administration, supply was limited. Online appointment registration posed barriers for the low-income, older residents Premier Health clinics serve. Nearly 90 percent of patients at early vaccine clinics were not Premier Health patients—they were residents of other neighborhoods who came into the primarily Black community to get vaccinated.
At the time, only one Black-owned pharmacy in Ohio was authorized to give vaccines. Harris and 25 members of the Gem City MDP sent a letter to the governor’s task force asking for additional vaccine allocation to the pharmacy.
“It was really great to see because that same night the pharmacist got a notification that more vaccine was coming to them,” Harris remembers. “Everybody was rowing in the same direction to get us to work through this really once-in-a-lifetime type of situation that we went through.”
That sense of teamwork and community trust helped Harris and other health care professionals confront a second wave of challenges: vaccine hesitancy. To coincide with Minority Health Month in April, Gem City and Premier Health collaborated on “Why I Chose to Get Vaccinated,” a public service announcement and newspaper ad campaign featuring physicians and pharmacists of color.
Harris says the campaign helped even him feel confident and secure about his decision to get vaccinated.
“It helped me see, and my colleagues to say, ‘This is the appropriate thing to do, and we want to be first in line to be able to lead by example for our patients,’” he says.
While vaccine hesitancy remains an obstacle, Harris and other Premier leaders continue to build trust with patients and communities to promote vaccination in 2022.
“Our organization has several people of color who are at some of the highest levels in this organization, like Dr. Harris,” says Sharon Howard, system director of site communications at Premier Health. “We all have networks. Many of us have been here a long time. What we’ve also been able to do is to leverage the networks of our African American and Hispanic and Asian leaders to help us carry this message even beyond the splash that we had last year.”
This includes speaking at community events and partnering with schools, churches, sororities and fraternities, civic groups, and chambers of commerce. This work goes beyond COVID-19 response to include investment in the future medical workforce. Harris cites a particular need for Black representation in primary care on the west side of Dayton. Through Premier and Gem City MDP, he works with Wright State University’s student chapter of the National Medical Association — an organization formed when Black doctors were barred from the American Medical Association — to mentor students, engage them in the community, and build the next generation of medical professionals.
“If you do not have a diverse view at the table, you look at things the same way that you always have,” Harris says.
Author