How Do We Achieve Care Equity?

Daniel C. Chelius, Jr., MD, AAO-HNSF Annual Meeting Program Coordinator

Over the past several decades, the house of medicine has increasingly recognized the complex challenges and current failures in our ability to deliver equitable healthcare across geographic and sociodemographic settings. Many communities, our own Academy included, have laid out audacious visions for a future when patients can access the same, high quality, evidence-informed care regardless of where and how they present and regardless of their social determinants of health. Notably, in its key goals, the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development issued a call, to ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages and to reduce inequity in and among all countries.

The medical literature has blossomed with observational, descriptive studies of care inequity driven by increasingly powerful tools for large data analysis in complex systems. Many such studies were presented in the Scientific Oral sessions and Poster Hall at our recent AAO-HNSF 2023 Annual Meeting & OTO Experience in Nashville, Tennessee. Multiple organizations have outlined techniques for equity-focused research and frameworks to consider equity-targeted interventions.   

Our AAO-HNS/F mission states, “We engage our members and help them achieve excellence and provide high-quality, evidence-informed, and equitable ear, nose, and throat care through professional and public education, research, and health policy advocacy.” But how do we get to care equity? How do we move toward an otolaryngology care system that matches the United Nations’ vision for health for all. What small and large changes can we implement in our own practices to reach for this goal? It’s a difficult conversation with countless facets. I believe there is nowhere better to focus and advance this conversation than at our Annual Meeting where broad expertise and diverse perspective intersect.  

To this end, the Annual Meeting Program Committee is pleased to announce the new Care Equity, Quality, and Safety Track.  We invite submissions of Scientific abstracts, Panel Presentations, Expert Lectures, and all program formats that broadly address the problem of care inequity in otolaryngology. We will particularly favor submissions that consider solutions to aspects of care inequity and move beyond the well-described observations of inequity that have defined much of the work in the field thus far.  

We hope the conversations in this track extend well beyond the meeting each year and can solidify the foundation of the work our community will carry out in the years to come to reduce care inequity however we can.

Call for Science Now Open: Submit Your Proposal

Share your knowledge with otolaryngology colleagues from around the world at the AAO-HNSF 2024 Annual Meeting & OTO EXPO. The 2024 Annual Meeting will offer attendees the opportunity to Experience the Extraordinary. Don’t miss this opportunity to submit your groundbreaking science and join an esteemed faculty of experts in the specialty. The Call for Science submission site will be open through 11:59 pm (ET),  January 22, 2024.

Take Part in the Premier Education Program

Each year the AAO-HNSF receives several thousand abstracts representing diverse perspectives on topics covering the full spectrum of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery. From these submissions, the Annual Meeting Program Committee develops a premier education program that seeks to equip all attendees to better serve their patients, support advances in the field, and offer personal and professional development. As you develop your proposal, please refer to the submission guidelines, comprehensive gap analysis, and the Call for Science webpage.