The American Medical Association (AMA) has unveiled its strategic plan for 2024-2025, aiming to advance health equity and address historical and contemporary injustices within the healthcare system. This plan builds on the AMA’s previous efforts from 2021-2023, which focused on embedding racial justice and advancing health equity. The new plan outlines a comprehensive approach to creating a more equitable future for all.
Vision and Commitment to Equity and Justice in Medicine
Recognizing Historical and Ongoing Injustices
The AMA, the largest professional association of physicians in the United States, has a longstanding history of advocating for the betterment of public health. The organization acknowledges the urgent need to address inequities in healthcare, recognizing both historical and ongoing injustices. This commitment to equity and justice is central to the AMA’s vision for the future. By recognizing the deep-seated impact of systemic racism and other forms of discrimination, the AMA aims to dismantle these barriers and ensure everyone has equal access to quality healthcare.
Establishing a Foundation for Change
The origins of the current strategic plan can be traced back to the AMA’s Annual House of Delegates meeting in June 2018. During this meeting, the Health Equity Task Force presented the “Plan for Continued Progress Toward Health Equity,” which laid the groundwork for future initiatives. By April 2019, the AMA had established the AMA Center for Health Equity and appointed its first chief health equity officer. The 2021-2023 strategic plan marked the initial steps toward embedding racial justice within the organization. This foundational work set the stage for the more comprehensive and ambitious 2024-2025 strategic plan.
Scope and Development of the 2024-2025 Strategic Plan
Extending Efforts Over Five Years
Building on the previous three-year plan, the 2024-2025 strategic plan extends the AMA’s efforts over a five-year period. This plan serves as a roadmap, detailing a coordinated approach to advancing health equity and ensuring accountability. The development of this plan involved input from various stakeholders within and outside the AMA, highlighting the organization’s commitment to inclusivity and collective action. The extended timeframe allows the AMA to implement more substantial changes and measure progress over a longer period, ensuring that efforts are sustained and impactful.
Inclusive and Collective Action
The AMA’s strategic plan emphasizes the importance of inclusivity and collective action. By engaging a diverse range of stakeholders, the organization aims to create a comprehensive and effective approach to advancing health equity. This inclusive process ensures that the voices and experiences of historically marginalized and minoritized physicians and stakeholders are heard and considered. The AMA recognizes that achieving health equity requires a collaborative effort, involving partnerships with various organizations and communities. By fostering these alliances, the AMA aims to build a stronger, more equitable healthcare system.
Five Strategic Approaches
Embed Equity
Infusing Racial Equity and Social Justice
One of the key strategic approaches of the 2024-2025 plan is to embed equity within the AMA’s culture, systems, policies, and practices. The organization aims to infuse racial equity and social justice into every aspect of its work. This includes implementing and monitoring health equity goals using an Anti-Racist Results-Based Accountability (AR-RBA) framework. The AR-RBA framework provides a systematic approach to measuring and achieving equity goals, ensuring that progress is tracked and adjustments are made as needed to address any gaps or challenges that arise.
Aligning Mission and Membership Initiatives
To further embed equity, the AMA plans to align its mission and membership initiatives with equity goals. This involves enhancing the engagement of the AMA Federation and House of Delegates with equity initiatives. By aligning these efforts, the organization aims to create a more inclusive and equitable environment for all members. The AMA intends to ensure that all aspects of its operations reflect a commitment to equity, from policy development to member engagement, creating a unified effort toward achieving health equity.
Build Alliances and Share Power
Learning from Marginalized Voices
The AMA recognizes the importance of learning from the voices and experiences of historically marginalized and minoritized physicians and stakeholders. By building alliances and sharing power, the organization aims to support initiatives that increase representation in medicine and provide support to medical students and physicians facing discrimination. Building these alliances allows the AMA to gain valuable insights and perspectives that can inform its strategies and actions, ensuring that the needs and challenges of marginalized communities are effectively addressed.
Addressing Chronic Diseases in Marginalized Communities
In addition to increasing representation, the AMA plans to address chronic diseases like hypertension in marginalized communities. This involves supporting the work of Federally Qualified Health Centers through education and tools. By addressing these health disparities, the organization aims to improve health outcomes for marginalized populations. The AMA’s efforts to address chronic diseases are part of a broader strategy to reduce health disparities and promote equitable access to healthcare services for all communities.
Ensure Equity in Innovation
Integrating Racial Justice into Healthcare Innovation
The AMA’s strategic plan emphasizes the importance of integrating racial justice and health equity into healthcare innovation. This involves amplifying the voices of marginalized individuals and ensuring that their needs are considered in the development of new healthcare technologies and practices. By prioritizing equity in healthcare innovation, the AMA aims to create solutions that benefit all populations and address disparities in healthcare access and outcomes.
Celebrating Early Adopters of Health Equity Innovations
To promote equity in innovation, the AMA plans to expand the impact of the In Full Health community and publish data to support equitable health innovations. The organization also aims to celebrate early adopters of health equity innovations, highlighting their contributions to creating a more equitable healthcare system. By recognizing and supporting these innovators, the AMA hopes to inspire others to adopt equity-focused approaches in their work, leading to a more inclusive and effective healthcare ecosystem.
Push Upstream
Addressing Determinants of Health
The AMA’s strategic plan includes a focus on addressing all determinants of health and the underlying causes of inequities within the healthcare ecosystem. This involves participating in coalitions to address root causes of health inequities and transforming medical education to include social determinants of health. By addressing these upstream factors, the AMA aims to create a more holistic approach to health equity that considers the broader social, economic, and environmental factors affecting health outcomes.
Incorporating an Equity Lens into Advocacy Work
To further address upstream determinants of health, the AMA plans to incorporate an equity lens into its advocacy work. This includes focusing on areas like maternal health, gender-affirming care, Medicaid expansion, and disability justice. By advocating for these issues, the organization aims to create a more equitable healthcare system. The AMA’s advocacy efforts will be guided by a commitment to equity, ensuring that policies and programs are designed to address the needs of all populations, particularly those who have been historically marginalized.
Foster Pathways
Amplifying Marginalized Narratives
The AMA acknowledges the importance of amplifying marginalized narratives and giving voice to those who have been historically silenced. This involves engaging physicians, health systems, and AMA members in a collective effort to acknowledge past harms and promote healing. By gathering testimonies on the impact of historical harms, the AMA aims to create a shared understanding of the challenges faced by marginalized communities and to foster a more inclusive and equitable healthcare environment.
Conclusion
The American Medical Association (AMA) has revealed its 2024-2025 strategic plan with an ambitious goal of advancing health equity and tackling both historical and present-day injustices within the healthcare system. This new initiative builds upon the efforts made during their 2021-2023 phase, which concentrated on embedding racial justice and pushing forward the agenda of health equity.
With their latest strategy, the AMA seeks to continue this critical work by detailing a comprehensive approach designed for a more equitable future in healthcare. This renewed focus addresses systemic disparities, aiming to create significant changes that promote fairness and justice for all individuals within the medical landscape. The AMA’s commitment includes educating healthcare professionals, advocating for policy reforms, and implementing innovative programs that tackle the root causes of inequities. This cohesive plan strives to foster an environment where health equity is not just a goal but a reality, ensuring that all populations receive fair and equal treatment in the healthcare system.
