December 10, 2021 – BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) (Franklin Lakes, NJ) has committed $500,000 to improve quality of care and reduce health inequities for patients served by free and charitable clinics across the United States.
The company will award $250,000 annually for the next two years to the health-focused relief organization Americares to support a multi-year project to collect demographic and patient health outcome data from free and charitable clinics nationwide.
Americares launched the Roadmap to Health Equity Initiative in 2017 in partnership with the National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics and Loyola University Chicago. The project is the first national effort to collect data measuring the quality of care provided by free and charitable clinics.
“Achieving health equity—care that does not vary in quality because of someone’s race, gender, income, abilities, or location—requires a multi-faceted approach,” said Americares Vice President of U.S. Programs Edith Lee. “It requires the ability to collect and analyze data to determine if there are differing health outcomes for different groups. It requires a deeper learning and understanding of health equity and the factors that influence health outcomes. It requires developing strategies and tools to address these factors that influence health outcomes. Thanks to the generous support of BD, we can continue and expand this ground-breaking effort.”