All issues are on the table .  Although the Advisory Group can not address every issue that impacts health inequities, we are finding common threads to set achievable goals to drive our collective missions. Here are some of the common issues we are working on to date:

1.  Covid-19 : What did we learn to make health equity a movement?

• Address the immediate and long term health needs created by the pandemic
• Take action on policies that disproportionally disadvantage historically marginalized populations.
• Use language as an asset, not a barrier, to making a plan and getting good care.
• Address health related social needs or social determinants of health that severally impact health.
  • We'll talk with experts and flex our consumer muscle to help make changes in our communities.

2. Let's Talk about Racism, Bias, Discrimination. Create Tools for Change.

The Advisory Group is discussing the hard truths and roots causes of structural racism and policies that create health disparities. We are assembling information & tools to empower consumers and care providers to work together to make meaningful change.

• •  For Consumers: 
    • Multi-lingual planning documents & culturally competent information to understand and make care choices;
    • Self-advocacy tools and resources for what to do when faced with racism and bias. 
  •  For Care Providers:  
    • Conversation guides and procedures to balance the clinician-patient/advocate partnership;
    • Support the development of  statewide implicit bias education and training.
    • Promote strategies to implement a more inclusive recruitment process to create a more diversified workforce.

3. Your Concerns and Care Choices Matter! 

• Let's help each other-person to person- take control of our health care choices by making a personal plan. Your plan is your roadmap to getting the care you want and can protect against racism,  bias and discrimination.  Every adult can start to make a plan with-
  • The Getting Started Tool Kit.  Choose a trusted person to be your Health Care Agent in a Health Care Proxy. No Agent? No Problem, just start with the Personal Directive (Living Will).  Free documents to do-it-yourself! Link 
  • ¿Quién es su Apoderado? Health Care Proxy  and Personal Directive(Living Will) in Spanish.
  • Translated Documents. Download a free Health Care Proxy in Portuguese, Vietnamese, Russian, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified),  Haitian-Creole, Albanian, Arabic, Khmer, Swahili, Nepali, Tagalog. Link

4.  TAKE ACTION: New Serious Illness Care-POLST Program 

• NEW PROGRAM:  The State is taking steps to build a new Serious Illness Care-POLST Program (Portable Medical Orders). POLST is a medical form where a clinician and a seriously ill & frail patient talk about the patient's medical condition and treatments options. The patient chooses the care she/he wants and the clinician writes it down in a POLST form, which is honored across all care settings. The POLST form can protect against bias and help ensure your choices are honored. 
• Let's Raise an Equal Consumer Stakeholder Voice to let the state and other stakeholders know what consumers want in order to build a trusted, equitable program. Our consumer group can help to:
  • Inform and guide program design;
  • Provider a greater understanding of the current barriers, broken systems and inequitable policies consumers face;
  • Suggest solutions for timely equitable care that honors a person's values and care choices all through the serious illness journey.
• Read more... the Honoring Choices "Serious Illness MOLST Challenge", collaborating with our partners to make change, including: 
  •  MOLST to POLST Advisory Group, co-chair, MA Coalition for Serious Illness Care, to advise the State on a evidenced based sustainable POLST Program.
  •  Guardianship-Serious Illness MOLST-POLST Advisory  Group, co sponsor with MHA, to safeguard protections and improve the process for seriously ill adults under guardianship.