Accelerating our Journey to Health Equity: Leveraging Primary Care, Innovation, and Leadership

Time: 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. ET (each day) 

Where: Virtual Event Platform (Zoom)

Event Description 

The co-occurring crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and racism – both structural and interpersonal – have galvanized our nation’s interest in addressing longstanding health inequities. Nationwide protests for racial justice and an end to police violence, the loss of nearly a million U.S. lives due to COVID-19 (more than 6 million deaths globally), growing outrage and advocacy to support those with chronic illness and disability, and the unpredictable effects of ongoing and collective fatigue, grief and trauma have placed our nation at a critical juncture in its reckoning with social injustices and health inequities. This confluence of recent events has positioned health equity and social justice as a key priority across sectors, disciplines, and communities. These events have affected the provision of primary care, health policy and the public’s trust in the nation’s public health and healthcare systems. From patient well-being to collective health, our approaches to how we do the work to achieve health equity has urgently shifted to accommodate increasing population need during COVID-19. More than 30 years after the federal government formally recognized health inequities in the landmark Heckler Report, unified momentum for meaningful change is at an unprecedented level.  

Join leaders from the National Center for Primary Care for this 2-day virtual summit, which will emphasize the national imperative to achieve health equity, discuss strategies for leveraging the current “window of opportunity,” and amplify the roles of primary care, innovation, and leadership in this effort. The summit will conclude with a call to action for individuals and organizations to implement the strategies needed to ultimately achieve health equity.

Event Objectives 

• Assess the role of primary care, innovation, and leadership in the historical and ongoing efforts to advance health equity
• Discuss concrete strategies and specific examples of initiatives that advance health equity across sectors, disciplines, and communities  
• Recognize leaders and organizations who have demonstrated leadership and pushed their organizations to achieve health equity
• Lay the foundation for a collective roadmap to health equity through leadership, innovation and primary care

Featured Speakers

• Dr. Todd Ellis, Principal, Health and Government Solutions, KPMG US
• Ann Greiner, President & Executive Director, Primary Care Collaborative
• Mayor Deana Holiday Ingraham, 34th mayor of East Point, Georgia
• Dr. Dominic Mack, Director, National Center for Primary Care at Morehouse School of Medicine
• Dr. Dayna Bowen Matthew, Dean and Harold H. Greene Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School
• Dr. Kameron Lee Matthews, Chief Health Officer, Cityblock Health
• Benjamin Money, Senior Vice President for Public Health Priorities, National Association of Community Health Centers
• Dr. George Rust, Director, Center for Medicine and Public Health, Florida State University, and former Director, National Center for Primary Care at Morehouse School of Medicine
• Dr. David Satcher, 16th U.S. Surgeon General and former Director, National Center for Primary Care at Morehouse School of Medicine
• Dr. Brian Smedley, Equity Scholar, Senior Fellow, Urban Institute
• Dr. Judith Steinberg, Senior Advisor, Immediate Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, US Department of Health and Human Services
• Tanisha M. Sullivan, Esq., Sanofi Fellow, CEO Action for Racial Equity & President, NAACP Boston