Dr. Andy Beck, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
Dr. Andy Beck is a pediatrician at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, where he conducts research focusing on population-level health disparities and forms partnerships with community organizations to reduce risks related to poverty. He sees patients as a primary care and hospitalist pediatrician. Dr. Beck joined the podcast to discuss a project that is addressing disparities in hospital bed days for kids with asthma and respiratory issues in Cincinnati’s Avondale neighborhood. The project, which was partially funded by the Community Health Peer Learning Program (CHP), a founding All In partner, integrates inpatient hospitalization records and geographic information systems to better understand and address underlying social determinants of health.
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Additional Resources:
- Follow @CinciChildrens and @ActNowCinci
- Read a profile and a bright spot about the CHP project
- Learn more about All Children Thrive
Takeaways from the Interview
In the words of Dr. Andy Beck…
1. Data and collaboration go hand in hand.
“It goes both ways. Data can inform collaboration, and collaboration can inform new ways to look at the data. We found clear associations between place, neighborhood, and health outcomes. We could discern some key patterns at a high level, but the action arm was much less clear. That’s where I think taking these data as a potent means through which we could discuss collaboration was a really effective strategy.”
2. Physicians can refer patients to community partners just as they make referrals to specialists.
“When we encounter issues related to housing, benefit denials and delays, or food insecurity, its within our realm to say, we don’t necessarily believe ourselves to be the experts and perhaps we should be consulting, calling, referring to those experts to achieve the desired outcome.”
3. Pair data with stories to drive action.
“Stories really do move us. They provide a personal or human face to something that can sometimes be abstract, so I see tremendous value in stories. I simultaneously see value in data that backs up that story and accelerates it towards some type of action.”