AdvaMed Partners with American Medical Association to Advance Health Equity

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) is pleased to be a founding collaborator in a partnership with the American Medical Association (AMA) and other health care industry leaders to address health inequities through innovation. Today, the AMA launched ‘In Full Health Learning and Action Community to Advance Equitable Health Innovation’, a network offering organizations across the health care industry a framework to place equity at the center of innovation, development, and purchasing.

“I am proud of the work our members and partners do every day to advance health equity, both at home and abroad. Medical technology companies have an important role to play as we improve health outcomes in marginalized communities through focused investments in innovation that recognize the needs of all patients,” said AdvaMed President and CEO Scott Whitaker. “It is incumbent on the medtech industry and our partners throughout the health care system to break down systemic barriers to health care. We are proud to join AMA and other health care leaders on this collaborative initiative, and I look forward to the outcomes of this important work.”

“It is crucial that we invest in solutions that are created for, with, and by communities that have traditionally been sidelined from health innovation resources,” said Jack Resneck Jr., M.D., AMA president-elect. “As a component of the AMA’s broader work to advance racial justice and equity in health care, this new initiative will help us continue to drive the future of digital medicine while ensuring health innovation addresses the needs and improves the health of all patients—particularly those who have been most marginalized.”

According to AMA, recent data indicates that despite making up roughly 70% of the U.S. population and holding an estimated 80% of purchasing power, Black, Latinx, Indigenous, people of color, and women are drastically underfunded and underrepresented in health care venture development—an exclusion that contributes to the exacerbation of health inequities within these populations and presents barriers to meaningful progress in improving the health of the nation.

Last year, AdvaMed launched the Health Equity Initiative and published ‘Principles on Health Equity’, a framework intended to guide the medtech industry and other health care stakeholders as they work to address long overdue inequities that exist in our health care system. Broadly, the principles call on industry to:

• Promote inclusion and equity in health care
• Partner in education with stakeholders (such as clinicians and other health care providers)
• Advocate for and facilitate patient access to innovative technology
• Promote research equity in the medtech industry

# # #

AdvaMed member companies produce the medical devices, diagnostic products and health information systems that are transforming health care through earlier disease detection, less invasive procedures and more effective treatments. AdvaMed members range from the largest to the smallest medical technology innovators and companies. For more information, visit www.advamed.org.