Abstract
PTH 8: Miscellaneous 1, B304 (FCSH), September 5, 2025, 11:30 - 12:30 We want to demonstrate how the Migration, Equity, Diversity-Task Force’s (MED-TF) Equity Standards self-assessment tool (SAT) can be used as the start of a process to implement measures for continuous equity improvement. We also want to invite new organizations to implement the Standards to enhance their equity policy. As early as 2012, the MED-TF developed and tested a SAT consisting of a set of standards aiming at measuring and monitoring equity in health care. It was based on an extensive critical literature review, supplemented by several expert workshops and consultations. An improved version was implemented in 2014 across 54 organisations in 16 countries. In 2023, the MED-TF updated the Equity Standards again and aligned them with the 2020 HPH standards. Healthcare organizations were invited in the first trimester of 2025 to implement the SAT to assess their organizational equity performance, to report their results and to identify improvement areas. Results will be compared with data available from the 2014 data collection. Completing the SAT to benchmark organizational performance against the standards is part of a wider process that also includes: developing and implementing improvement strategies; sharing of good practice during international hybrid MED-TF meetings; evaluating the effects of implemented improvement plans on the equity performance. We will present and discuss the results of the equity assessments carried out by health care organizations in 2014 and in the first semester of 2025 as well as the improvement areas identified. In addition, we will present best practices of organizations that perform exceptionally well (generally) or on certain (sub)standards. The use of the Equity Standards provides an opportunity to organizations to assess their equity performance and to identify the way their services may fail to meet the needs of vulnerable groups, leading to overall better health care quality and performance.