# Advancing the future of equitable access to health care: recommendations from international health care leaders

## TL;DR

This paper outlines four key actions for health leaders to reduce disparities in healthcare access globally.

## Contribution

The paper presents consensus-based recommendations from international health leaders on improving equitable access to care.

## Key findings

- Health leaders should prioritize and hold themselves accountable for equitable access to care.
- Comprehensive strategies are needed to address barriers to access across health systems.
- Cross-sector partnerships can help reduce disparities in healthcare access.

## Abstract

Disparities in access to health care are persistent and contribute to poor health outcomes for many populations around the world. Barriers to access are often similar across countries, despite differences in how health systems are structured. Health care leaders can work to address these barriers through bold, evidence-based actions. The Future of Health (FOH), an international community of senior health leaders, collaborated with the Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy to identify priority organizational and policy actions needed to improve equitable access to health care through a consensus-building exercise, a targeted literature review, and an expert discussion group. This paper describes four key action areas for health care leaders that FOH members identified as critical to enabling the future of equitable access to health care: ensuring prioritization of and accountability for equitable access to care; establishing comprehensive, organization-wide strategies to address barriers to access; clearly defining and incentivizing improvement on key measures related to reducing disparities in access; and establishing cross-sector partnerships to improve equitable access.

What can leaders of health organizations do to make access to health care more equitable? This paper describes four main recommendations from international health care leaders.