Where Health Equity Meets Experience: Providence Health Plan's Innovative Approach

Providence Health Plan is transforming healthcare by integrating health equity, member experience, and quality outcomes. Timshel Tarbet, Chief Healthcare Equity and Experience Officer, and Randi Escobedo, Head of Healthcare Experience and Advocacy, share how their approach aligns with Providence’s mission to serve the poor and vulnerable.

Reimagining Healthcare: Where Equity and Experience Converge

What does the intersection of healthcare experience and health equity mean at Providence Health Plan, and why is it essential to fulfilling your mission?

Escobedo: At Providence Health Plan, our mission is to serve the poor and vulnerable, and our promise is to know, care for, and ease the way for our members. Healthcare experience and health equity are fundamental to this mission. We’ve aligned these efforts with quality care to improve outcomes and ensure members receive the right care, in the right way, at the right time.

The healthcare system is complex and challenging to navigate, especially for those facing language barriers or cultural mistrust, which worsen disparities. By prioritizing health equity and experience, we address systemic issues and ensure members get the care they need.

Tarbet: When we talk about our promise—to know, care for, and ease the way—the key word is "me." "Me" is unique for everyone, highlighting the intersection of health equity. Each person’s experience is different, and Randi’s team ensures we understand how these individual experiences impact equity, access, and other factors. "Me" is central to this approach.

From Siloed Initiatives to Integrated Strategy

How has your approach to healthcare evolved to position equity as a fundamental component rather than a separate initiative?

Escobedo: Initially, I viewed healthcare experience and health equity as separate but related, adding equity as a pillar to our experience strategy. Over time, I realized they are inseparable—health equity is fundamental to the healthcare experience.

Now, we’ve fully integrated health equity into our experience strategy. For example, as we redesign our digital ecosystem, including self-service tools and portals, we ask: What does a culturally competent digital experience look like? It goes beyond translation—we consider members’ individual needs and apply this thinking holistically across our digital platforms. These discussions are now a natural part of how we operate, ensuring we address member needs comprehensively.

Tarbet: I also think it provides a level of ownership, not just to the healthcare experience and health equity team, but it cascades throughout the organization. When I first started from a health equity standpoint, I was talking about a widget that we needed marketing to put onto our website. I was owning and driving it, but then they took it and drove it, asking, "What about this? What about that?" They took a sense of ownership.

When initiatives sit in silos, it creates a mentality of "that's their responsibility," and "I don't really own it." The way Randi has set things up, and how the organization is leaning into it, is that equity is what we do—it's embedded into the grain of the organization.

Creating a Culture of Care That Transforms Member Experiences

How does cultivating a strong internal culture of care at Providence directly translate to improved experiences for members?

Tarbet: I'm going to approach this from a different angle. One of my responsibilities is our internal caregiver work around caregiver comfort. If you have caregivers who aren't comfortable talking about or calling out inequities or challenges, then you don't have a culture that can problem-solve, break down silos, and create ownership across the organization. We need to set our caregivers up for success, which means creating a culture where they can own and talk about these things and have the knowledge to do it.

Escobedo: Timshel emphasizes the internal work with caregivers, but we’ve also focused significantly on members. Two years ago, we established a dedicated healthcare experience division to unify efforts that were previously siloed.

By integrating healthcare experience into a key governance committee, we created a common strategy across functional areas. This committee oversees strategy, prioritizes initiatives, reviews metrics monthly, and ensures quality and health equity are core to our approach, enabling a holistic focus on member experience.

Tarbet: Quality metrics like Medicare Stars and CAHPS ratings reflect outcomes influenced by multiple areas of the organization. A member’s CAHPS response isn’t just about a mammogram—it’s about medications, treatment by the health plan, or language access during calls. Members experience healthcare holistically, thinking, “I dealt with Providence Health Plan.” To improve outcomes, we must break down internal silos.

Data-Driven Approach to Understanding Disparities

What quality metrics have proven most valuable in understanding member experiences and identifying disparities?

Escobedo: Data is essential to understanding our members’ healthcare experiences. We rely on the Voice of the Customer, including CAHPS surveys and verbatim feedback, to identify sentiment, pain points, and areas for improvement.

For example, analyzing call data revealed a high volume of Medicare member inquiries about annual consent forms—a pain point we addressed. We also review appeals, grievances, and hold call listening sessions with leaders. Additionally, the health equity team focuses on social determinants of health (SDOH) using Z codes to track issues like food insecurity and transportation challenges. This comprehensive data helps us identify disparities, refine strategies, and create long-term solutions.

Tarbet: The health equity team is taking a deeper dive into our overall data. We look at results by population but then examine sub-populations to understand where we might see differences in outcomes. We're constantly trying to ensure that when we implement something, we're continually assessing it and testing it—not just assuming it will work.

Escobedo: I'll emphasize what Timshel said—taking the data and looking at it through segmentation by race, gender, ethnicity, language spoken, age, and other factors. This highlights why it's so important and beneficial to have experience, health equity, and quality under the same umbrella, allowing us to think about our work comprehensively for our members.

Addressing Social Determinants for Better Health Outcomes

How is Providence Health Plan identifying and addressing social determinants of health that impact members' experiences?

Tarbet: We’re addressing basic needs for underserved communities, such as allowing food purchases instead of just medications, providing transportation to medical appointments, and supplying air conditioners or heaters for Medicaid members. For unhoused members, we help with phones or pet care during doctor visits.

Health isn’t just about medical care—it’s ensuring access to food, shelter, and other essentials. When we can’t meet every need directly, we collaborate with partners to fill the gaps.

Escobedo: Our integration with the Providence delivery system allows us to support members holistically, combining health plan and clinical care. We collaborate closely with health equity teams and community resources to maximize impact.

This year, we’re introducing Special Supplemental Benefits for the Chronically Ill (SSBCI), offering a $250 quarterly stipend for food and produce to members with chronic conditions. By addressing barriers like food insecurity, we aim to prevent worsening conditions and promote health, not just sick care.

Innovative Programs That Address the Whole Person

What innovative approaches has your team developed to incorporate social factors into healthcare experience design?

Escobedo: Our care management team runs the "Food is Medicine" program for members facing food insecurity. Depending on need, they receive gift cards, food pantry boxes, or ready-to-eat meals, paired with weekly one-on-one sessions, health coaching, and SDOH support.

What sets this program apart is its individualized, culturally competent approach—food options are tailored to members’ medical, cultural, and personal preferences, ensuring unique and impactful support.

Tarbet: I want to emphasize that point. Having been at other plans that do "Food as Medicine," it's often a one-size-fits-all approach that doesn't account for cultural considerations. As a result, people don't engage, and it doesn't help them stay or get healthier. When you have the flexibility to be culturally appropriate for each member, that's key to success.

Embedding Cultural Sensitivity Throughout the Member Journey

What specific changes have you implemented to ensure cultural sensitivity is embedded throughout the healthcare experience?

Tarbet: We’ve implemented mandatory health equity training organization-wide, with the health equity team now offering cultural sensitivity training for specific teams. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, showing how it shifts perspectives.

We address the fear of making mistakes by emphasizing that errors are part of learning—I’ve shared my own experiences to model this. This creates a safe environment for engaging with members confidently.

Additionally, we’ve implemented programs like our Spanish-speaking care navigators to support Spanish-speaking members throughout their healthcare journey.

Escobedo: Since Timshel joined, our culture has transformed positively. She’s a proactive leader who implemented training and programs while fostering a safe environment. Mistakes are seen as learning opportunities, creating a culture of empowerment.

Team members feel comfortable discussing cultural sensitivity and competency with peers and Timshel’s team, benefiting both our members and internal culture.

The Future of Equitable Healthcare

What do you see as the next frontier in creating more equitable healthcare experiences?

Tarbet: The industry must improve access to the right providers at the right time, leveraging nurse practitioners and rethinking service access points like vaccines. More critically, we need to create pathways for underserved populations to enter healthcare professions—nurses, doctors, and beyond.

Diversity in healthcare teams matters. Patients should see providers who reflect their communities, not just support staff. Currently, entering these professions is costly and lengthy, and provider demographics lag behind the country’s changing population. We must address this gap to ensure equitable care.

Escobedo: Healthcare is at a turning point, requiring innovative care delivery models. The outdated one-size-fits-all approach is failing, and extending telehealth waivers is crucial to expanding access.

We must prioritize prevention and keeping people healthy rather than overloading the system when they fall ill. It’s about addressing root causes, not just treating symptoms. Prevention is essential as chronic conditions and illness severity rise.

Tarbet: We need to work together better and break down the silos—not just within our health plan, but between hospital systems, pharmacies, and payers. We need to come together to solve these problems rather than pointing fingers. That collaboration is what will ultimately make healthcare equitable.