Healthcare innovators launch alliance to close the health equity gap in the U.S. underserved and rural communities

The multi-year commitment between National Health IT Collaborative for the Underserved (NHIT) and Sanitas USA reimagines healthcare systems that are digitally connected, aware, and adaptive to family and community needs.

The alliance between NHIT and Sanitas USA will focus on incorporating digital health solutions, providing health expertise, impactful patient-centered management practices and the creation of a health safety net. Their strategies and solutions will be provided through an integrated ecosystem of information technology health tools, quality medical assistance, social services, and community engagement to deliver coordinated, equitable, compassionate, and effective services and treatments to help address healthcare disparities in disadvantaged and rural communities. The alliance will initially focus on communities in Florida, Tennessee, Texas, New Jersey, and several U.S. Territories.

For more than a decade, NHIT has been the nation's leading voice, advocating for the equitable delivery of health IT across all populations and bringing new approaches and insights to transform underserved communities.

“Through countless listening sessions and boots-on-the-ground engagement, we know that people in communities all around us face a complex set of challenges that make it difficult to live healthy lives,” said Luis Belen, NHIT’s Chief Executive Officer. “NHIT’s partnership with Sanitas USA will play a pivotal role in launching digital health initiatives aimed at improving access to quality healthcare and addressing critical social determinants that create barriers to health.”

“Sanitas, and our parent company Keralty, have supported the care of people in underserved communities for more than 40 years,” said Emilio Herrera, Keralty’s Chief Global Officer. “We’re excited to work with NHIT to incorporate culturally-relevant digital health tools to extend the impact and scope of our unique integrated care model that improves access to quality primary and urgent care while reducing the total cost of care. We believe that integrating healthcare with social services and community engagement is a much more effective model than the traditional healthcare system on its own.”

About NHIT

NHIT is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization on a mission to provide equitable access to health technologies and to make sure that these technologies address the needs of underserved communities and communities of color. Since its founding in 2008, NHIT has worked to advance health equity and economic viability on issues such as broadband access, electronic health records, precision medicine, consumer health applications and disaster resiliency. NHIT has collaborated with Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Tyler Technologies to launch the NHIT Data Fusion Center, to tackle and translate social determinants of health (SDoH) data into actionable insights.  For more information visit NHIT.org.

About Sanitas, a Keralty company

Sanitas USA is a subsidiary of Keralty, a leading multinational health organization serving more than 6.5 million people with presence in Spain, United States, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, Peru, and the Philippines. Sanitas also includes educational and socially focused organizations that complement its world of health mission. In the U.S., Sanitas has 58 medical centers serving more than 350,000 patients throughout Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Connecticut, and New Jersey in close partnership with local leading health insurance organizations. Sanitas brings a unique integrated care model that improves access to quality and culturally relevant primary and urgent care while reducing the total cost of care. For more information visit mysanitas.com.