Health Equity Consulting

Digital Health Strategy Services

Public Health Innovators helps health sector clients to develop and implement a digital health strategy that will improve patient engagement and equity. Founder Amy Sheon also works with technology companies to ensure that innovations reach populations that have been left behind. She has helped more than two dozen organizations including health systems, governments, academic, philanthropic, community, non-profit, and commercial organizations.

Typically, she will meet with a client to determine their needs, figure out who needs to be at the table, and then understand the situation in the context of local conditions such as broadband access and availability. She and the client then identify measurable goals, select strategies, and a timeline for completion. Amy often identifies appropriate local and national partners, and then develops a plan for training, quality assurance and evaluation.

Dissemination of lessons learned, best practices, or research-proven findings brings recognition to clients and increases the impact of their work.

What We Do

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PROJECT 1

Digital patient engagement

Public Health Innovators trained community health workers and health system employees to serve as digital health patient navigators. Digital health navigators screen patients for their gaps in devices, connectivity and skills needed to use the internet; refer patients to community organizations to address these gaps, and train them to use digital health tools such as telehealth, patient portals and remote monitoring devices.

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PROJECT 2

Understanding health disparities through mapping and open data

As Research Director for a national Telehealth Equity Coalition that launched in February 2021, Amy is assisting the National Health Information Technology Collaborative for the Underserved (NHIT-C) to establish the Data Fusion Center to tackle intergovernmental data challenges and to translate social determinants of health data into actionable insight and stories that resonate with the affected communities and their local governmental, civic and educational leaders. Amy has identified data sets relevant to telehealth equity, mined them for important findings, and shared insights through interactive charts, maps and stories.

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PROJECT 3

Virtual Reality Empathy Training

Recognizing the transformational potential of VR to increase understanding of racism and social determinants of health, Amy assembled a team, co-led by Dr. Scott Frank at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, that created the Neighborhood Immersion for Compassion and Empathy VR Simulation Training. Public Health Innovators facilitates workshops for organizations interested in understanding racism as a public health crisis through immersive experiences and advises groups seeking to create VR experiences to increase empathy and understanding around the social determinants of health.

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PROJECT 4

Public Health Innovation: The Cleveland Medical Hackathon

In 2015, Amy established and led the public health innovation track of the inaugural annual Cleveland Medical Hackathon. She recruited and mentored public health practitioners and community stakeholders to participate and helped all competitors access and use public health data and data visualization resources in their solutions. Teams she mentored won top prizes every year of the competition.

Clients

Federal, state and local government organizations

Health systems

Philanthropic, advocacy and community organizations

Technology start-ups

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"The training videos were absolutely amazing!"

"Since 2016, Amy has inspired and trained Community Health Workers to be digital justice warriors who advocate for and help vulnerable populations to use the internet to improve their health and their lives. With the COVID-19 pandemic making digital skills essential, the model that she developed with our TRI-C students could be adopted to ensure that vulnerable populations can keep themselves and their families safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. Amy is a committed community partner and social justice champion."

"Our digital navigator is now ready to begin the pilot. The training videos were absolutely amazing! Each video was packed with so much valuable information. I can’t thank you enough!"

Digital Health Coordinator, Cleveland, Ohio hospital

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"The educational material was eye opening."

"Thank you for the training presentation. I greatly appreciated your help and the insight from Ashbury Senior Computer Community Center. This added a level of organization to my role as Digital Health Navigator, which will hopefully lead to a more effective engagement with the senior citizens.

Moreover, the educational material from last week was eye opening. Specifically, the connectivity disparities directly caused by decades of discrimination is infuriating. I attended a health equity talk on MLK day by Dr. Agnes Binagwaho. After speaking with her, she indicated to me that one of the best ways to battle health disparities is by giving agency to the community. In the era of Covid-19, virtual access is fundamental for all forms of equity. It is an honor to be working to mitigate the effects of digital health disparities in Cleveland."

"Thank you for the training presentation. I greatly appreciated your help. This added a level of organization to my role as Digital Health Navigator, which will hopefully lead to a more effective engagement with the senior citizens. Moreover, the educational material from last week was eye opening. Specifically, the connectivity disparities directly caused by decades of discrimination is infuriating. It is an honor to be working to mitigate the effects of digital health disparities in Cleveland."

Daksh Bhargava, Research Assistant, Dept. of Family Medicine and Community Health, University Hospitals and Case Western Reserve University, School of Medicine

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"Amy is a wonderful thought partner..."

"As an early adopter in the use of data visualization and storytelling, Amy brings passion, perseverance and innovative thinking regarding the social determinants of health to help motivate community-level change. Her clarity and focus on problems with digital access from long prior to the pandemic has helped me and countless others to understand the digital divide as a matter of health equity. Amy is a wonderful thought partner so it’s exciting to see her expanding her work from Northeast Ohio to the whole nation. "

Andy Krackov, National thought leader on data visualization and storytelling, President, Hillcrest Advisory Formerly, Associate Director, External Engagement, California Health Care Foundation

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"Dr. Sheon is my go-to source..."

"Dr. Sheon is my go-to source for cutting edge public health innovation and insight. Her work evidences a clear understanding of how to shape health policy by blending community preferences with scientific perspectives on community health improvement."

Adam Perzynski, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Medicine and Sociology MetroHealth and CWRU

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"Amy truly cares about making the world a better place."

"Over the years, I have worked with Amy Sheon on numerous innovative initiatives such as the Cleveland Medical Hackathon, Infant Mortality, Social Determinants of Health and more and each time the results are outstanding and impactful. Truly the community benefits when Amy is engaged. Recently, Amy provided in-depth research and analysis for The Wisdom Collaborative in Lake County identifying areas of focus required to address Digital Inclusion. Amy truly cares about making the world a better place."

John Paganini, MBA, CPHIMS, President, Paguar Informatics, Inc., Program Chair of the The Wisdom Collaborative

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"I am using some of your research to convince the President..."

"Yesterday I was part of a meeting to brainstorm with Ursuline College's president about goals for the next three years. I brought up broadband in particular and internet access since at least 10-15% of our students still lack the resources for effective distant learning. I thought you might like to know that I am using some of your research to attempt to convince the President and the Board of Trustees to add more resources to solving the problem. Most of our students come from Northeast Ohio, so these articles are directly relevant."

Pamela McVay, Ph.D., Professor of History, Ursuline College