FAQs

Close the Gap is a Boston Scientific health equity initiative focused on empowering providers to reduce health inequities that women and people of color often experience through outreach and education. Our mission is to close the health inequity gap by increasing awareness, improving clinical representation, and empowering providers to address treatment disparities. At this time, our program focuses on addressing treatment inequities in heart and vascular diseases.

We provide:

• Data on four kinds of cardiovascular disease prevalence by zip code
• Analysis, benchmarking, insights, and consultation to make data actionable
• Disease-specific resources for referrers to give to patients
• At-a-glance information about barriers to specialty care
• Disease-specific resources for providers to give to patients
• Media outreach tools to engage stakeholders
• Marketing assets brandable for your organization

We can provide a data-driven understanding of your community’s needs. Contact us for a Disparity Index Report that highlights existing inequities in your specific catchment area. This allows you to look at burdens of disease at national level, compared to your local area.

We’ve learned providers need to have a combination of interest, passion, and commitment order to successfully champion health equity programs with us. Your organization should also have:

• A strong value of health equity
• Ongoing or emerging health equity programs
• A Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) culture
• A passionate interventionalist physician
• A caring team with administrative support

Our Close the Gap team usually works directly with a passionate physician, administrator, and a core team of healthcare providers, marketing, nursing, community engagement, community constituents, and others wanting to reduce specialty care disparities. This group creates the program strategy and tactics aligned to your mission and capabilities, with the goal of improving access to care. All programs are customizable, and we encourage innovation and creativity.

Some efforts can include:

• Using our Disparity Index Report to connect with leadership and motivate peers to act
• Putting our “Black Americans and Heart Disease” content on their hospital website
• Adding our heart risk assessment on their patient-facing website
• Handing out patient education materials at a local health fair
• Connecting with community members through virtual health summit talks and sharing patient education materials in the exhibit booths
• Rebranding our “Understanding your patients” and sharing them at a meeting with referring providers