Dominic Mack, Professor of Family Medicine, Morehouse School of Medicine
Summary of Presentation:
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Minority Health (OMH) has partnered with the Morehouse School of Medicine to launch its National Infrastructure for Mitigating the Impact of COVID-19 within Racial and Ethnic Minority Communities (NIMIC). In this presentation, Morehouse’s Dominic Mack discussed how the $40 million initiative to fight COVID-19 will lead to a strategic network of national, state, territorial, tribal and local organizations to deliver COVID-19-related information to racial and ethnic minority, rural and other socially vulnerable communities hard hit by the pandemic.
The initiative builds on the work of the National COVID-19 Resiliency Network (NCRN) and plans to roll out a series of digital tools that work closely with community-based organizations around the country. A National Community Coalition Board will provide community-tested strategies that prepare culturally diverse and language-friendly media outreach materials to target communities. It will also strengthen efforts to link communities to COVID-19 testing, healthcare and social services, and to share and implement effective response, recovery and resilience strategies. Dr. Mack discussed how his team is working to roll out the initial action plan for the NCRN which will build consensus, create data hubs, and define the pre-COVID implementation landscape for COVID.
About The Presenter
Dominic H. Mack is a Professor of Family Medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) and serves as Director of the National Center for Primary Care (NCPC). Dominic leads NCPC’s promotion of health equity and population health through the development of strategies to further research, innovations and training that advance primary care systems. NCPC concentrates program development in four areas: Big Data Health Equity Research, Health Policy, Substance Use Prevention and Treatment, and Digital Health. He is the Founding Director of the Georgia Health Information Technology Center (GA-HITEC), and Georgia Health Connect (GaHC) and currently serves as the Board Chair of the GA Health Information Network (GHIN). Dominic has practiced in Georgia for many years and served in various leadership roles within nonprofit and for-profit organizations including many years of service in the US Federally Qualified Health Center system. He is Founder and past President of Mack Medical Consultants, a health advisory company dedicated to the improvement of business practices in medical organizations. Dr. Mack strives to develop national partnerships in rural and urban communities to implement equitable and sustainable community-based interventions for better health outcomes for all people.