AcademyHealth, ABIM Foundation name University of Michigan's Jodyn Platt as a Senior Scholar in Residence

The team that is working to mitigate the mistrust of the health system has a new Scholar in Residence to help guide its recently created Research Community on Trust.

Jodyn Platt, MPH, PhD will provide scholarly guidance to AcademyHealth, national health research leader, and the ABIM Foundation, which advances medical professionalism to improve health care. Her task will be to raise visibility of the trust agenda, including writing on emerging issues in trust and health care.

The Research Community on Trust, part of the ABIM Foundation's Building Trust initiative, will explore trust at an organizational level, focusing on the role of healthcare organizations in building trust among leadership, staff, clinicians, patients, and the community. An outcome will be establishing best practices for building trust within health systems and examining opportunities for measuring trust in a meaningful way. Broader issues of health equity and misinformation will also be explored.

This initiative's timing is auspicious. According to Edelman's most recent trust barometer on health, 52 percent of Americans reported that the COVID-19 pandemic decreased their confidence in the healthcare system to handle major crises.

Trained in medical sociology and health policy, Dr. Platt is an Assistant Professor of Learning Health Sciences at the University of Michigan. A key area of her research focuses on understanding what makes health systems trustworthy and the pathways for earning, achieving, and sustaining trust.

"It will be important for this initiative not only to engage with the issues and hotspots that erode or break trust, which manifested recently in misinformation and skepticism about vaccinations, but also to regain the confidence of the public in health and health care," Platt said. "I look forward to working with AcademyHealth and the ABIM Foundation to foster the intellectual community that can help us build systems better than the ones we have now."

"Given the growing importance of addressing issues of trust in our healthcare system today, we are thrilled to be working with Dr. Jodyn Platt," said Lisa Simpson, MB, BCh, MPH, FAAP, President and CEO at AcademyHealth. "She brings a rich background in exploring issues of trust in health care at a systems level."

Daniel Wolfson, MHSA, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the ABIM Foundation, echoed his enthusiasm for working with Dr. Platt. "As one of the premier health services researchers focusing on trust issues in health care, Dr. Platt is uniquely positioned to guide our efforts in building a field of trust research in health care, and we are delighted to work with her," he said.

About AcademyHealth
AcademyHealth is a leading national organization serving the fields of health services and policy research and the professionals who produce and use this important work. Together with our members, we offer programs and services that support the development and use of rigorous, relevant and timely evidence to increase the quality, accessibility, and value of health care, to reduce disparities, and to improve health. A trusted broker of information, AcademyHealth brings stakeholders together to address the current and future needs of an evolving health system, inform health policy, and translate evidence into action. Learn more at www.academyhealth.org and follow us on Twitter @AcademyHealth.

About the ABIM Foundation
The ABIM Foundation's mission is to advance medical professionalism to improve the health care system by collaborating with physicians and physician leaders, medical trainees, health care delivery systems, payers, policymakers, consumer organizations and patients to foster a shared understanding of professionalism and how they can adopt the tenets of professionalism in practice. To learn more about the ABIM Foundation, visit www.abimfoundation.org, connect on LinkedIn or follow on Twitter.