On this episode of "Shades of Freedom", we take a look at the intersections of the health care system and the justice system. For many communities, both systems rely on emergency or crisis response approaches, which can lead to unhealthy, and unjust, results for individual and neighborhoods. What is justice within health care? What would constitute health within the justice system? We’re joined by Tasha Blackmon, President and CEO of Cherry Health, a major provider of health services in Grand Rapids, MI, for a view into what it means to create health justice in one mid-sized American city.
Guest Biography
Born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Tasha Blackmon is a dynamic, collaborative leader, mentor and coach who brings more than 20 years of business operations experience to her role as President and Chief Executive Officer of Cherry Health, Michigan’s largest Federally Qualified Health Center. Cherry Health provides integrated health care services to over 55,000 patients in Barry, Kent, Montcalm, Muskegon, Ottawa and Wayne counties in Michigan.
During her 16 years with Cherry Health, Blackmon has championed health justice through aggressively disrupting healthcare disparities. Her experience comes from an operational perspective, having established high standards of care utilizing a health equity lens to treat an individual’s health needs holistically, rather than symptomatically. She has led numerous large-scale expansion and development projects and held six positions within Cherry Health before becoming CEO in 2018.
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, The Aspen Institute is nonpartisan and does not endorse, support, or oppose political candidates or parties. Further, the views and opinions of our guests and speakers do not necessarily reflect those of The Aspen Institute.
Visit us online at The Aspen Institute Criminal Justice Reform Initiative and follow us on Twitter @AspenCJRI.
Shades of Freedom
Episode 16
Beyond Crisis Response: Health and Justice
Guest: Tasha Blackmon
August 8, 2022
Copyright 2022 Aspen Institute Criminal Justice Reform Initiative
Announcer: (00:00)
Welcome to Shades of Freedom from the Aspen Institute's Criminal Justice Reform Initiative. Be sure to never miss an episode by subscribing to Shades of Freedom on your favorite podcast app. This episode's guest is Tasha Blackmon, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cherry Health.
Tasha Blackmon: (00:19)
Health justice is the dismantling of systems and structures that perpetuate racist systems and policies. And I think in order to get there, you've got to take a look at these things that are impeding our patients, our populations, specifically diverse and historically marginalized communities, from being able to access healthcare.
Dr. Douglas E. Wood: (00:51)
Welcome to Shades of Freedom. I'm your host Douglas Wood, director of the Aspen Institute's Criminal Justice Reform Initiative. Our guest today is Tasha Blackmon, a leader whose organization works to heal its patients and their communities. She is the president and CEO of Cherry Health, a nonprofit health center in Grand Rapids. Cherry Health provides high-quality medical services to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay including returning citizens and undocumented immigrants. Cherry Health brings healthcare to 80% of low-income families and Grand Rapids, Tasha's hometown, and provides integrated services to over 55,000 patients in the state. Tasha strives to treat patients' health needs holistically and to make healthcare more equitable, just, and accessible. It's an honor to have her as a guest today. Tasha, welcome to Shades of Freedom.
Tasha Blackmon: (01:47)
Awesome. Thank you, Doug. I'm so happy to be here today.
Dr. Douglas E. Wood: (01:51)
Tasha, what inspired you to leave the corporate world and your career and business to work in a nonprofit healthcare field?
Tasha Blackmon: (01:57)
I got to a place in my career that I really wanted my personal values to be in alignment with the mission, vision, and values of the company I chose to work for. And it wasn't that I didn't feel accomplished in corporate America, but I will say that I did not feel completely fulfilled in corporate America. And through a chance meeting, I actually ran into the prior CEO of Cherry Health just at several events. And it got to a place where we were both showing up at the same events. And I said to him, tell me which organization you represent. So, then he told me about Cherry Health and I was amazed that an organization like Cherry Health had existed in my community at that time since 1988.
Tasha Blackmon: (02:57)
And this was 2005. So, I found a way to pay off some debt and to be able to afford the “nonprofit life” as we so carefully call it because it was a pay cut. But from the moment I walked in the door at Cherry Health, I felt like I had found my place. I felt like this was my purpose. This is where I was supposed to be. And I've been here ever since then.
Dr. Douglas E. Wood: (03:29)
That's great. In our work at the Criminal Justice Reform Initiative at Aspen, we understand justice to take on many forms. So how do you define and think about justice within the context of healthcare?
Tasha Blackmon: (03:44)
For me, it's my belief that healthcare is a fundamental human right. Every person deserves not just any healthcare, they deserve quality, affordable healthcare. And because of that right, this is where justice and healthcare for me intersect.
Dr. Douglas E. Wood: (04:05)
And what do you see as the biggest obstacle in the way of achieving a just health system?
Tasha Blackmon: (04:12)
I think you have to really define what health justice is and health justice is the dismantling of systems and structures that perpetuate racist systems and policies. And I think in order to get there you've got to take a look at these things that are impeding our patients, our populations, specifically diverse in historically marginalized communities from being able to access healthcare, and not "better than nothing" care, I'm talking quality healthcare, where their outcomes are impacted because of that organization's intervention. And for me, when I stepped into this FQHC world, federally qualified health center world, I knew that there were these thoughts that if you go to an FQHC, the care is watered down, you're going to receive subpar and substandard care. And when I had an opportunity to engage with Cherry Health, I saw that wasn't true. I actually saw that Cherry Health had equitable healthcare for all communities, but we also understand that healthcare is not enough. It's just a part of the justice landscape that I think has to be addressed before people can realize what it means to be truly equitable and truly equal in this society.
Dr. Douglas E. Wood: (05:48)
And in what ways does Cherry Health go beyond only treating patients' physical health?
Tasha Blackmon: (05:54)
Yes. So what we do is we partner with many organizations across the community to ensure that our patients have access to places to live, for example, to food if they're experiencing food insecurities. We also have a social enterprise within Cherry Health where our patients can receive training to become certified interpreters. So we're really trying to move our patients and our community from poverty to prosperity. That's really our goal. And whatever that means to those individuals. We're trying to take them from a place where maybe their health hasn't been the priority, because they've been worried about where they're going to live or how they're going to feed their family, or whether they live in a safe neighborhood. We want to try to remove all of those barriers from their lives so they can focus on being their best selves, which I think speaks to what it means to be free, right?
Dr. Douglas E. Wood: (06:58)
Absolutely. So, at the Aspen Criminal Justice Reform Initiative, we're focused on how the criminal justice system can be thought of as part of what we call a "crisis management approach" to managing neighborhoods and communities and hospitals, particularly emergency rooms are also a part of managing crises. So what do you see as the drawbacks of approaching community governance through such perpetual crisis management approaches? Who is most harmed by this approach?
Tasha Blackmon: (07:31)
The entire system is harmed by that approach because when you think about the excessive use, for example, of the emergency department, it's basically more reactive and it costs the entire health system more money. It's much more expensive to treat someone after their medical condition has progressed to a point that now they need extensive care. When we start to talk about primary care and a medical healthcare home, we start to talk about how we can be more proactive walking alongside those patients to improve their health status. We meet them where they are in that moment, and we develop a relationship with them. And when you handle primary care through the emergency room, we all lose. Everybody loses. Because one of the things you're doing is you're also presenting a barrier to the folks who actually really need the emergency room. So organizations like Cherry Health and other federally qualified health centers across the United States are really effective in providing access to care for individuals who otherwise wouldn't experience it.
Dr. Douglas E. Wood: (08:52)
I'm glad you brought up emergency rooms. So my question, building upon what you just said is, are there other ways the healthcare system intersects with the justice system other than through emergency room services? For example, how does the provision or lack of provision of mental health services in a community impact policing?
Tasha Blackmon: (09:16)
Oh, it's interesting that you would say that because there was a study done at the University of Michigan that showed that the sixth leading cause of death of African American men is police use of force. Number five is cancer. Do you know what I mean? So, there's definitely an intersection between the two. And I think when Cherry Health, and organizations like Cherry Health, think about healthcare, we think about it from a more holistic standpoint. We think about health justice. And I think that justice is realized when we receive equity across all parts of society, whether it's legal, education, employment. All parts of society, I think, have to work together for people to experience true equity.
Tasha Blackmon: (10:12)
But when I think about... You mentioned justice as it relates to policing, we've had some concerns in our community just recently where I think that as a county, as neighborhoods, we've had to really grapple with how justice, or the lack thereof, has perpetuated some of the things that we're seeing locally, as well as nationally, and how there's a responsibility for healthcare providers to be able to speak to some of these issues that, again, are not going to be solved overnight, but that present... You talk about behavioral health concerns, mental health is a major, major problem among, you think about folks that are dealing with policing.
Tasha Blackmon: (11:13)
It's a major problem among a large part of society, especially when you think about the pandemic that we've all just faced. And for many of these individuals, they may have a medical issue in addition to a co-occurring mental health problem. And you can't treat those separately. You have to treat those together, which is why Cherry Health really takes on a platform of integrated care, where you've got your medical provider, your behavioral health provider are working together on patient care because your head is attached to your body, right? So you've got to take care of both. You can't take care of those independently and expect to have a good outcome. So there are definitely impacts to mental and emotional health when you're not having your basic needs met when there isn't justice in your community, again, regarding employment and all of those things that I mentioned earlier. Those are necessary in order for us to again, reach a place of equity in our communities.
Dr. Douglas E. Wood: (12:27)
We've been intentional on this podcast about uplifting the voices of women of color.
Tasha Blackmon: (12:34)
Yes.
Dr. Douglas E. Wood: (12:35)
So as an African American female health administrator, I want to get your reaction to this quote from Todd Clear's seminal book titled Imprisoning Communities: How Mass Incarceration Makes Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Worse, in citing the work of researchers, Thomas and Torin, Todd Wright's quote, "The pressures on men for safe sex and monogamy are reduced as the ratio of women to marriageable men gets very high. They found that incarceration rates in one year predicted later increases in rates of gonorrhea, syphilis and chlamydia among women." So where you have these spatial concentrations of high rates of incarceration, it has a direct relationship on the health of women. What are your thoughts about that?
Tasha Blackmon: (13:34)
These are just disparities that you're mentioning. And I think that when you impact any part of historically marginalized people's families, there's a downstream impact. I would actually imagine that impact actually extends even to the children, for example, for whatever reason, maybe mom needs to now get treated for the STI. So she can't buy food, or maybe dad is in prison, so the child goes without. So, no, I think that the point that this particular passage makes is very well taken. These things are interconnected. And again, when I think about justice as it relates to even the men being in prison, I would ask the question, were some of these people wrongly imprisoned? So let's start there. What kind of representation did those individuals have? Cherry Health just recently received a grant for a medical legal partnership, which means that our patients who have a need for legal services...
Tasha Blackmon: (14:55)
So they're medical patients who have a need for legal services that may not even have anything to do with their immediate healthcare situation. It could be that they've been evicted from their home or that they're fighting for social security. We're able to now connect them to those services. So I think the question I would ask about that is first and foremost, was justice served in even locking that father up? I think that all of the pressures that men, specifically African American men in society face, I think that sometimes there's not an outlet to be able to deal with some of those things.
Tasha Blackmon: (15:37)
And I'm not making excuses because there is no excuse, but I think that we have to meet people where they are in those moments and teach them that there's better. There's more. There's a different path because there is a downstream impact to women and families when men who are carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders, choose to manifest that stress and trouble in ways that are unhealthy for themselves and for their families. And I think we have to get to the root of why is some of this happening? That's where mental healthcare comes into play. That's where trauma informed care comes into play.
Dr. Douglas E. Wood: (16:23)
Earlier in the conversation you talked about disparities with regard to healthcare, has COVID changed your approach to your work and how have you seen it create even more injustices in the healthcare system?
Tasha Blackmon: (16:36)
Yeah. Healthcare disparities existed prior to the pandemic. The pandemic just illuminated the disparities that were already there, and they're going to be here after the pandemic. I think for us, at Cherry Health, it's elevated our work, because our work is addressing healthcare disparities. It is addressing the fact that someone's social position or the circumstance that they find themselves in their life shouldn't place them at a disadvantage for attaining good health and what that means to me is a longer life. So when you ask the question about health disparities, I don't think that it personally has changed from my perspective, because this is the work we've been doing all along. I think that the COVID 19 pandemic just shone a light on the disparities that exist. And it's exposed some of the structures and policies and systems that continue to perpetuate those disparities.
Tasha Blackmon: (17:51)
So my hope is that... And I've actually seen, even from a funder's standpoint, they're requiring... They want to know what you're doing around DEI. They want to understand how the money will be utilized to disrupt disparities. And I appreciate that. So I've definitely seen a difference from a funder's standpoint in terms of the questions that they're asking, the sustainability plans that they're requiring you to put into place, and the fact that they're taking disparities seriously. And again, it's been refreshing for us to see because we've always been doing this work all along.
Dr. Douglas E. Wood: (18:40)
Tell us about your correctional health program for returning citizens.
Tasha Blackmon: (18:45)
We understand that health takes on so many different forms and we are not just working to rehabilitate the person so that they serve their time, and then they're back on the streets. We want to get to the heart of the issue, which means that we do trauma therapy with these folks. We provide job skills training and even placement with these individuals. And that is why the folks that go through our program are three times less likely to recidivate than with other programs across the state. So we've got a statewide contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, because quite honestly, our strategy, it works. It works so that people are not ending back up in the system, but that's why we call it correctional health because we see the rehabilitation taking on more than just biding your time.
Tasha Blackmon: (19:52)
You've got to have value and meaning coming back out of the criminal justice system so that you don't go back. You also have to have a job where you're able to take care of your families. I mean, in our Detroit location, we've got individuals who work for the city. They have city jobs, and I think that with all of these different industries saying that there's workforce shortages, they're leaving out an entire population of individuals who want to be gainfully employed, who want jobs that they can take care of their families when you're not looking at those folks that have come out of the justice system. Because again, many of them, they're not looking to recidivate. They just don't want to make $10 an hour working at McDonald's. They want a career. They want to be able to take care of their families and live a decent quality of life.
Dr. Douglas E. Wood: (20:51)
Are there any stories about a particular patient or moment that you feel really stands out and illustrates Cherry Health's mission?
Tasha Blackmon: (21:03)
There are so many amazing stories that I could share on your podcast, but one story that sticks out. I was waiting to catch the elevator to the administrative suite and a woman had gone up with me, but she looked confused. So I asked her, I said, "hey, can I help you find one of our departments?" And she said, "I'm actually trying to go back to the parking garage." And I said, "well, wow, you've got a beautiful smile. Did you get some good news today?" And she said, "I got some good news today." And I said, "well, what was your good news?" She said, "as of today, I am officially the longest living member of my family." Wow. And I was like, okay. So I want to hear more about this. She said that her mother, father, brother, and sister had all died of heart attacks in their early '50s.
Tasha Blackmon: (22:06)
All of them. Her whole family had been wiped out. And she said because of her relationship with her care team at Cherry Health, with her access to medications through our pharmacy, with the mental health services she received that day was actually her birthday that made her the oldest living person in her family. And I was just like, when you think about the impact that we are making, that has the possibility of transforming generations because she has children. And her point was, we were raised to think you're not going to live past 55. And she was like, and now I can share with my kids. It's possible. You have to listen to your doctor. You've got to take care of yourself. And I mean, that was just a touching moment for me, because I saw all of our services coming together to help this one person defy what was her legacy, which was to not live beyond 55.
Tasha Blackmon: (23:12)
So to see that was just heartwarming for me. And I've shared that story with my team because we have mission moments at every meeting. And a mission moment is where we share a patient's story. We share some triumph that has happened across the organization, because I think you can get bogged down with the day to day of the expectations, especially as it relates to FQHC care because it's coming fast and furious. And it's always important for us to reconnect to our why. Why are we here? Why are we passionate about this work? And stories like that, get me every single time.
Dr. Douglas E. Wood: (23:58)
Wow. That is really a powerful story. It really truly is. And I love the idea of mission moments. We always ask our guests the same final question, which is when you hear the phrase Shades of Freedom, what does it mean to you now and into the future?
Tasha Blackmon: (24:21)
Wow. So let me just say this. As I think about Shades of Freedom, I've got to think about what shade means. So I remember growing up, I would always read a book under a specific Oak tree because it would block the glare of the sun. So it allowed me to have a better reading experience. And in that example, the Oak tree offered shade. So shade is a dark area that results from an object that blocks light. And when I think about the degree of darkness in the shade that has to do with how intrusive the object is that blocks the sun from coming in. So for me, Shades of Freedom is about the gradual reduction of the constraints that we face as people over time resulting in the removal of those objects that keep us from living our most productive, fulfilling, equitable, and authentic lives. So that's what it is for me. That's probably a mouthful, but I am a very philosophical thinker. So those kinds of questions are my jam.
Dr. Douglas E. Wood: (25:42)
It's my jam too. As a matter of fact. Yes. Well, Tasha, what a pleasure to have you on Shades of Freedom. We're so blessed to be working with you in Grand Rapids with the justice and governance partnership, and we'll be following your wonderful work at Cherry Health and your career ahead. Thank you so much for being a guest today.
Tasha Blackmon: (26:04)
Thanks, Doug. I appreciate the opportunity.
Announcer: (26:10)
Thanks for joining us for Shades of Freedom from the Aspen Institute's Criminal Justice Reform Initiative. We'll be back soon with more thought-provoking guests. So please subscribe on your favorite podcast app, or you can find all of our past episodes by visiting our website at www.aspeninstitute.org/cjri. This podcast was engineered and produced by Natalie Jones with research assistance by Willem Patrick. It was edited by Ken Thompson with production support by Christian Devers and Wanda Mann. CJRI's programs were made possible by support from Arnold Ventures, The Balmer Group, the Bank of America Charitable Foundation, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, the Ford Foundation and Slack.