As the world continues to grapple with the novel coronavirus pandemic, while maintaining essential health services, we are filled with gratitude for all those who have supported Ariadne Labs this last year. It is this generosity that has enabled our work to positively impact more than 88 million patient lives in 2021.
2021 was a year filled with both new and familiar challenges, but through the uncertainty, we remained focused on developing innovative models of care that promote integration across the public health and primary health care spectrum, ensure health care equity so that everyone, everywhere can access the same life saving bundles of care, and make the experience of health care safer and more responsive.
The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to magnify both local and global health system failures. Despite living in a time where medical and technological breakthroughs are happening at a record pace, so many around the world continue to suffer due to breakdowns in the systems that deliver care. Even the best breakthrough innovations fail to deliver impact/get lost in these gaps — the COVID-19 vaccine that never makes it into someone’s arm, the primary care doctor unable to access or interpret genomic information to help their patient, or the patient who lives too far from a hospital to receive adequate treatment, to name a few.
At Ariadne Labs, we call these systemic breakdowns “know-do” gaps — the gaps between what we know should be done, and what actually occurs in our health care systems. We have the breakthroughs to save countless lives around the world. We need the follow-through solutions to close the gaps that are preventing these innovations from reaching every patient, everywhere.
In this report, you’ll see TeamBirth’s progress in making labor and delivery safer and more human-centered for more than 67,000+ mothers and babies, and the Primary Health Care team’s success in measuring the strength of primary health care systems in 23 countries. You’ll learn how we are seeking to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in all areas of the health care system, including in the care of people giving birth and those facing serious illness. You’ll read about our Home Hospital team’s work to bring acute care into the homes of patients around the country, and our Precision Population Health initiative’s work to deliver on the promise of genomics in primary health care. Through all of this work, we are closing gaps in safety, communication, and integration that stand in the way of safe, effective health care for patients around the world.
Breakthroughs make headlines. But without follow-through, their potential for impact falters.
