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2020 Board of Directors

Thanks to a health equity grant delivered through a collaboration between the American Hospital Association’s Institute for Diversity and Health Equity (IFDHE) and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois (BCBSIL), Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago extended free diabetes education services to uninsured and underinsured patients through its accredited, self-management diabetes education program offered by its Diabetes Community Center (DCC).

Breaking the ice can be complicated! How can hospitals and health systems create trusting environments that make interactions between patients and health care providers more comfortable and inclusive? Join Keith Stinson, RN and emergency department nursing director at Chatham Hospital, serving a mostly rural area of North Carolina, and Kimberlydawn Wisdom, MD, senior VP and chief wellness & diversity officer at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, as they describe their innovative staff training methods addressing the dynamics of unconscious biases, how to avoid uncomfortable interactions, and successful strategies for heightening bias awareness in the workplace. Both hospitals, operating in completely different clinical settings, are 2020 AHA Carolyn Boone Lewis Equity of Care Award honorees.

In this Advancing Health podcast about Cone Health and how it has pioneered educational sessions for its physicians about social and racial influences in health care, Darren Henson, Director of Operations with the AHA’s Institute for Diversity and Health Equity, speaks with three members of Cone Health’s leadership team: Laura Vail, Director of Health Equity, Dr. Alvin Powell, Chief Health Equity Officer and Paul Jeffrey, President of Cone Health’s Wesley Long Hospital. Cone Health, winner of the AHA’s 2020 Equity of Care Award, has been recognized for its innovative process and creative steps that hospitals and health systems can incorporate to achieve similar success in advancing health equity.

This session will explore strategies and internal enabling conditions for hospitals and health systems to advance health equity and simultaneously improve their business performance through an explicit focus on racial equity. Ryan De Souza, Associate Director at FSG, will share insights from the FSG report “Health Care and the Competitive Advantage of Racial Equity: How Advancing Racial Equity Can Create Business Value.” Kate Sommerfeld, President of Social Determinants of Health Institute at ProMedica, a Toledo-based non-profit health care system, will bring the insights to life by sharing ProMedica’s story on how it’s approaching this work. The strategies implemented by ProMedica are rooted in community and multisector partner alignment and help promote racial equity.

By focusing on improving health equity, hospitals can provide tremendous value to patients and the overall health care delivery system. Strategies for eliminating health care disparities, along with additional guidelines and best practices, are highlighted in this new resource that’s designed to help health care organizations refresh their commitment to advance health equity in their communities. It’s also a useful guide for initiating new steps toward eliminating health inequities for all individuals.

In this continued discussion, Elisa Arespacochaga, vice president of the AHA’s Physician Alliance and interim executive lead for the AHA’s Institute for Diversity an Health Equity, talks with Juana Slade and Anton Gunn about their efforts to learn more about the patients they are serving through REAL data collection, stratification and utilization.

Diversity, inclusion and cultural competence training are imperative for health care organizations, as the U.S. demographic landscape continues to change. The need to understand these changes and develop sustainable business strategies for success requires leadership to manage the intersection between diversity and health care business strategy. For health care organizations, accomplishing this goal will positively impact patient experience, employee engagement, leadership development, service excellence, as well as safety and quality. Diversity & inclusion, along with community engagement, serve as support pillars for our critical focus on overall health equity. A health care organization with a robust diversity strategy can improve the overall health of their local community by helping to eliminate health disparities and reduce the cost of care.

The AHA Institute for Diversity and Health Equity has renamed the award to honor the first African American and first hospital trustee to chair the AHA board, who was a tireless advocate for equity of care.

In a video highlighting Kearny County Hospital’s innovative efforts to attract physicians and improve health equity, Duane Reynolds, president and CEO of AHA’s Institute for Diversity and Health Equity, and John Supplitt, AHA’s senior director of AHA’s Constituency Sections, join with leaders from the hospital and community to discuss the importance of addressing the unique needs of a rural population.

The Institute for Diversity and Health Equity (IFDHE) can help you plan for a more diverse future and provide tools to meet today’s challenges.

The Carolyn Boone Lewis Equity of Care Awards are given annually in recognition of outstanding efforts among hospitals and health care systems to advance equity of care to all patients and to spread lessons learned and progress toward diversity, inclusion and health equity.

Institute for Diversity and Health Equity homepage. It is our vision to empower health organizations to provide equitable care for all persons. Our mission is to advance health care equity, diversity and inclusion.

  National Conferences   2021: Accelerating Health Equity Virtual Conference  2018: Stengthening Our Roots: Expanding Our Focus in Diversity, Inclusion and Health Equity - Chicago, IL.  2016: Accelerating Health Equity through Diversity and Inclusion - Philadelphia, PA. 2014: Equity: Moving Beyond Diversity - Chicago, IL.

IFDHE’s biennial DEI Benchmark Survey provides a snapshot of member and non-member hospitals’ attitudes and practices regarding diversity in the workforce; leadership and governance; equity; and inclusive policies and behavior.

Institute for Diversity and Healthy Equity (IFDHE) Team Members

The Institute's Summer Enrichment Program (SEP) places diverse, graduate students pursuing advanced degrees in health care administration or a related field in 10-week, paid internships within health care organizations.

Diversity, inclusion, cultural humility and health equity are imperative for health care organizations, as the U.S. demographic landscape continues to change and regulatory agencies continue to implement requirements to improve safety and quality, reduce health care disparities and create more affordable care for patients. This certificate program works to train leaders who can build a more robust diversity strategy in their health care community.

IFDHE welcomes you to the Online Resource Center. Here you will find links and downloads of the latest studies, information, news, and data designed to help hospitals diversify their workforce and better serve their diverse patient populations. We hope you check back often to take advantage of our growing resource database.

Diversity Dialogue Webinars are one of the most popular programs in which a different nationally-renowned speaker discusses a topic of pressing concern in health care. While enjoying the audio presentation, attendees log in via a computer and view the accompanying slideshow presentation.