Taking health care DEI to the community: Moving beyond your four walls

These two parallel issues, however, actually present health care leaders with a unique opportunity—to not only affect positive change within their organizations and communities—but also to demonstrate through action that they are committed to health equity, driving positive results, and developing workplace cultures that are diverse, empathetic, and meet the needs of a more socially conscious workforce.

By implementing a multi-dimensional approach to engaging with patients, staff, and family caregivers, health care systems are better equipped to measure progress, hold teams accountable, and commit to ongoing optimization of their stated Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. In the process, providers can also create positive, inclusive experiences that deeply impact the entire care continuum.

Taking DEI beyond your organization

DEI efforts within health care organizations and among patient populations are inextricably linked together. It's extremely important for health care organizations to support meaningful DEI initiatives within their own institutions to attract and retain top talent, improve business results and morale, and better represent the communities they serve. There are also a number of actionable approaches—often using tools and systems providers already have in place internally—to implement multidimensional DEI initiatives that impact their wider community.

Patient, caregiver and staff engagement across the entire care continuum—through the use of rounding and outreach technology solutions—can help organizations better understand and measure the effectiveness of their existing DEI initiatives and commitments, their progress toward creating cultures of caring and inclusion, and ultimately, their ability to affect change within the communities they serve. Here are some key factors to consider in the planning process of a multidimensional DEI approach:

Create and articulate your strategy

Every organization must develop and articulate the strategic intent that drives its DEI initiatives. It is critical to have executive sponsorship that drives commitment and accountability throughout the organization. For health care organizations, frameworks like the Institute for health care Improvement's Framework for Improving Health Equity can be particularly useful. health care leaders should determine how their mission to reduce health inequities and disparities should play out across every level of the organization. This is also the time to determine the tools and programs that will be used to measure progress and achieve goals.

Establish metrics and outcomes

It's a good idea at the outset of the process to establish a "health equity index." This can be done in part by examining existing quality improvement and performance improvement strategies and identifying areas where inequalities for marginalized communities exist. Targets should include areas where performance on measures like patient or customer satisfaction scores is significantly lower for underserved groups, women, and/or LGBTQ+ patients or customers. Specific areas to track may include:

• Patient and family satisfaction
• Staff turnover and satisfaction
• Issues identified, including legal complaints
• Resolutions and actions taken
• Recurring themes and issues in need of additional education or action plans

Leverage ongoing engagement and recognize achievement

Aside from scoring and metrics through traditional means like satisfaction scores, health care providers can monitor DEI strategic progress and identify opportunities for improvement through existing patient and staff rounding processes, as well as post-discharge outreach. Through rounding scripts that are tied directly to areas for improvement in an established health equity index, hospitals can obtain real-time feedback that can be operationalized immediately. This real-time data can help amplify the voice of the customer, enable immediate action when necessary, and identify systemic trends to be addressed through education or policy change.

Additionally, it's important to recognize success. Leaders should avenues for staff members to recognize each other publicly for jobs well done and spread the good news far and wide through newsletters and other mediums when their organization is meeting its benchmarks. Sharing progress publicly demonstrates true investment in DEI and encourages systemwide buy-in.

Educate and adopt

All members of the organization should understand the commitment to DEI and the fact that compliance is expected. A top-down approach with full executive support and ample educational opportunities is essential for success, and DEI programming should be integrated into all HR programs like recruitment, training and development, leadership development, performance management, staff recognition and more.

Diversity, equity and inclusion, particularly applied to a patient population, does not have an end state or a final point. It is a continuously evolving journey that can and should change based on the needs of the community. By endlessly striving toward diversity, equity and inclusion, both inside and outside hospital walls, providers can not only ensure that they can attract satisfied teams that represent the communities they serve, but that they are making profound impacts on community health, quality of life and individual health outcomes.

Jennifer Compagni is chief people officer at CipherHealth.

Read more: 

• To improve health outcomes, address health equity
• Health equity: We still have a lot of work to do
• The difference between DEI words and actions