Healthcare organizations need to create a longitudinal health equity plan, complete with funding sources and staff structuring, and not just make diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) pledges. Northwell Health began its health equity work around 12 years ago and was prepared to respond to the racial health disparities exposed during the pandemic and the unrest the nation felt in the wake of the George Floyd murders. According to the chief diversity officer at Northwell Health, the organization was already doing better. Northwell Health’s model for DEI work across the health system starts with the C-suite, where leadership has declared that health equity is a priority.
Healthcare organizations must go beyond simply pledging to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). They need to create an intentional, longitudinal health equity plan, complete with funding sources and staff structuring. Northwell Health is a healthcare organization that began its work on health equity 12 years ago as part of its partnership with Hofstra University to create a medical school. Northwell Health looked at how it could create a medical school curriculum built for the 21st century, which means acknowledging social determinants of health and health equity.
In 2020, Northwell Health was prepared to respond to the racial health disparities exposed during the pandemic and the restlessness the nation felt in the wake of the George Floyd murders. According to Jennifer Mieres, MD, FACC, MASNC, FAHA, the chief diversity officer at Northwell Health, the organization was already doing better.
Northwell Health’s model for DEI work across the health system starts with the C-suite, where leadership has declared that health equity is a priority and put forward the resources to allow the rest of the organization to get to work. These folks also report to the board of trustees, where they make decisions for allocating resources and putting together teams to do the heavy lifting of health equity work.
Overall, the Center for Equity of Care focuses on seven pillars: leadership commitment, education and development, language access, community partnerships, the workforce, supplier diversity, and gender disparities and women’s health. Throughout all of that is the concept of allyship, or the idea that an organization needs to engage people at all different levels to become involved in this work.
Northwell Health has employee resource groups that focus on veterans’ needs, environment and sustainability, LGBTQ+ representation, cultural diversity, and more. Underpinning all of this is a deep sense of trust between leadership, organization staff, and the patients who are impacted by DEI efforts. Building that trust had to start small.
Mieres said this model has set Northwell Health up for success not just for the culture shift that happened in 2020 amid glaring COVID health inequities but also for the quality measurement changes that are down the pike. “The time has run out for having this as a nice to do or mission-critical thing to really, it’ll translate into dollars and cents.”
Leave a Reply