The Future of DEI in Health Care: How to Maintain, Protect, and Support Initiatives
For many health care organizations, necessary diversity, equity, and inclusion work has been ongoing for the past few years. After these initiatives pass the development stage, many are now experiencing roadblocks, pushback, or stagnation. What do we do now? DEI experts may be wondering.
“Now the office exists, and you’re trying to hold onto it. What are your opportunities? How do you protect it?” explains Mary Fleming, MD, MPH, president of the nonprofit Reede Scholars, Inc. and director of the Leadership Development to Advance Equity in Health Care program at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
The answer is nuanced and complex, and it depends on your unique situation—but there are some common strategies and concepts to consider if you’re embedded in this work.
Building a Safety Net: Expanding DEI Experts’ Support Network
Regardless of the status of your office, it’s critical to seek outside support for DEI work. This is especially important for health care facilities operating outside a “hub” (where other offices are doing similar initiatives). “It’s important to have a network of support outside of your organization—and not just locally, but also nationally—so that you understand how not to reinvent the wheel. What are strategies, processes, procedures that already exist?” says Fleming. “Also, when we get national DEI challenges, you already have a support network to troubleshoot them.”
It will depend on your area of focus, but Fleming notes that there are several organizations you can reach out to as a first step:
- Professional associations: If you’re a medical professional, you can join national associations (the American Nurses Association, National Medical Association, and APHA, for example) to which you can inquire about DEI resources.
- National coordination tools: As Fleming notes, the AAMC Center for Health Justice recently introduced their Health Equity Inventory (HEI) “to help institutions and community organizations communicate about their health equity work and form effective partnerships,” per their website.
- Health tech startups: Organizations like HLTH and Rock Health have annual meetings that bring people from diverse audiences to discuss innovation in health care. “It’s a different format than our academic meetings, which can stay on the beaten path,” says Fleming. “These tech companies are really pushing people to be innovative, to think outside the box, and to bring more diverse and collaborative thought processes.”
- Independent conferences: Citing Kisaco and The Future of Maternal Care Summit as examples, Fleming notes that other non-academic conferences emphasize innovation, future-oriented thinking, and interconnectedness between attendees.
These groups are important for collaboration but also for building one’s network. “This work is not industry or discipline-specific. In our industry, we can function so much in our own lane—we need to de-silo how people interact,” Fleming adds.
What Comes Next: Assessing the Future of a DEI Office
It’s also critically important to consider next steps for the office and its goals. Is it possible to push past barriers? Has the office accomplished all it can? “If you’re internal and you’re running into roadblocks, I think the question also becomes: can this work even be done from the inside? You may have to go to a different place or a different direction,” Fleming says. She notes that partnering with nonprofits and specialty organizations as “safer,” more protected spaces can be fruitful if DEI work is not productive internally.
Before you get to this stage, though, Fleming explains that DEI experts trying to make progress internally may need to change the type of conversations they’re having and the language they’re using. “Do you change your vernacular in order to achieve the same goal? What’s happening now is—because people may use words like health equity and/or diversity—the conversation stops,” she says.
Fleming notes that, in the Leadership Development to Advance Equity in Health Care program, she has conversations with participants about changing their angle of approach. “What is the problem that you’re trying to solve?” she says. “If we need to get more walk-in patient registrations, for example, we might change our signage, make it look more inclusive, and advertise it in different places.”
“The objective of the program is not to teach health disparities, but to provide leadership skills to solve major points in achieving health equity,” she adds.
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health offers Leadership Development to Advance Equity in Health Care, a health care leadership program that is designed to pioneer innovation in policies, practices, and programs that advance health equity.
