Why DEI is Critical for Healthcare to be Inclusive
To be truly effective, healthcare systems need to mirror the societies that they serve, in terms not only of gender but also ethnicity.
Many healthcare companies have diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) positions, or even departments, but these alone are no guarantee of impactful change.
In countless cities and towns across the world, multiculturalism is the norm rather than the exception, and given that certain diseases have a higher prevalence in minority populations – and that many diseases affect only women – it’s important healthcare providers take meaningful action to address gender and ethnicity inequities in health provision.
Enrique Caballero is Director of Diabetes Education in the Postgraduate Medical Education Department at Harvard Medical School (HMS). Previously, he was Faculty Director of Diabetes Education in HMS Postgraduate Medical Education, and – as a noted endocrinologist – founded the Latino Diabetes Initiative, which is affiliated with HMS.
Dr Caballero is a long-time advocate for improved care for minority populations, and stresses the importance of transcultural diabetes care.
In an interview on the HMS website, he says although “everybody's interested in DEI” there is a lack of meaningful progress in this area because “businesses and organisations throughout the sector need to buy in and participate in reform”.
He believes that all companies have a role to play here, by:
Connecting with those likely to be most impacted by their product
Facilitating minority access to health insurance
In the US, census data suggests that by 2045 non-Hispanic white people will be in the minority.
“The reality is everybody's interested in knowing how to reach different communities because they want to sell their products to everybody,” says Dr. Caballero. “That means communications must appeal to different audiences in different ways, whether in a different language, on a different medium, or with different cultural references, and for this, having a diverse and culturally aware team is pivotal.”
As well ethnic diversity, healthcare teams must also reflect the gender balance of the communities they serve.
Anita Alexander is VP of Engineering at Providence, a not-for-profit Catholic healthcare system that runs multiple hospitals and clinics throughout the US.
It has a clinical network of 300,000-plus doctors and more than 300,000 nurses who serve in 51 hospitals, 1,000 clinics and a range of health and social services across Alaska, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas and Washington.
Alexander is based in Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore) in India, where Providence India, has a specialised global healthcare engineering, operations and innovation centre. This was established in 2020 in Hyderabad, and it plays a key role in delivering healthcare technology and innovation for improved patient experience and outcomes, caregiver experience and efficiency, and enables the digital transformation and vision of Providence at scale.
Providence India, is a tech-enabled health ecosystem that collaborates with clinical teams, and leverages a range of technologies to enhance the caregiver experience and deliver better patient outcomes.
“We are transforming the clinical enterprise with digital health, modernised health system tech infrastructure, a cloud-first approach, robust cyber security and the application of AI and ML technologies,” said Alexander in a recent keynote at a technology event. “Our vision is to digitally enable health for a better world.”
Alexander added that Providence India’s caregiving team is 1,400-strong and that she is “really really proud to say that 37% of our caregivers are women”. She also reveals that 47% of its leadership roles are held by women. “This is not by accident, but design,” she says.
“We have intentionally set up platforms and programmes that help us attract, retain and grow diverse talent in a very consistent manner.”
By way of example she references Thrive, Providence India's return-to-work platform, which offers six-months internships for women who are returning to work after a break.
Healthcare: Why staff DEI is critical
Alexander says that in an increasingly technology-driven world, it is vital that organisations do not allow unconscious bias of any nature “trickle down into the technical solutions”? Paradoxically almost, she says technology can itself be used to identify points of bias.
“You need to look at different mechanisms you can use in technology to see if there is a segment or a community you are not addressing using data. This is how to identify equity gaps and address them quickly?”
She says the most important bias areas are around people and culture.
“As leaders, we might all be very intent on promoting an inclusive culture, but unless we create an environment where people can speak up it'll fall apart. So as leaders, we must create an ecosystem where people can hold each other accountable so that we are making DEI a way of working.”
Alexander has first-hand experience of such an approach working to her advantage, having herself re-entered the workforce, having been rehired after “a great deal of struggle”.
“A leader saw the potential in me, more than I saw it in myself,” she says. “The leader is a woman, and I was expecting my first baby when I was hired.”
She says that a Thrive associate has told her that being able to spend time with her fellow associates was “a memorable experience”, because she was able to learn from female leaders with diverse skills and experience. “She said the leadership support she got from Providence India helped her assimilate back into work after a career break,” says Alexander. “This drives home the importance of having a tribe of your own, because people’s stories are very different, and knowing you are not alone in that story can change the narrative for you.”
To read the full story in the magazine click HERE
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