Understanding and Diversifying for Quality

“Once a patient believes that you [the provider] understand them, we think the healing begins,” says Wayne Boatwright, vice president, cultural diversity, Meridian Health, Neptune, N.J.

The Equity of Care website currently features video vignettes of 19 health care leaders, including Boatwright, sharing their ideas and work to eliminate health care disparities, increase leadership and workforce diversity and provide culturally competent, quality care. All these leaders participated in the Institute for Diversity in Health Management national conference this past June.

Juana Spears-Slade, director, diversity and language services, AnMed Health, Anderson, S.C., discusses AnMed's diversity dashboard, which stratifies patient outcomes by race and language preference, and how it evolved into geocoding. Roy Hawkins, Jr., president, National Association of Health Services Executives, and deputy director, James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital in Tampa, Fla., emphasizes the business case for leadership diversity and the value of patient-centric, preventive care delivered by a diverse workforce. Ram Raju, M.D., president and CEO of New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, talks about breaking through cultural barriers to improve outcomes for patients with diabetes. Bonnie Hanson, former COO, Dupont Hospital, Fort Wayne, Ind., touches on the role of women as leaders in health care. All the health care leaders agree that while hospitals have improved quality of care for diverse patient populations and increased leadership diversity, more work needs to be done.