Continuing the Work
Thanks to continuing work of equity, diversity, and inclusion across campus, we are moving forward towards eliminating anti-Black racism at University of Utah Health. We recognize racism as a public health crisis and believe anti-Black racism is one major cause of health disparities that we observe in our society. Our first step is to initiate anti-racism audits in every academic and administrative unit at U of U Health, with the goal of eliminating any practice that appears to permit systemic racism. We will also judge the systems by their outcomes, not their intentions.
- Work at the Health Sciences level:
- $1 million in scholarships for black students
- Matching challenge to Office of Advancement of $1 million in scholarships for underrepresented populations
- Established an Anti-racism Commission that is coordinating efforts to advance goals and improve the organization’s culture
- Creating new positions:
- an assistant dean for Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the School of Medicine will be an integral part of the Health Sciences Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion leadership team;
- GME IDEALS committee
- $1 million in scholarships for black students
- MEDiversity Week
- Inaugural edition held November 2-6, 2020
- The mission of MEDiversity Week is to highlight the equity, diversity, and inclusion work within U Health
- Addresses health care disparities and offers solutions for the training of our current and future providers.
- Includes presentations on the research and practice of our own U of U Health faculty to address access to care
- Workshops and discussions on how to continually advocate for equity and inclusion in our daily personal and professional lives.
- Stay tuned with the MEDiversity Newsletter as well as the Office for Health Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion for more information
- Work at the Hospitals & Clinics level:
- Creating a new position, Senior Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, to further guide and strengthen collective efforts
- Racism Is a Public Health Crisis
- Weekly three questions video in Spanish with Dr. Gomez
- Adding EDI criteria for sponsorships considerations
- Ongoing Work
- Each Health Sciences unit, including Eccles Health Sciences Library, has EDI committee
- OHEDI doing workshop training on Identity Power & Race
- Social identification of relational power, how that affects power structures and privilege, intersectionality, microaggressions
- Pipeline programs to increase diversity representation in Health Sciences campus
- Health Sciences LEAP program
- Patient voice — highlight underrepresented groups
- Community reads — always focused on health disparities
- Future Plans:
- Ongoing diversity reports at livestream meetings
- Participate on UHA EDI Committee
- Possible shared KPIs with UHA/IHC
- Caregiver Equity KPI: Achieve diversity of caregivers, leaders, physicians and APPs equal to the community.
- Patient and Member Equity KPI: Identify disparities in safety, quality, experience, access, and stewardship and realize decreases in targeted disparities.
- Community Equity KPI: Identify disparities in morbidity rates by gender, education, race, and ethnicity and realize decreases in targeted disparities