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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
  • 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
    • 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