Dr Georges Benjamin: Healthcare Diversity Has to Start at the Very Top

Starting at the very top, with boards and management is one way that healthcare institutions can better diversify their workforce, and doing so will make health equity achievable, said Georges Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

Transcript (modified)

What strategies are or should healthcare organizations and medical schools employ in order to improve diversity in the healthcare workforce?

Well, you know, we’re looking in trying to get healthcare institutions to start at the very top. So diversifying their boards and their management, teaching about bias and unconscious bias and what they are, trying to look at data, getting good data to understand how various populations are both treated within your system and what those outcomes are. And they’re coming up with collaborative, effective solutions to actually close the gap between the health outcomes.

How can we achieve health equity in the US?

I think we have to recognize that health equity is something that we can achieve, that it’s not unachievable. Too often we say these problems are too big to solve. But they’re not. We’ve seen it happen and it requires data-driven decision making, commitment to equity, and recognition that diversity is important.