During my Bard MBA in Sustainability Employee and Organizations class, we had the good fortune to have Alan Nevel, SVP, Chief Diversity and Human Resource Officer for MetroHealth Systems in Cleveland speaking to us on "Fighting 2 Pandemics on 1 Front-COVID-19 and systemic racism"
MetroHealth serves the health needs of communities across Northeast Ohio. Integral to fulfilling its public health mission and vision for health equity, their community engagement is focused on improving health outcomes for everyone, including underserved populations in the Cleveland and surrounding communities.
Alan shared MetroHealth's DEI transformational journey to promote a culture of inclusion for all stakeholders-patients, staff, and community members. While MetroHealth was already on a DEI journey, the trajectory of the journey changed with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing awareness of racial inequity in our society. While these inequities are not new, MetroHealth has made addressing inequities an actionable priority. Here are their goals for racial equity and inclusion.
In order to drive these changes, they have undertaken an assessment of their patient experience to better understand how patients perceive their care and treatment based on a variety of classifications including insured patients, Medicaid patients, and Medicare patients. They are ensuring that their values and culture align with building an inclusive culture. They have produced a number of Healing Begins with Listening videos that both highlight challenges and share best practices for promoting a culture of inclusion. Alan has spearheaded efforts to review human capital management policies and procedures to ensure that they are not bias against segments of the employee population. Their mission is to ensure that each and every employee is valued and treated with respect at all levels of the organization.
While much of the aforementioned work focuses on improving racial equity, they are committed to equity for all. They have changed their medical records to reflect gender identity and name preferences for patients. They are hosting a virtual transgender job fair later this year to improve the opportunities available to members of the transgender community. In addition, they took steps to increase their minimum wage to $15 per hour in 2019 to provide a living wage for all employees.
While the journey continues, MetroHealth 's DEI transformation and impact both internally and externally serves as a source of inspiration to us all.
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