Tightening the diversity divide in healthcare leadership

Multicultural management benefits patients and providers

OAK BROOK, IL — While a majority of healthcare professionals believe in the strong benefits a diverse leadership team would bring to their organization, less than 15 percent believe hospitals have taken the plunge in closing the broad diver-sity gap within the last five years, according to a new report published by Witt/Kieffer, entitled “Diversity as a Business Builder in Healthcare.”

Witt/Kieffer partnered with the Institute for Diversity in Health Manage-ment, Asian Health Care Leaders Association, National Association of Health Ser-vices Executives and the National Forum for Latino Healthcare Executives to sur-vey 464 experienced professionals in order to determine where diversity leadership stands today. The study identifies best practices in recruiting, retaining and devel-oping more diverse top management, and gains insight into why organizations may or may not be making progress.

In the last decade, minorities have accounted for 98 percent of U.S. popula-tion growth in the country's largest metropolitan areas, creating significant pressure on hospitals to effectively serve all patients regardless of race or ethnicity. By 2050, it is estimated that minorities will represent 54 percent of our nation's popu-lation.

Survey results showed Caucasian and minority professionals perceive this problem somewhat differently. Twenty four percent of Caucasian healthcare pro-fessionals believe the diversity gap has been closed, while only 11 percent of mi-nority professionals agree.

Additionally, Caucasian respondents attribute the diversity gap to a shortage of diverse candidates, while minority leaders focus on the upper management's lack of commitment. Sixty percent of Caucasian leaders see their organizations’ cultural diversity programs as effective, while only 33 percent of minority profes-sionals agree.

Jim Gauss, senior vice president of Witt/Kieffer, said the steps to closing these diversity gaps start at the top.

"This is part of the strategic planning and visioning that is carried out by the board, the CEO and the senior management," said Gauss. "Those organizations that have been successful have sustained this work for many years. This is not a pro-gram of the month sort of thing. The basic fabric and culture not only allows them to recruit diverse management teams, but it also allows them to retain those teams."

Witt/Kieffer research has found organizations that have succeeded in repre-senting minorities in the top ranks demonstrate cultural competence at all levels and are more likely to hold loyalties of diverse markets within the community. These companies are also equipped with the right resources in order to provide the highest quality of care, improved efficiency, and in return a greater customer satis-faction accompanied by an enhanced public image.

An Asian male executive who responded to the survey wrote, “being diverse helps me take the points of views of other people into account. At the upper man-agement level, having that point of view helps nurture other diverse people into the healthcare field.”

Gauss added that while slow progress is being made to close these gaps, it is even more of a struggle for CFO positions.

“You just do not see big numbers of diverse candidates in our work sitting in the CFO chair,” he said.

At The Institute for Diversity in Health Management based in Chicago, much is being done to increase the number of racial and ethnic minorities entering healthcare administration, ensuring a large pool of diverse talent for hospitals to choose from.

“We’re a resource to help hospitals create cultural competent organizations so that the care they provide is sensitive to the populations they serve, and those are becoming more diverse every day,” said Frederick Hobby, the institute’s CEO.

The institute provides a number of educational programs aimed at preparing primarily minority graduate students for a career in healthcare administration. Many former attendees are now vice presidents and various level C-suites in hospi-tals around the country.

Hobby said he hopes hospitals will advance in these areas on a voluntary basis.

“We want to help hospitals do the smart business thing; take actions and steps that are going to improve the quality and safety of all patients, and create or-ganizations that reflect the demographic profile of the communities they serve.”