Supporting education and leadership.
The Problem
Many students from underrepresented backgrounds who are interested in executive leadership in healthcare organizations do not have the same privileged access to resources and networks as their majority counterparts.
Moreover, they have even less access to executives from similar backgrounds that can offer guidance in navigating the workforce to rise through the ranks of healthcare leadership. Thus, they are often missing out or have less robust real-world educational experiences that are more readily available to others. These real-world educational experiences are a crucial component of a well-rounded education and professional support system in healthcare management.
...and Impact
The impact of the problem stated above was made clear in a 2013 survey conducted by the American Hospital Association’s Institute for Diversity in Health Management and the Health Research & Educational Trust showed that while 31% of hospital patients are minorities, only 12% of hospital executives, 14% of board members and 17% of the first level and mid-level leadership positions are held by minorities (Institute for Diversity in Health Management, 2013). These demographics indicate that there is a severe disconnect between the cultural knowledge and experiences of the communities receiving healthcare and those of the people who are making decisions to positively impact comprehensive healthcare delivery in that community. Other industry surveys and research confirm that progress toward healthcare leadership and board diversity has not been close to sufficient.
A 2015 survey by Witt Keefer succeeded in showing that it is possible to trace incremental progress in closing the diversity leadership gap in healthcare. However, it was also clear that well-recognized barriers to greater leadership diversity still exist, and that there continue to be challenged in breaking down these barriers across the industry.
Today’s students.
Tomorrow’s leaders.
If healthcare organizations are truly committed to delivering comprehensive care to their communities and to improving individuals and collective overall health, they must first understand the cultural norms, belief systems, and motivations that drive the members of that community. This level of understanding can only be achieved when healthcare board members and executives develop highly qualified senior executive teams with the diverse cultural backgrounds, life experiences, knowledge, skills and experiences representative of the community it serves.
Dedicated to change.
At Watson Leadership Development Foundation (WLD Foundation), we strongly believe that the lack of C suite diversity is not always apparent, or viewed as a strategic priority by many healthcare executives. Our primary goal is to positively impact the health of our communities by supporting the development of highly qualified diverse candidates and thereby promoting greater diverse representation in healthcare leadership. In addition, we will identify more successful approaches to help inform and educate healthcare leaders about the issue. By partnering with academic healthcare faculty and organizational executive leadership to train and develop more diverse leadership teams, we believe that over time we will begin to experience a noticeable positive change in the issues identified in the Witt Keefer survey.
