A primary focus of all health care organizations is the reduction of health disparities. While there are several causes, changing demographics have challenged organizations to adapt more flexibly to patients as well as increasing diversity among their employees. “Pain points” in health care organizations connect to health disparities and include:
- Improving patient experience through safety and quality of care
- Healthcare reform implementation
- Low patient satisfaction
- Employee disengagement and dissatisfaction
- Patient complaints regarding cultural differences
- Reducing costs
Case Study: Oregon Center for Nursing
The mission of OCN is to ensure a superior nursing workforce in Oregon communities. Their commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion has provided the basis for our partnership with them, leading to our involvement in their education program. We have provided OCN with all-day conferences that focused on implicit bias; cultural identity; emotional intelligence; communication styles; understanding and managing inter-professional conflict; having courageous conversations; leadership issues. These sessions also offered continuing education credits and have been very well attended and highly rated.