In a conference panel titled “ ‘Shecession’: Resilience of the Female Workforce in the Wake of Pandemic,” panelists discussed the experiences women in healthcare encountered during the past 18 months, which often involved having to quit their jobs to care for children or another family member who was sick.
When it comes to the past year, one word sums up the experience for women in healthcare, a panel of women leaders say. It was, in all respects, overwhelming. From work to home, new stressors and unknowns created chaos and change. Single mothers had to balance their children’s remote schooling with their direct-care jobs. Some women sent their children to a relative’s home to reduce their risk of infection. Others left the workforce to juggle caregiving responsibilities. “In the practice of medicine, everyone is feeling overwhelmed from just the incredible complexity of taking care of patients during this pandemic where information was ever evolving, ever changing,” Dr. Ruth Chang, chief people officer at Northwest Permanente, said during a panel discussion at Modern Healthcare’s Women Leaders in Healthcare conference. “Every single decision, every single small decision in life and work felt like potentially a lifesaving or life-ending decision. So it really was overwhelming for our staff, and in particular the women who tend to take on a disproportionate burden of the emotional work and the domestic work for their families.” Those challenges disrupted the industry’s pipeline of potential women leaders, putting a greater onus on administrators to be intentional about improving both equity and equality in leadership, the panelists said. “This is our opportunity to redefine what leadership looks like and what the expectations are of a leader and start to chip away at those gendered expectations that exist in our society,” said Dr. Susan Thompson Hingle, associate dean for human and organizational potential at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and a past chair of the American College of Physicians’ board of regents. That starts by creating a culture in which women healthcare workers feel supported, valued and respected, the panelists said.
5 tips to level the gender imbalance in healthcare leadership Provide practical support, like childcare, for working mothers. Create a mentorship program for less experienced workers. Develop a sponsorship program to help workers directly advance their careers. Be intentional about your efforts to improve gender equity. Make a plan that is realistic and measurable.
Insight from Bill Robertson, president and CEO of MultiCare, and Ernie Sadau, president and CEO of Christus Health
Doing so involves offering flexibility, not just with when or where work takes place, but with expectations, Thompson Hingle said. “We’ve not seen women come back to the workforce in the same numbers that they left the workforce at the height of the pandemic,” Thompson Hingle said. “I am concerned about the pipeline. I’m concerned about how to entice them to get back into the workforce.” At Baptist Medical Center South in Jacksonville, Fla., the hospital held re-recruitment fairs to check in with employees. They asked if workers were thinking about leaving and what types of things, like remote, hybrid work or flexible scheduling, would help entice them to stay, said Nicole Thomas, hospital president at Baptist Medical Center South. “We’re even reaching out to those who have left us over the last year to offer a return as though they had never left,” Thomas said. Part of the challenge is not only enticing workers to come back but enabling them to do so, Chang said. Women who are physicians and have a gap in their practice often need help navigating proctoring exams and other hoops to return to active practice, Chang said. Beyond that, changing benefit structures to offer things like parental leave instead of maternity leave can help empower women, too, she said. “By signaling that we offer paid parental leave for either parent, that really signals men need to be participating in the care work in the domestic sphere as well,” Chang said.
In a conference session on the roots of inequity, panelists explain how they’ve addressed racism, civil unrest, violence and other challenging issues with their community and within their organization.
Roots of social inequity run deep
The roots of inequity related to health, housing and nutrition often stem from discriminatory policies. Banks, for instance, would deny insurance, loans and other financial assistance to people of color who purchased homes in certain neighborhoods. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Social Vulnerability Index highlights the lasting impact of those decades-old policies as people in segregated neighborhoods disproportionately suffer from chronic disease, said Dr. Nwando Olayiwola, chief health equity officer at Humana. “When you are talking about the social problem without talking about the structural predecessor, then I think you miss an opportunity,” she said. “We have to really get comfortable talking about those causes, otherwise we’ll continue to solve the immediate problem but not necessarily rectify the things that led to it.” Racism is a public health crisis, experts said, emphasizing that violence should also be viewed through a public health lens. Organizations should collaborate with community-based groups that bring the voice of the people most affected by racism and violence, said Mary Pittman, CEO of the Public Health Institute. “Bringing the trusted voices to the table, whether it is in COVID, HIV or hypertension, is something that we’ve learned,” she said. “Sometimes leadership means taking a stand and doing it publicly. We have a duty to speak out.” Humana asked churches, schools and other community-based partners how to get the message out about testing, public health precautions, vaccination and overcoming some of the understandable fears, mistrust and skepticism, Olayiwola said. “It is really important to leverage those relationships, both internally in understanding, examining and hearing your workforce and also using the partners you have outside of the organization,” she said. Northwell Health assembled internal groups to understand how the organization’s hiring practices and policies could contribute to systemic racism, said Dr. Debbie Salas-Lopez, senior vice president of community and population health at the health system. “There’s always something that comes up that we were blind to,” she said. “The pandemic provided us with an opportunity to convene a health equity task force to ensure the safe, effective and equitable distribution of the vaccine. Today, we have over 100 community, faith-based and tribal nation leaders that meet every three weeks with government officials so we can talk about the inequities, not only about COVID, but the inequities that have long existed in our communities.”
“Some of those informal, tangible, thoughtful ways of connecting outside of the workplace are really important as you move through your career.” Ruth Krystopolski, the senior vice president of the population health division at Atrium Health.
Building a network in isolating circumstances
It’s easy to feel like an impostor when you take on a new leadership role, said Dr. Helen Burstin, CEO at the Council of Medical Specialty Societies. “You lose your cohort of people who knew how good you were, and all of a sudden you are in a new group and they are judging you,” she said. “Impostor syndrome, unfortunately, is real for many of us.” Burstin, for instance, accepted her first chief executive role about three years ago at the Council of Medical Specialty Societies, which represents about 800,000 physicians. She surrounded herself with women who have taken on turnaround roles, which helped her overcome feelings of isolation. “I knew it was going to be a major reboot,” Burstin said. “I assembled a kitchen cabinet of people I trusted, mainly women but not all women, particularly those who had experience taking on something very new and a little bit outside your comfort zone.” Early in her career, Ruth Krystopolski, now the senior vice president of the population health division at Atrium Health, was the only woman who held a president role at her organization. She assembled five other women who had similar roles in her area and organized monthly Bunco games. “It was a real meaningful connection for about four or five years and some of those folks are still in my informal network even though I moved to another city,” Krystopolski said. Time is the most valuable and limited asset for young leaders, said Sherry Glied, dean of NYU Wagner School of Public Service. While it’s natural to set aside time to meet fellow leaders, the best type of networking isn’t under a rigid framework, she said. “There is something just about hanging out, and finding circumstances where you can be relaxed with people and build up that casual network,” Glied said. “It is very hard to carve out the time to do that, but it is so important.”
The disabled deserve inclusion, speaker says
When Cara Yar Khan was first diagnosed with hereditary inclusion body myopathy 15 years ago, people tried to limit her ambitions. The progressive muscle-wasting disease has bound the international human rights advocate to a wheelchair. As a result, some advised Yar Khan to change her travel-heavy career, stay single and give up the hope to have kids. “Our value as human beings is inherent,” she said during her keynote address. “We never need to earn the love of others if we can learn to love ourselves. For me, this was the foundation of becoming truly resilient.” Yar Kahn continued her work with the United Nations, even after she needed two canes and leg braces to walk. She worked in Angola in 2007, as the African country was recovering from 27 years of civil war. It was there she met Sonia, a pregnant 14-year-old girl who walked for three days to a rural clinic. She and her baby had tetanus, a common occurrence among children with little access to vaccinations. Neither Sonia nor her baby survived, Yar Kahn said. “Our sense of purpose was fortified because we knew if we strengthened our efforts as a team, we could expand vaccination coverage and save other babies’ lives,” she said. “It is a powerful faith to hope and hold on to.” In Madagascar, Yar Kahn met Aisha, who was born with a cognitive disability. Her parents never registered her because they did not want to be shunned. She could not access aid, and her epilepsy went untreated. Yar Kahn had been hiding her disability from her employers, until the day she met Aisha. There is nothing to fear or be ashamed of in having a disability, Yar Kahn said. “It is how we are shunned and excluded that is shameful,” she said. “It is the barriers to our full inclusion and participation that must be stopped.”
“The motivation is not just about the individual clinical care, but how do you make sure that in a disaster and every day you can find people at the population level. That started me on this journey of digitization.” Dr. Karen DeSalvo, chief health officer at Google.
Speak up and be in the game
When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, the storm wiped out many of Louisiana hospitals’ paper patient records. That compelled Dr. Karen DeSalvo, who was at Tulane University School of Medicine at the time, to pursue a technology-oriented healthcare career. “It was the emotional moment knowing I had lots of patients who were on blood thinners, chemo regimens or HIV regimens and we didn’t know how to find them because we didn’t have a database for population-level management,” said DeSalvo, now chief health officer at Google. “The motivation is not just about the individual clinical care, but how do you make sure that in a disaster and every day you can find people at the population level. That started me on this journey of digitization.” Careers resembled a winding path for DeSalvo, Phoebe Yang, general manager of Amazon Web Services’ healthcare division, and Diane Comer, chief information and technology officer at Kaiser Permanente. Most dreamed of getting into the creative arts, but navigated to technology fields in healthcare. “If I were to go back and talk to my 27-year-old self, I would say the notion of meritocracy itself needs to be defined for yourself,” Yang said. “The way we measure success in particular subsegments may or may not align with the end goal you have in your life. Figure out what you are innately passionate about; it doesn’t have to be a job description. It is more likely to be a posture—the posture of helping, solving problems, asking questions, creative expressions. In those late-night moments, the posture that feels most natural and fulfilling to you will fuel you.” Speak up earlier, Comer said. “It took me a long time to figure out that asking the questions, speaking out, having an opinion is probably one of the most valuable things you can do,” she said. “You don’t even have to be confident, you just need to be in the game. You don’t need to be right, but it does matter that you have an opinion and you are engaging with others to learn from them and shape your own ideas.”
Panelists representing providers, payers and other stakeholders delved into initiatives that their respective organizations have rolled out over the past few years to make leadership opportunities more abundant to both people of color and women.
Women leaders weigh in on DEI for a new future
Tanya Stewart Blackmon, the chief diversity, inclusion and equity officer at Novant Health in North Carolina, wants to see more women of color in decision-making roles inside healthcare organizations. She says 20% of the Novant executive team are women of color, while 82% of their total workforce are women. “Once you get there you have to turn around and bring others along with you and not be just satisfied that you have reached there yourself,” Blackman said during the “Equal Approach? Reducing Racial Inequities in Healthcare” session during Modern Healthcare’s Women Leaders in Healthcare conference. Blackmon said it’s critical to institutionalize a way for women to move into leadership roles, so Novant started a year-long program for women with high potential that helps them develop executive presence, confidence and prepares them for expanded areas of responsibility. At least 50% of women who graduate have been promoted or have gained additional duties.
Committing to gender diversity
68% of women leaders polled at Modern Healthcare’s Women Leaders in Healthcare 2021 conference said they have more opportunities now to advance their career than they did five years ago67% said providing career advancement for women is a priority for their organization57%however, said they’ve been passed over for a promotion based on their gender
Source: Modern Healthcare’s Women Leaders in Healthcare 2021 Conference Survey
At Sinai Health System in Chicago, the largest safety-net hospital in the city, CEO Karen Teitelbaum said they invested in a dedicated office for DEI to focus on both being more equitable for patients and for employees. The system set a goal for leadership to mirror its community, and went from having 38% of the top 200 leaders being people of color to 52% over a two-year period. “For a safety net, that’s a big investment that historically had been thought of as a luxury, but we felt so strongly that we at Sinai have to address disparities,” Teitelbaum said. Tonya Adams, chief of customer experience and operations at Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon, said her company has a formal mentorship program that emphasizes working with women and people of color. Adams said telehealth has been integral, especially in expanding access for members, especially in terms of mental health. “As we saw the isolation, whether it was with internal team members or those in the community that we serve, sometimes folks just need someone to talk to,” Adams said. “I want more providers to get into the network because if you’re truly going to meet people where they are, don’t talk about it, do it.”
Source link : https://www.modernhealthcare.com/people/keeping-leadership-pipeline-flowing-through-covid-19
