Where to Start With Health Equity

Podcast

Season 1, Episode 1

Let’s start with what we believe to be the biggest issue in healthcare: health equity. We like to think that our health system is meant to serve everyone, but we see further disparities when we look at access by race, gender identity, sexual orientation, location, and many other factors. 

As healthcare leaders operating in our own tiny pieces of a gigantic system, what can we do?

Join Chris Hemphill as they guide us through conversations with some of the people driving change and hear how they’re strategizing, leading organizations, and using data-driven approaches. 

Resources 
End Racism in Healthcare Outreach Presentation with University of Chicago Booth School of Business Center for Applied AI

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chris

Chris Hemphill

VP, Applied AI & Growth
Actium Health

actium
zachary

Dr. Zachary Hermes

Cardiology Fellow
Brigham and Women’s Hospital

bwh
sheetal

Sheetal Shah

Senior VP
Woebot Health

woebot
evelyn

Dr. Evelyn L. Lewis

President and Chair
Veterans Health and Wellness Foundation

veterans-health
heather

Heather Fernandez

CEO, Co-Founder
Solv

solv
dorothy

Dorothy Hoffman

Access Innovation Lead,
Healthcare Innovation Center
Pfizer

Pfizer
 logo
ben

Ben Chao

President, CareConnect
MultiCare Health System

MultiCare logo
priscilla

Priscilla McCloskey

Head of Product
Actium Health

actium

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Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Consumer experiences, major disruptors and AI tech are shaping healthcare for years to come on. On Hello Healthcare, we dive deep on these issues with leaders who are driving change. We hope that their stories will drive you to demand or create a better future.
 
Chris Hemphill (00:20):
Hello Healthcare. And welcome to the first episode of our brand new podcast. We explore the hidden side of healthcare by speaking with people who are solving healthcare’s biggest challenges through strategy and data. Why? Diving deep on issues like consumer experiences, health equity, and engagement strategy can help you to do something different. As we drill into these topics with leaders and doers driving change, we hope you have fun, but we also hope that something sticks, drives a change and maybe you even come on the show and talk about it. We’re going to kick off this show with what we believe to be the biggest issue in healthcare, health equity.
 
Chris Hemphill (01:00):
The CDC says that health equity is when each person has a chance to reach their full health potential, regardless of socially determined circumstances. We’ll dig deeper on this in a minute. Also from the CDC, nearly one in 10, people have been unable to access medical care due to cost. That means that if you know 50, a hundred or 200 people, you probably know many people who can’t access care due to cost. Cost is just one of the issues impacting equity, access and overall health. We like to think that our health system is meant to serve everyone, but we see further disparities when we look at access by race, gender identity, sexual orientation, location, and many other factors.
 
Chris Hemphill (01:46):
As healthcare leaders operating in our own tiny pieces of a gigantic system, what can we actually do? Well, Mr. Roger’s mother said that, “Whenever we see a crisis, we should look for the helpers.” So let’s talk to them. Let’s talk to the helpers. Let’s learn what they’re doing, how they’re strategizing, how they’re leading organizations and even how they’re using data driven approaches. We’ll look at some of the people that are driving change and we’ll even look at how health systems can address disparities within their own hiring and employment to help get the right people to solve the problem. It’s a big topic. So let’s start by further exploring what health equity actually is.
 
Dr. Zachary Hermes (02:30):
I’ll start with health equity, because I think that’s an important distinguisher that we talk about, the difference between health equity and healthcare equity.
 
Chris Hemphill (02:39):
That’s Dr. Zachary Hermes, cardiology fellow at Brigham and women’s hospital. He’s got a background in medicine, along with public health and law, all at the same time. He’s got an MBA from Harvard Business School and an MD and law degree from Emory University.
 
Dr. Zachary Hermes (02:56):
What we’re really talking about with health equity is creating the environments and ecosystems that create a fair and just opportunity for all to be healthy as possible. Again, equity is about recognizing the barriers that prevent really this emergent quality, which is health. When we talk about health care equity, there, what we’re talking about is really recognizing the disparities that prevent people from accessing care, recognizing that there’s a differential burden of those obstacles in addressing and investing where the burden is greatest. So I think those are two important distinctions, but the equity piece is essential in both.
 
Chris Hemphill (03:39):
Dr. Hermes joined us to discuss health equity as the north star for health organizations. He discussed the need to rebuild trust between the traditional healthcare model and underserved populations and the role that leaders in patient engagement and marketing can play.
 
Dr. Zachary Hermes (03:56):
I think it’s actually very relevant to the audience. In audience, that, to my understanding is thinking about marketing, patient engagement. And I think it actually, again, really is closely tied to health equity, ’cause recognizing again, that those barriers to health equity are represented in housing disparities and inequity, in transportation, disparities and inequity and food insecurity, economic instability. When you’re trying to engage a patient, who’s dealing with these barriers, but you want to engage them to come in for their colonoscopy, but you’re not at all recognizing that these barriers are often at the front of their mind, you are going to maybe not be fully understanding why you’re not successful.
 
Dr. Zachary Hermes (04:39):
So I think particularly is we kind of continue to move forward in this arena and ecosystem where we actually have much more holistic pictures of patients leveraging social determinants of health data, really being able to be thoughtful about, okay, we recognize this healthcare need, but let’s also think about what metrics we’re seeing in terms of the [inaudible 00:05:01] determines the health about this patient. And maybe when we engage with them, we actually lead with that because it’s the most important factor to that patient. And when you lead with that, when you lead with their needs, that’s how you build trust. That’s what makes people feel I’m being seen.
 
Chris Hemphill (05:16):
Health systems are now heavily using data too, identify which patients have service needs and how to engage them. These include approaches like looking at past diagnoses or even employing algorithms in AI. I asked Dr. Hermes how this may impact health equity.
 
Dr. Zachary Hermes (05:34):
The Reality is that if you’re leveraging algorithms to identify who’s appropriate for particular interventions, if you’re leveraging algorithms really in any way, what you have to be asking your vendors is, how is this algorithm performing across different populations? And why is it performing differently across populations? Which variables are driving that differential? If you’re not asking that question, you’re almost certainly likely failing and that there are blind spots that you are not aware of and your vendor may not be aware of. That’s almost a non-starter without that question, without some clear concrete answer to how does this program or algorithm is performing across different populations, particularly thinking about race, socioeconomic status. If somebody can’t give you a clear answer, I would certainly encourage [inaudible 00:06:30], some caution.
 
Chris Hemphill (06:31):
Many people believe that data never lies and that it’s somehow infallible. Dr. Hermes points out that algorithms are only as good as what they’re optimizing for. If you’re not looking at how these approaches impact underserved groups, it’s likely that you’re doing them harm. There are stories where irresponsible approaches underserved black patients and women. If you want to dig deeper on that, we did a talk with University of Chicago’s Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence. You can search, “Fighting racism and healthcare outreach” to find that talk on YouTube. We’re at a crossroad where new technologies can perpetuate biases, or we can use these things to combat and address longstanding, systemic bias. What’s Dr. Hermes take on this?
 
Dr. Zachary Hermes (07:23):
I think where we stand here in this moment where we have a profound opportunity to do right, not only because it’s a moral or philosophical right, but also because it’s the right business decision in the long run for your health system. So making in these investments early is going to put you ahead and create what I would say competitive advantage. So I think health equity today is not just, again, a call that pulls on the heart strings, but also is a tactical and strategic call for any health system that wants to lead as we come into this century,
 
Chris Hemphill (07:58):
Sheetal Shah, who’s a Symphony RM board member, and has led digital transformation efforts at top 10 health systems in the nation also shared some thoughts on the market perspective on addressing health equity.
 
Sheetal Shah (08:10):
I love the viewpoint there from Dr. Hermes. There’s a long term approach to it. It can’t just be, [inaudible 00:08:17]. You have to… This actually can be a competitive differentiator, especially as we move towards value based care. So building health equity into the model allows you to be one step ahead of where the market’s going. Healthcare at the end of the day is a business, but the marketplace is changing with value based care. This is the secret weapon for total community health. And so we got to adapt to it. The ones that do it early will succeed.
 
Chris Hemphill (08:43):
Health equity is a key challenge among race, gender, and income lines. But another key challenge that isn’t discussed enough is care for our veterans. We discuss the hidden side of healthcare here. So let’s talk about it. As an example, the nearly 20 year American combat mission in Afghanistan has been the United States, longest war. The US deployed 2.7 million members since 2001 with over half of them going in more than once. Dr. Evelyn Lewis discussed the disparities that our veterans see and deal with every day.
 
Dr. Evelyn Lewis (09:19):
I’m a veteran myself, retired several years ago. I’ve been working with veterans and their families in relationship to their health.
 
Chris Hemphill (09:29):
Dr. Lewis served as a Navy physician for more than 20 years and founded the Veterans Health and Wellness Foundation. This foundation focuses on getting veterans like the ones she mentioned, access to the care that they need.
 
Dr. Evelyn Lewis (09:42):
Out of that came the understanding that they needed providers or healthcare professionals who better understood who they were, what their unique healthcare needs were, et cetera. And as we all know, the primary or the signature injuries of the Iraq, Afghanistan conflict, identified by the RAND Corporation, was traumatic damage. And so that with PTSD and those other physical injuries, it became very clear. And so out that came to me the need to educate healthcare professionals who were providing that care about who these people were and what their needs were.
 
Dr. Evelyn Lewis (10:19):
So that’s where it kind of started. But as you move through that, I’m sort of a top down bottom up person so that we understand that those pieces, if they don’t connect, [inaudible 00:10:30] isn’t really getting the message. So while we were educating the healthcare professionals on this end, we needed to also educate veterans and their families on this end, so that they understood that, a lot of what they might be experiencing may be directly caused by their service or associated with their service or associated with the care that they were or weren’t yet, ’cause we all know that access to care doesn’t guarantee [inaudible 00:10:57].
 
Speaker 1 (10:58):
As Dr. Lewis explains, the numbers tell an important story about the gap in veterans care.
 
Dr. Evelyn Lewis (11:05):
As we all know, again, depending on whose numbers you look at, there’s about 18 to 20 million veterans. And both that number, only 9 million are actually registered with the VA, and I’ll stop right there because that’s very, very important. The vast majority of healthcare providers and allied healthcare professionals and leaders in the healthcare sector think that all veterans get their care from the VA. And that is sort of the number one stumbling block because again, as I mentioned, there’s about 20 million altogether, but only 9 million are registered and you must be registered to get care from it. So of the 9 million who are actually registered with the VA, only 6 million actually go there and get some care. The others get some there and some on the civilian side. And so that’s important to know. And one of the, I think the main questions that I’ve asked of civilian healthcare facilities and views of others is that when they tell me they don’t see veterans is I ask them, how do they know?
 
Dr. Evelyn Lewis (12:16):
And that’s a big question because they’re not asking when they’re screening folks, it should be a part of the intake or at least [inaudible 00:12:26], where you’re asking that question, are you a veteran or have you served in the military? And if they say no, the next follow on is, has a member of your family, that so, because the family’s impacted just as much as the veteran is in some respects regarding their service. And so it’s critical that you ask that question and then once you ask it, is that you do something when the answer is positive. There is data out there that indicates that there are hospitals that ask that question, but then they don’t do anything with the information. So again, that’s not helpful either. Those are sort of the critical criteria to getting this on the right track and ensuring that veterans get the care that they need.
 
Dr. Evelyn Lewis (13:08):
And one other point I’ll make around that same question that you asked is that sometimes when I’ve asked that question, they say, oh, well, we know, because we can see whether you have Tricare. A lot of veterans when they come out they have Tricare, or there will be some indication that someone was seen at a VA facility. And so the civilian hospital or clinic will say, that’s how we know our veteran population. As a veteran myself, when I retired, I went to work at industry. I used insurance to make a company. So there was nothing that identified me as a veteran. And I will tell you, since 2003 when I retired, I’ve never been asked that question when going in for care. So again, it’s the ability to understand one, that we’re not all seen there. And then secondly, when you ask the question and you get the yes answer, what to do then, how to follow through on that so that you can then provide the care that that person needs.
 
Chris Hemphill (14:03):
You might be wondering, what can be done at this point? Dr. Lewis shared with us some ideas.
 
Dr. Evelyn Lewis (14:09):
One of the things that I’ve come to know in being in this business of attentiveness to better healthcare is that, there’s a lot of information out there. We can debate whether the VA gives the healthcare that they need, or the level of quality they should deliver. The problem is, most people don’t know it’s there, and most people don’t know how to find it. And so there’s nothing worse than being better than slice bread and having someone one who doesn’t eat carbohydrates. So the focus of the foundation is the health of veterans and their families in regard to information, understanding, and how to apply that, how to navigate hospital systems, how to navigate the VA, how to understand their service connected disabilities and their ratings and all of those kinds of things. And so a part of what we do is curate information that’s out there around those different topics.
 
Dr. Evelyn Lewis (15:05):
Oftentimes, as I mentioned, [inaudible 00:15:07], we sort of give that one-on-one attention too, and sometimes, the vast majority of what’s needed is somebody who’s listening to what they’re saying, that they feel like they’re being heard, that when she finished, I said, well, you know what we’re dealing with here is a problem with the system, and as much as we understand that that’s an issue, we won’t solve that today.
 
Dr. Evelyn Lewis (15:32):
So I said to her, this is something we can do now that can potentially help you with what you’re dealing with. But there are a number of pathways, as I was mentioning, that we provide this care for veterans, educating healthcare professionals. I get colleagues of mine. I apply for grants to pay different physicians and other providers to do webinars on specific topics, everyday topics, systemic lupus, pulmonary arterial hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, all of those are diseases that impact anybody, whether you’re a veteran or not, but they do have some extra added issues if you are a veteran, i.e, your risk is significantly higher [inaudible 00:16:14]. And so, again, as a clinician, knowing those things helps you immediately be able to understand that you might be able to… Should do something sooner in terms of screaming or what have you for this patient who’s a veteran than you would for someone else. So that’s one mechanism.
 
Dr. Evelyn Lewis (16:33):
The other one you heard me talk about educating veterans themselves, their family members and their community. We also have [inaudible 00:16:41], through the Georgia Healthy Family Alliance, who was awarded a $6,000 grant, that helped me then position the foundation on this platform that serves as a resource to help veterans meet their other needs. The foundation focus is health, but we all know by terminology like social determinants of health, that regardless how willing that individual is to do what it is you directed them to do, or mutually agreed that they need to do, it can’t be done if they’re losing their home, or they just lost their job, or they have food insecurity.
 
Chris Hemphill (17:19):
Data is an important piece of this puzzle. And when it comes to veterans care, the data highlights some significant disadvantages. Back to Evelyn.
 
Dr. Evelyn Lewis (17:28):
That’s another critical question in regard to data. I use, when I’m talking about that of late, I use the example of the recent healthcare crisis we all just came out of the other end of, and that’s COVID-19. And so if you were to think about it, all of the data that we have that talks about the impact of COVID-19 on the veteran population comes from the VA. We had a higher percentage of veterans who got ill, who got significantly or seriously ill from COVID, and those who died from COVID, those numbers were higher for that population than for the general population. Only 6 million of the 20 get care at the VA and of that 6 million, a huge portion of them get additional care outside of the VA. So we have no real handle on how many veterans in the civilian sector actually got COVID, got seriously ill from COVID, or died from COVID.
 
Dr. Evelyn Lewis (18:30):
And because we know that there’s increased risk in the veteran population from a number of these things that we talked about, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, all of those things that we said put people at high risk to get COVID in the first place, so when we think about that, the question I have is, how many veterans did we lose and we have no idea about? They get counseling. They get support from the peers who have the same kinds of things, and they do these in person sessions. Well, COVID eliminated all of them. All they could do is see people like we’re talking now, which was a good way to continue, but it’s very impersonal as we know that the connection is not quite there the same as when you’re face to face. And so again, I have the question of, how many veterans did we lose to COVID 19, if we had hospitals and clinics, or what have you, who were gathering that information? That would be extremely helpful.
 
Chris Hemphill (19:44):
Equity challenges are not just limited to patient seeking care. Solving problems for diverse people, demands diverse leadership. Only 9% of hospital CEOs come from minority groups, according to the new England journal of medicine. On gender diversity, Kirby Bates associates reports that women make up 80% of the healthcare workforce, but only 25% of sea level leadership positions.
 
Heather Fernandez (20:08):
Now, I remember telling someone that I was going to start a company, and this is someone who has my back, a woman who I respect very, very much. And she said, don’t do it.
 
Chris Hemphill (20:18):
That’s Heather Fernandez. She’s the CEO and co-founder of Solve Health. We caught up with her to discuss how to break the glass ceiling in healthcare.
 
Heather Fernandez (20:27):
They’re going to doubt you. You’re over 40. You have three kids. You’re a woman. You are not… The pattern recognition doesn’t really exist for your profile. And so you should just go get a big, impactful job somewhere. And she’s not wrong. And so I think as someone who is not like everyone else, you sort of need to own your own power and know what you bring to the table. I talk to a lot of founders who get really hung up on the things that they don’t have, but my approach was that’s irrelevant, but I have a set of attributes that are unique to me, my superpowers that I’m bringing to the table, because oftentimes I think the answer to your question, Chris, is the biggest impediment can often be how we are seeing ourselves. So one is, I just owned my power.
 
Heather Fernandez (21:14):
At this point, I built a company that was sold for two and a half billion dollars from zero, basically no users and no revenue. I had the experience of running multiple functions. And so I just backed myself and believed that it was going to happen on my own behalf. The second thing that I also had to do, and I think is very relevant for women in particular, actually, I’m going to tell another story. I was [inaudible 00:21:41] for our first round of funding and an investor, a female investor pulled me aside and she said, you are underselling Solve. You need to be way bigger in how you tell this story. And I’m so thankful for her, and she’s right.
 
Heather Fernandez (21:56):
I think one way that women can often, and there’s lots of data, orient themselves is around here are my accomplishments. Here’s what I have done. Here’s the proof in why you should believe in me. When a lot of venture, investing and pitching yourself is about the big story and the dream, it took that conversation by this investor pulling me aside to reorient how I talked about Solve. So I guess the second thing I’ll share is, for me, I had to get out of my own skin. And I think this is often true for many women of talking about what I have done and instead pitching what is possible.
 
Chris Hemphill (22:32):
Now let’s hear from Dorothy Hoffman. Dorothy serves as the access innovation lead in Pfizer’s Healthcare Innovation Center. This has been pivotable to COVID vaccine distribution and access. She joined Heather with us to discuss being a leading woman in the healthcare space and to her experiences with gender bias and discrimination in the workplace.
 
Dorothy Hoffman (22:53):
I’m biracial, and there have been times when I’ve met people for the first time who will say something like, “Oh, I didn’t expect you to look the way you do,” or, “Oh, you don’t look like a Dorothy.” And that’s always really startling, because, you don’t expect somebody to just kind of say something like that just to your face, first of all. But secondly, I was raised to be color blind. And so I don’t necessarily think of how others may perceive me. And I think it’s also startling for the person, the other person in the moment, because at that moment, they’re recognizing their own bias maybe for the first time as they’re engaging in that way. So it’s a right reminder to me. I never take it as, that there’s negative intent behind it, but it’s a reminder that to me, that, we form judgements as people based on something as simple as somebody’s name.
 
Dorothy Hoffman (23:54):
And we all have these biases that we bring to the table. And so in those moments, when that happens, it’s a learning moment. To be honest, it’s a learning moment for me just to reflect on my own bias, for me to consider how I interact with others who may not look like me, who may have a different name. And it also has oftentimes kind of opened up a space, a space for a conversation with the other person, because again, there’s that recognition on the other side. So it’s not… I don’t know if I’ve been confronted with a gender bias per se, but just that bias kind of based on assumptions about a person on simple things, definitely something that I’ve experienced throughout my career.
 
Chris Hemphill (24:41):
We tend to be the heroes of our own narratives, but in truth, our biases often get it the best of us. Without checking our biases, we might be hurting others without even knowing it. Let’s hear from Heather and Dorothy about their perspectives on how people can look at their own biases, recognize when they’re being unfair and start making the right choices for change.
 
Heather Fernandez (25:01):
I’ll just quickly answer that one by saying, I think what we saw through 2020 with the George Floyd murder and more and more of the narrative around more exposure around what actually happens with discrimination is that all of us need to ask ourselves the questions basically all the time. Am I thinking this about this person because they are different in profile, whatever the difference might be. I don’t think this is just about men advocating for women or white people advocating for people of color.
 
Heather Fernandez (25:33):
I think the reality is we all come with some set of biases based on our experiences and in order for us to break through those, we need to ask the questions of ourselves and of our colleagues clearly and honestly, and then be willing to accept that, wow, maybe I did say that because I’m biased against women. Maybe I did say that because I had this bias that women are supposed to be more warm and fuzzy every time I meet them. Maybe I did expect X, Y, or Z. I just think asking the question and normalizing that dialogue for all of us is what’s required to move forward.
 
Dorothy Hoffman (26:09):
I think it’s really… It can be challenging to experience empathy and understanding for others experience. And I have to say I’m a huge fan of employee journey mapping. I’ve been a part of a couple of organizations who have done this. And when you do this, in the pharmaceutical industry, we do a lot of mapping about the patient journey, what will they experience from the time they start to feel ill, to diagnose, to their treatment. But if you take that same process and turn it around and apply it to the employee journey, you start to uncover insights about not only the experiences that colleagues have, but also the bias you may not have considered, for example, when I was at Lilly, they did a tremendous amount of work, mapping, that employee journey, and one of the elements with that emerged when the insights that emerged in mapping the African American journey for example, was that some of the colleagues would have this experience of, as they were traveling from their home to the workplace of being followed by the police, there were examples of this happening.
 
Dorothy Hoffman (27:24):
That’s something you wouldn’t necessarily know about a colleague or an executive, but when you start to do this mapping and start to uncover these insights, you realize that individuals are experiencing discrimination, racism in ways that maybe you haven’t contemplated. Another good anecdote was several of the male executives had wives who didn’t work, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but that also kind of casts a light on how they may view potentially women in their careers as well. So just a couple of just really kind of anecdotal examples. But again, if you’re looking for practical examples and tools to gain the insight, I think that employee journey mapping exercise is really important to consider pursuing, to really uncover the insights, the examples of the biases that may exist across your organization.
 
Chris Hemphill (28:18):
Another important part of the conversation is addressing inequities in our Asian American and Pacific Islander community. When it comes to career opportunities, there are parts of the conversation that don’t typically get discussed. For instance, Asian Americans are the least likely to be promoted into management positions, according to Harvard business review.
 
Ben Chao (28:38):
I think that glorification of that Asian stereotype, being good at math, being very serious, being a great student, I think that at a certain point that actually is used to a fault and it’s something that’s actually quite dangerous.
 
Chris Hemphill (28:50):
That’s Ben Chao, who is currently the president of CareConnect at MultiCare Health System in Washington. Ben has done great work in improving access and improving consumer experiences, but myths and stereotypes about Asians make this journey and challenge.
 
Ben Chao (29:06):
I think that it’s important for us to talk about the double M word, model minority, because the way in which I interpret the concept of model minority is actually not one that’s helpful. I think that in previous gen, like my dad’s generation, I think very much valued being seen as model minority. He said, “I took pride in being that one person who was a non right person in tech who charged hard and got stuff done.” Him and I have had this conversation many times and I said, dad, that’s wonderful for you and I think it worked for you at the time. I think that what we need to see though is the broader picture. And that’s, I don’t want you dad to think of mile minority as a special badge that you got from kind of more traditional American business culture that you get to wave around and say, I’m special.
 
Ben Chao (29:49):
Because what that does in turn is that I think it damages or makes things just more challenging for anyone else who is a person of color. And I think that it took some time to recognize that diversity is spectrum, that people have very different histories of intergenerational trauma or just because of kind of their skins are seen very differently, and immediately, there’s that implicit bias that comes in. And I said, dad, the last thing that we want to be as Asian Americans, particularly the Asian Americans who came to the United States for economic opportunity is to use as a crutch for either the repression or for… To be honest, kind of the, to build greater challenges for other people of color. So this level of championship, I think, is unique in that I think that Asian Americans have a lot of work that we can do to, say not just for other Asian Americans, but for other people of color, regardless of their race, ethnicity background.
 
Priscilla McCloskey (30:39):
I think that’s a great point is may sure that if you are in a position of leadership that you create an environment where people feel like they can be honest about what’s going on at home or things they need to handle and that you’ll still support and respect them and know that they’re going to do a good job and that you care about the whole person, not just the work person.
 
Speaker 1 (30:59):
That’s Priscilla McCloskey, who is also Asian American and heads up product at Symphony RM.
 
Priscilla McCloskey (31:05):
It’s really interesting when we started this conversation and when you invited me. I had to take a little time to think about myself as an Asian and a leader. And I couldn’t really do that without thinking of myself as a woman, because I do strongly identify as being a woman in leadership and at times more so than being an Asian in leadership. But they’re not obviously a lot of women in leadership and then women Asians in leadership, Asian Americans are even fewer. But I think a lot of what we were talking about earlier, at least I can speak for myself personally. I think a lot of it was overcoming some of those cultural stereotypes and the things in my own upbringing of thinking of myself as a leader, I think at some point in my life and my career, I kind of realized that I should be a leader and that why not?
 
Priscilla McCloskey (31:54):
Why not me? Why all these other white males? To me, that was actually the biggest thing to get past a number of [inaudible 00:32:02] you may have achieved well in school and so on, and you may have thought of yourself as one way, but really just thinking, hey, maybe I am the best person to do a certain job, at least that’s kind of been my experience. And then I think always having a good group of, not only a network at work, but friends and your kind of your whole support network, people in your personal life who sort of help foster and guide you and encourage you to go down a certain path that has certainly helped me a lot is just having those conversations about, where I want to go and what I want to do. And then figuring out tactically, how do you get there?
 
Chris Hemphill (32:40):
Health equity is a wide, wide field. And we’ve just spoken with a few people who are focused on these challenges. As a final thought, most of the people that we spoke with aren’t focused on equity as their full-time jobs, still they’re driving the incremental change and steps that we need. If you’ve been passionate about addressing disparities, but don’t feel that you have the time, title, or influence, remember what Mr. Rogers mother said, “Find the helpers and help them.”

Speaker 1 (33:14):
Thanks again for tuning into Hello Healthcare. If you like what you heard, please spread the word, tell your friends and colleagues to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere that they listen to podcasts. This conversation is brought to you by Symphony RM. To get the latest on what these healthcare leaders are saying, subscribe to our newsletter at hellohealthcare.com or join us on Fridays for a LinkedIn live session. Thanks. And when we see you next time, hello.
 

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