Background: In 2020, the General Medicine Division at the University of Rochester Medical Center launched an interdisciplinary effort to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in our workplace and for patients of our integrated, academic primary care practice, Strong Internal Medicine (SIM). Our DEI Team aims to bring our division and clinical practice toward an integrated state as described in diversity and inclusion maturity models (Bourke & Dillon, 2018). Participants: We solicited team members from faculty clinicians, trainees, nursing, support and ancillary support, resulting in a 16-member team (6 faculty physicians, 6 resident physicians, 1 faculty psychologist, 1 APP, 2 nurses, 1 nurse care manager). We also elicited early consultation from our departmental Associate Chair of DEI. We adopted an existing framework for building inclusive organizations (Frost & Alidina, 2019). Initial efforts targeted: 1) building inclusive leadership, 2) embedding DEI into organizational purpose and strategy, 3) establishing a DEI governance structure and communication plan, and 4) understanding our current DEI state and key indicators. Led by our Associate Medical Director and Division Administrator, we held monthly meetings to strategize advancing DEI within our practice, measuring outcomes, discussing communication strategies, and engaging those whose valuable perspectives we may not often hear. Design and procedures: We distributed an anonymous and optional survey using Surveymonkey to all practice members to assess our current state of DEI. We anticipate full analysis of results in May 2021. Results: Preliminary results reveal (n= 52; 34.6% residents, 26.9% clinical staff; 25% faculty; 9.6% administrative staff; 3.9% non-faculty clinicians): • Majority of participants identify with a historically underrepresented group (69.2%) • Participants believe our leadership team: o Values diversity (56.8% strongly agree) o Is committed to ensuring equity for team members (59.1% strongly agree) and patients (61.4% strongly agree) o Is committed to building an inclusive workplace for team members (61.4% strongly agree) and patients (56.8% strongly agree). • Participants believe our division/clinic is an equitable (97.6% strongly agree or agree) and inclusive workplace (100% strongly agree or agree). • Nearly ¼ of participants frequently or occasionally experience or witness microaggressions from other team members toward themselves (24.4%) and patients (19.5%). • 22% of participants do not believe all patients receive equitable care and service at SIM. Conclusions: We plan to collect patient input on our state of equity and inclusion, and elicit their ideas to improve our policies, practices, and interactions. We will repeat the workforce survey and patient feedback annually, with results reviewed by our team and shared with practice members and patients.
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