Commentary

DEI Sentiments Dominate In U.S. Hospitals (Part 2)

  • By Do No Harm Staff
  • March 5, 2024

Earlier this month, Do No Harm posted a commentary piece highlighting a recent American Hospital Association (AHA) report. This report found that many hospitals across the United States have fully embraced DEI, including through signing the AHA’s “equity pledge” and even allocating a portion of their budgets towards DEI goals.

However, it appears hospitals’ endorsements of identity politics in medicine run much deeper than just pledges. In fact, a brand new AHA report underscores the growing influence of woke-ism in fundamentally altering hospital governance and management.

According to the AHA, more than half of all hospitals responding to an internal survey identified that their board is focused on “increase[ing] the number of diverse members” as it pertains to race, sex, and ethnicity. More than 40 percent indicate the same is true for age, and more than a quarter echo the same sentiment for gender identity. In other words, hospital boards are putting equity above merit or relevant experience in the quest for new board members.

Figure 1. From “DEI Data Insights” (February 2024), page 4.

A large portion of hospitals also indicated their organization has implemented similar diversity “approaches” in both C-suite leadership and hospital management. Similarly, more than half of hospitals are implementing a strategy to “hire individuals from historically marginalized populations”.

Figure 2. From “DEI Data Insights” (February 2024), page 5.

Unsurprisingly, the AHA is only interested in its own narrow definition of diversity that conforms to the organizations’ interests. Any comments on intellectual diversity, ideological diversity, or diversity of rural versus urban backgrounds are nowhere to be found. And, ironically, the AHA is failing to meet its own diversity standards: more than half of the AHA Board of Trustees is composed of white males; less than 40 percent are female, while just 15 percent are non-white. So much for leading by example.

For all the so-called “progress” that hospitals have yet to make, the AHA is clearly ready to do its part to enable the woke takeover of America’s hospitals. Indeed, the AHA posted a separate model case study on hospitals recruiting diverse board members. The case study includes three examples of hospitals achieving “board diversity” through a variety of mechanisms, such as hiring a search firm, networking, and even “less formal” methods of identifying prospective board members, such as “through a friendly exchange at a local restaurant.”

The AHA is also sure to emphasize how the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is “adopting health equity-focused measures” as part of “growing recognition by regulatory agencies and accrediting bodies for the demonstration of greater board involvement in equity issues and addressing health disparities.” In other words, the AHA is implying that hospitals should get on board the DEI train today—because tomorrow the government might be mandating it.

Of course, the AHA does not include any metrics to indicate governance and management diversity improves medical outcomes for patients, or even bolsters experiences for hospital employees. Rather, the opposite is true: every dollar wasted on DEI efforts to advance board equity or improve managerial diversity is a dollar that isn’t being put towards actually providing quality health care. This is the secret that DEI departments in America’s hospitals don’t want patients—or even providers—to discuss, because it undercuts their entire governance model.

One sliver of good news is that even many of America’s fully-woke hospitals are slow to embrace certain aspects of diversity targets. For example, less than a quarter of U.S. hospitals report a strategy to increase the sexual orientation diversity on their boards. Nor should they, since sexual orientation obviously has no effect whatsoever on the effectiveness of hospital governance. Indeed, the AHA’s subtle implication to the contrary could be interpreted as a form of reverse discrimination. Yet even these hospitals fail to apply the same logic to more widely-accepted diversity categories, such as race, sex, and ethnicity. Why are diversity targets appropriate in certain areas, but not in others?

Put simply, the latest AHA report is yet another sign of the slow degradation of America’s medical institutions into politicized bureaucracies. No matter which category of diversity is being considered, the more hospitals resist embracing identity politics, the better.