Our DEI initiatives at By the Bay Health address four foundational goals. The following are snippets by way of introduction.

Employee Engagement has the aim of shepherding the organization to commit to and consistently practice soliciting input from the most impacted people when key decisions are made. This includes proactively creating spaces for employees to provide direct feedback, and for leaders to respond to these staff suggestions. They are involved in various initiatives to empower staff to have a greater voice in decisions that directly impact them. They are also creating platforms to facilitate positive and open communications between managers and their teams.

Gender Equity seeks to understand and address misconceptions and biases about sexual orientation and gender diversity both within the organization and also as pertains to patients and families in the field, as well as the wider community. They are working with Human Resources to promote transparency, equity and support and have spearheaded the first gender-neutral bathroom in our organization’s history. This group is vitally interested in implementing non-violent communication training throughout the agency, in order to facilitate dialogue as to sensitive topics in a safe environment.

Racial Equity is invested in ensuring that BIPOC staff feel heard, valued and respected. Our Recruitment group has been successful in hiring increased BIPOC staff at nearly every level of the organization and is actively collaborating with BIPOC agencies in this goal. Retention is preparing staff-wide educational opportunities and surveys to highlight problem areas and seek their resolutions. Advancement is focused on mentoring and creating a clear path to promotion based on a more flexible framework including skills-training. And our Board Diversification reached its goal of diversifying the Board by twenty percent. We now have AAPI, Black, LGBTQ representation on the Board and are interviewing two strong Latinx candidates. 

Redefining Safety is clarifying terminology around safety as it impacts patient care and risk-assessment. The Redefining Safety Workgroup focuses on operational safety by considering DEI-related risks that can happen in the office and field, and helping to refine or build clear, accessible ways to address them. Currently the Safety team is developing recommendations to ensure safety concerns are always documented in Epic and communicated to all members of the team. The ultimate goal is to ensure that education, training and policy incorporate an understanding of how power, privilege and oppression impact operational safety.