By Bill Prentice
Late in 2022, ASCA Board President Mandy Hawkins, BSN, RN, CASC, CAIP, and I shared news with ASCA members and others in the ASC community about important work ASCA has undertaken to address diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the ASC community. I am sharing that original message with you below. If you have information or ideas that could help ASCA achieve its short- or long-term goals in this area, please contact Kay Tucker at ktucker@ascassociation.org.
Dear Colleagues:
We are writing to share some important news about work being done to address diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the ambulatory surgery community.
At our Board meeting last spring, a resolution in support of an ASCA-led DEI Initiative was presented and unanimously approved by the ASCA Board.
Since then, we have recruited 12 ASCA members who have volunteered to look at employment in the ASC community, the diversity of our patient populations and how we can improve our cultural competencies as health care providers.
All across health care, there are persistent racial, ethnic, religious and other disparities – that’s true among nurses, surgeons and other physician specialists. It is not a problem that ASCA can solve on its own, but we can certainly advocate for better policies.
We also recognize that ASCs are struggling with hiring and staff retention today. The simple fact is we need to educate and train more medical professionals while also expanding the medical education opportunities for historically disadvantaged Americans. That can only happen with a commitment by the state and federal governments.
The second part of the initiative involves looking at our current patient populations and trying to identify policies that could give underserved communities greater access to the value that ASCs provide.
The third focus is cultural competence. For anyone who may not be familiar with the term, cultural competence in health care is generally described as the ability of systems to provide care to patients with diverse values, beliefs and behaviors, including tailoring delivery to meet patients’ social, cultural and linguistic needs.
This third component is the one part of our effort where we believe we can begin to make a difference without relying on legislation or policy changes. That is because it’s really up to us as a community to embrace the education and training needed to make us not just medically competent, but competent in our interactions with patients across the spectrum of language, ethnicity, religious affiliation, sexual orientation and much more.
Creating a more diversified, equitable and inclusive health care system is not something that will happen overnight, nor is it something ASCA can achieve on its own. Systemic change will take time and commitment and resources from the government and the entire health care system.
Preparing ASCA to help lead on these issues is what our DEI Initiative is all about. To learn more, listen to the “ASCA’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Initiative” episode of ASCA’s Advancing Surgical Care Podcast.
Sincerely,
Mandy Hawkins
President, ASCA Board of Directors
Bill Prentice
Chief Executive Officer, ASCA
