By Verlon E. Salley
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I): It seems like a theme that we all are agreeable with, until a situation presents itself and we realize we may engage it differently. The term I want to focus on today is “equity.” A Google search will define equity as, “the quality of being fair and impartial.” Many have confused the term “equality” with the term “equity.” The image to the right shows a visual difference between the two at a sporting event.
Equality is to treat everyone evenly, but that does not mean you have treated everyone fairly. Why? Because all of us have different and unique situations that we may not be able to work around. Let’s consider these unique situations as “social determinants.”
Now, let’s make this situation relatable to a radiology operations situation. Let’s say we are running a busy imaging center. We have MRI, CT, ultrasound and X-ray at our center. We are scheduling five days out in ultrasound. To prevent tardiness in our schedule, we institute a new policy. Any ultrasound patient that shows up more than 15 minutes late we will try to work them in at the end of the day or reschedule them for another day. (Note: It may be five days out).
After a year of the policy’s installation, we review our data. Let’s say in 280 annual operational days, we had to reschedule 110 patients. Not bad, right? Less than 1 patient a day, but let’s dig deeper. Upon further analysis we see that 80% of the patients came from three Zip codes. My first question would be, “What are the demographics of the patients?” My next would be, “What are the social determinants of those three Zip codes?” (Example: Are there transportation concerns? What are the median incomes of those Zip codes? Etc.) My last question, “Did a policy we applied equally to all, create an inequitable situation for a particular cohort of people?”
When you apply the investigative analysis, it makes you a good manager. To have the desire to want to solve this problem makes you a DE&I leader.
– Verlon E. Salley is the vice president of community health equity at UAB Health System.
