I am not a diversity and inclusion expert, nor do I pretend to be one, but I have been trying to be more aware of these efforts in my professional and personal life. Over the last few weeks I’ve found interesting material about how industries gather information to begin making meaningful changes regarding diversity and inclusion.

Hopefully some of the materials make you think of how you can make an impact in your workplace and communities.

WEEKLY FORMAT

1 - Podcast

1 - Health Care Article 

1 - Venture Capital Article

1 - Tweet

Podcast

Think With Google Podcast: Data and Diversity

This episode offers a unique perspective on how modern algorithms and analytics help us identify diversity and inclusion within the film industry. The content is not healthcare centric, but it is fascinating to hear how other industries focus on gathering baseline data regarding diversity to begin making meaningful changes.

They largely focused on the facts of diversity and inclusion found within films and commercials in the United States. The initial findings were astounding and they started developing tools that could begin impacting marketing efforts.

Google’s Chief Marketing Officer, Lorraine Twohill, applied the same tools to her own workforce to determine diversity and inclusion across the enterprise. One of her many findings indicated that Google was merely scratching the surface with inclusivity efforts. For example, they were marketing to African American populations, but largely focusing on individuals with lighter skin tones, opposed to the entire spectrum.

In my opinion, this would fascinating to apply to health care. I’m sure there is room for improvement, but this type of analytics would help identify areas of opportunity to begin making change. Give the episode a listen!

Health Care Article

CVS teams with Medable to expand access to clinical trials

This is a great example of two organizations that have identified an impactful initiative that has the potential of helping thousands of underrepresented individuals. The unfortunate reality is that clinical trials have not always been accessible to all. Within health care we often talk about affordability and accessibility, which are the biggest drivers for an individual to receive the care that he/she needs. The power of this type of intiative is highlighted below:

“Tony Clapsis, general manager and senior vice president of CVS Health Clinical Trial Services, said in a statement that CVS has the ability to make a significant impact on outreach about trials to underrepresented people as more than 40% of vulnerable populations live within five miles of one of its pharmacies.”

With CVS Pharmacy having a location every couple of miles, they have the ability to offer these types of services closer to patients. My only argument is that often times vulnerable populations may not take advantage of clinical trials based on a variety of reasons that involve lack of education, anticipated cost, and commitment to complete the trial. This is an exciting step in the right direction and I hope the initiative can continue to help underrepresented populations.

Personal Example: I had the opportunity near the beginning of the pandemic to help establish the drive thru testing operations for Stanford Health Care throughout the Bay Area. Right around the same time, we had a board meeting where we were addressing some of our plans and community engagement. One of the board members, a very successful black tech founder, mentioned that we could be more inclusive based on the plans that we had outlined.

He said, “the plans you have outlined are great and will have significant impact for the testing efforts throughout the Bay Area. However, your protocols state that the patient needs to remain in their car throughout the duration of the test for isolation purposes. But, you are assuming that everyone has a car. I know plenty of populations in the Bay Area who are not fortunate enough to have cars…..”

Needless to say we adjusted the protocol to allow social distanced walk-ins, which was incredibly beneficial throughout the Bay Area.

Venture Capital Article

Rock Health: Diversity in Digital Health 2020 Annual Report

The Diversity in Digital Health Report is fascinating to read. One of the most shocking graphs is portrayed below and shows the disparity between funding methods based on gender, race, and ethnicity. Here are a few of my thoughts based on this data:

• It’s interesting that the n-size for black men and women is significantly lower than the other categories
• Huge disparity between men and women in funding opportunities
• Black men rely heavily on bootstrapping their digital health startups
• Women in all races have fewer venture-back opportunities
• Black women are disadvantaged and largely bootstrap their businesses

Now these comments are only based on the data provided, and for some of these startups maybe bootstrapping was the right option. However, these trends do show that we have a lot of work to do as we consider future opportunities for everyone regardless of their gender, race, or ethnicity.

If you know of a few black women entrepreneurs who needs a shout out, let’s help them out!

Tweet

Olympics Tweet

Eileen Gu is an up and coming phenomenon within the United States and China. Out of 3 free-skiing events (slopestyle, big air, and halfpipe), Eileen was able to win 2 gold and 1 silver medal. Outside of her skiing capabilities, it is really cool to see a Chinese-American women make an impact in sport that has historically been dominated by white males.

See you next week.