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Six Pillars of DEI

Community Health Network aims to be a leader in the areas of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). To guide our work, we established six integrated pillars of focus, each with their own objective and goals that speak to the expansion of DEI across the network and in the state of Indiana. Review the executive summary of our DEI Strategic Plan and read more about the six pillars below.

Executive Summary - English Executive Summary - Spanish

Belonging and Inclusion

To become a network where all patients and caregivers feel empowered, respected, valued, and recognized. To work towards achieving organizational Inclusive Excellence. To seek to ensure equity in process for caregivers and patients everywhere we provide care.

  • Goal 1: To cultivate an authentic culture with actionable insights which supports belonging and inclusion.
  • Goal 2: To evaluate, revise, and create policies and procedures to drive belonging and inclusion.
  • Goal 3: To develop environmental strategies and affirming programs that foster belonging and inclusion for all caregivers.

Community Outreach and Engagement

To meet diverse community members where they are in order to understand their points of view and elevate their voices. To offer supportive outreach or engagement programs and initiatives that improve health and quality of life. To support communities that are diverse in many ways including racially, ethnically, linguistically, religiously, by sexual orientation, culturally, regionally, accessibility-wise, and economically.

  • Goal 1: To improve our community outreach and engagement data strategy to better understand diverse communities and to enhance impact.
  • Goal 2: To develop a targeted outreach strategy that strengthens our impact with diverse and underserved communities.
  • Goal 3: To define, implement, and support servant leadership as an important priority for all Community Health Network employees.

Education and Learning

To promote continuous DEI education in pursuit of an environment where every caregiver has an understanding (knowledge) of DEI and belonging, and can demonstrate cultural competence. To enable every caregiver to model behaviors that create an environment where all patients, family members, and caregivers are valued, included, and feel psychologically safe.

  • Goal 1: To build a DEI catalog of learning plans that helps caregivers and patients to develop greater self- awareness, empathy towards others, and the knowledge, skills, and behaviors that create inclusion, belonging, and psychological safety.
  • Goal 2: To create a DEI certificate program for leaders at the manager to senior levels that will prepare them to lead, engage, and develop an environment that is inclusive and excellent for all caregivers and patients.
  • Goal 3: To organize and support coordination and sharing of DEI resources by nursing, providers, pharmacists, psychologists, and GME and to integrate DEI content into all Community Health Network educational offerings.

Health Equity

To serve as a strong partner in the Indiana community health care ecosystem, providing access to high-quality and equitable health care, coordination of care, and community outreach that offers all patients the opportunity to obtain their full health potential where no person is disadvantaged from achieving that full potential because of their identity or other socially determined circumstance.

  • Goal 1: To provide health equity leadership, resources and programming to support the needs of diverse and vulnerable communities.
  • Goal 2: To develop targeted efforts to reduce health inequities for diverse and vulnerable communities in designated clinical areas as determined by the Health Equity Governance Committee.

Recruitment and Retention

To increase the diversity, success, and retention of highly qualified and engaged caregivers overall, with a special emphasis on increasing and retaining the diversity of our leadership, providers and caregivers to reflect the demographics of our markets and the diverse patients whom we serve across the Network.

  • Goal 1: To establish equitable recruitment and hiring practices designed to attract diverse candidate pools across all job categories.
  • Goal 2: To increase retention rates of caregivers and providers to achieve equity across diverse groups.
  • Goal 3: To ensure the annual attraction and retention rate of diverse patients each year for services we provide or refer out is equal to or exceeds the diversity rate of the population served by a defined geographic or demographic area.

Supplier Diversity

To reflect the diversity of our patients and the communities we serve within our supplier base. To identify and expand our base of diverse suppliers in order to achieve equity and inclusion in Community’s procurement process and invest in the communities we serve.

  • Goal 1: To identify, assess, and address current shortcomings and future opportunities in supplier diversity program to center equity in the procurement of vendors and suppliers.
  • Goal 2: To establish goals for supplier diversity.
  • Goal 3: To increase participation in the external supplier diversity sector.