Driving Diversity Baystate Exec’s Goal Is ‘Cultural Competency’

Visael (Bobby) Rodriguez was exaggerating, but clearly making a point when he said that there are “probably a million” definitions of the word ‘diversity’ being put to use in businesses and organizations across the country.

He has his own.

“Diversity includes everyone; specifically, it is the unique combination of human characteristics of self and others,” he said, quoting from a page of a PowerPoint he uses in his role as the chief diversity officer for Baystate Health, a post he assumed in March. “Diversity is the foundation (a word he underlines) of cultural competence.”

And he defines that phrase, as it applies to Baystate, as “the ability of individuals and organizations to effectively understand and address the unique perspectives and health needs of all populations.”

How all this manifests itself varies, he explained, but includes everything from the fact that the information printed on his business card is also in braile to Baystate’s participation this past spring in Northampton’s ‘Pride Parade,’ a first for the system.

“Diversity looks at embracing differences, and means taking into account the needs of everyone,” said Rodriguez, who must have used that word, and with accompanying emphasis, a dozen times as he spoke with The Healthcare News. “This includes males, females, whites, blacks, Hispanics, Moslems, Christians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, single mothers, people caring for elderly parents … everyone! And it means acknowledging differences.”

Rodriguez is one of a fairly new breed of administrator, at least in this market, the individual charged with not merely defining diversity, but also institutionalizing it and formalizing it within a given organization. MassMutual recently hired a “vice president of Diversity and Inclusion,” for example, and other businesses and institutions have taken similar steps.

The titles for such employees vary — ‘chief diversity officer,’ ‘global diversity and inclusion executive,’ ‘vice president of Workplace Culture, Diversity, and Compliance,’ and ‘senior vice president and chief people officer’ are among the myriad contrivances now in use across the country — as do the written job descriptions. But their basic mission is the same: to drive diversity, however it may be defined.

At Baystate, Rodriguez said his goal is to “imbed” diversity into every department and operation — from hiring to the menu in the cafeteria; from marketing to the supply chain; from community involvement to business cards.

In this month’s issue, The Healthcare News explores how he intends to go about that assignment, and why this work is so important to the future of the health care system.

Not a Black-and-white Issue

As he talked with The Healthcare News, Rodriguez stopped to retrieve the June edition of DiversityInc magazine from his credenza.

This was the annual compilation of the national publication’s “Top 50 companies for Diversity.” Rodriguez referenced it to help refresh his memory regarding which corporations were at the top of the list — Verizon, Coca-Cola, Pricewaterhouse-Coopers, Procter & Gamble, and Cox Communications were the five highest scorers — but also to point out that the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit was ranked No. 40.

This was the first time that a health care provider had cracked the top 50, said Rodriguez, adding quickly that one of his hard goals is to put Baystate — one of a still-small number of hospitals that have hired diversity directors — in that position, and within five years.

“That won’t be easy,” he said, noting that many of those on the top-50 list are seemingly permanent fixtures that have and continue to hone elaborate diversity strategies. “Displacing any of those companies will be difficult.”

But Rodriguez is committed to achieving that goal, and he says the reason isn’t the plaque that comes with the honor or the publicity it will generate. Rather, it’s what achieving that status will mean.

In short, it means the company will have taken some huge steps toward better understanding — and responding to — the needs of all populations it serves, and also toward becoming a proverbial ‘employer of choice.’

And that will be an important designation, because, by his count, the Baystate system will have to fill roughly 18,000 positions over roughly the next decade, a figure he arrived at by calculating needs from continued expansion, especially construction of a $250 million addition, the so-called ‘Hospital of the Future,” and also turnover and replacing retirees.

But cracking the top 50 will also mean the system will be better able to serve the region than it is today, he said, because it will better understand the needs and challenges of the many constituencies that comprise the local population.

As he talked about the work to be done at Baystate, and why he left a similar position at Blue Cross/Blue Shield in Florida to join the system after being recruited by a “diversity headhunter’ to interview for the position, Rodriguez used the phrase “starting from scratch.”

He quickly elaborated, noting that while diversity has long been a matter of discussion and, in many ways, part of the culture at Baystate, the process of formalizing it, or institutionalizing it, is essentially just beginning.

When asked how he will go about that assignment, he said the work will take many forms, but the broad mission is to create a workforce within the system that is what he considers “culturally competent, and that reflects changes in the population.”

And by that, he means a workforce that really understands how various demographic groups are different and is able, in effect, to get inside those worlds.

“Because I have let’s say 100 employees who speak Spanish doesn’t mean they’re culturally competent,” he explained. “Cultural competence means acknowledging differences and understanding them; it’s a male acknowledging that a woman is different and that he understand her needs, it’s understanding that Vietnamese women are five times more prone to cervical cancer than American women, it’s understanding that Hispanics comprise 20{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} of new tuberculosis cases.

“That’s what I mean by cultural competence,” he continued, “and having it will make us be a better health care system.”

These are some specific examples of the many ways diversity efforts manifest themselves, he said, adding his general job description is to make diversity a strategic initiative, and not a buzzword.

Inclusion Incorporated

This was the overriding motivation that propelled Baystate administrators when they made a commitment in late 2006 to hiring a diversity, or inclusion, director and creating a budget line item to fund programs in that realm.

And rather than a cost, the system considers such an expenditure as an investment that should, or must, be made, said Paula Dennison, senior vice president of Human Resources at Baystate Health, who worked with other administrators to create a budget for diversity efforts and then hire an experienced veteran in that field such as Rodriguez.

“It is an investment, and one we see as critical to our mission,” she explained. “We need someone with the expertise needed to get us where we want to be. This is an important strategic initiative for us.”

Important enough for a comprehensive, national search for a diversity administrator, which took roughly a year, said Dennison, adding that Rodriguez was chosen from what was a large field of qualified candidates.

The new chief diversity officer wouldn’t say how big a budget he has to work with, only that it is “a good number for something that’s starting from scratch.” He is in the process of hiring some individuals to assist him, and will start with a staff of three that will grow as needed.

Since arriving, Rodriguez has focused his efforts on a number of initiatives, but mostly on steps to assess current diversity programs and strategies and put in place a long-term plan of action.

Ebaorating on this matter of a diversity ‘assessment,’ Rodriguez said it is a four-part process that involves polling (for lack of a better word) all 10,000 or so employees within the system — which includes Baystate Franklin Medical Center and Baystate Mary Lane Hospital — to gauge just how diverse and culturally competent the organization is.

“We’re essentially going to ask employees how they feel working here,” he explained. “We’re going to be measuring diversity and inclusion, and inclusion is ‘how do you feel when you come to work here? Do we accept your values? Do we accept your differences? Do we treat you here with respect? If you come here in a wheelchair, do we respect you? If you’re gay, do we respect you?’”

This electronic survey will be followed by 15 to 20 three-hour focus groups to ascertain just how individual groups (from women to Hispanics to white males) feel about the Baystate community , he continued, adding that these will be followed by one-on-one interviews with employees, and then an auditing of all programs and policies set down by the HR department.

All this information and feedback will be used by the hospital’s top administrators to craft a five-year plan that could include such steps as a diversity council, a supply-chain diversity strategy, a mentoring program, employee network groups, and others, he said.

“We need to assess what we have to do as an organization,” Rodriguez explained. “We have to determine what needs to change, and then make those changes.”

Effecting change is how the Baystate system will achieve inclusion, which will be critical to success in attracting and retaining top talent — and also with handling many of the other challenges to face corporations in the years to come, he told The Healthcare News.

“It’s not just about going out and hiring someone, but also making them feel that this is their house, their home, and that we respect them,” he explained. “If I spend all my money hiring someone, but I don’t create an infrastructure where people feel valued and respected, we’ll fail, because people will leave.”

A World of Difference

As he talked about diversity, Rodriguez kept returning to that word ‘respect,’ and, on one of those occasions, to Northampton’s Pride Parade, which, he said, should be as much a part of the Baystate calendar as the Holyoke St. Patrick’s Day.

“Why? Because there were 7,000 to 8,000 people there,” he explained. “Those are our patients and our employees, and it’s important for us to be there.”

Baystate had a booth staffed by physicians and other employees, he continued, adding that information was dispensed on a variety of matters, and health care professionals were available to answer questions and provide advice. And thus, Baystate’s participation was really no different than it has been, or will be, at the Holyoke parade and events staged by and for the Hispanic community, the African American community, or any other group.

“At events like this, our purpose and our mission is very clear — to improve the health of the people in our community every day with quality and compassion,” he said. “Whether it’s the gay and lesbian community or the Hispanic community, or the Irish community, these are our people, and these are opportunities to connect with the community.”

It is through such connections that the system will ultimately achieve cultural competence, he explained, adding that he uses that phrase to define diversity — and progress in achieving it.