Building Diverse Care Teams

Diversity in every profession is important, but in the world of healthcare, building a diverse workforce that can adequately meet the needs of our communities can truly be a question of life or death. In the US today, racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately absent from medicine, and this leads to critical gaps in quality of care and devastating racial health disparities. As a healthcare provider, we know that when a patient cannot find providers that resemble them, their beliefs, their culture, or other facets of their experience, it can delay or prevent them from seeking care — and this is unacceptable. At Tia, we’re committed to building diverse care teams that serve the varied needs of our patient population as one critical step in creating a more equitable and racially just health system.

The root of the problem

The disproportionate absence of racial and ethnic minorities in medicine leads to less comfort and trust between patients and providers and glaring racial health disparities across a wide range of health conditions. The underlying causes behind poorer health outcomes are complex and include issues like lack of access to health insurance and higher rates of chronic conditions in some racial groups. These negative outcomes are implicated by a long and dark history of systemic racism in our health care system that continues to manifest as both conscious and unconscious bias by all too many providers.

With a homogeneous healthcare workforce, a lack of cultural competency in providers is a critical issue that negatively impacts patients of color and other marginalized groups. Individual values, beliefs, and experiences concerning health and well-being are shaped by various factors including race, ethnicity, nationality, language, gender, socioeconomic status, ability, sexual orientation, and more. Cultural competence in health care is broadly defined as the ability of providers to understand and integrate these factors into the delivery and structure of the healthcare system. The goal of culturally competent health care is to provide the highest quality of care to every patient, tailored to their lived experience.

At Tia, we believe in treating the person, not just the patient: this is a call to action to recognize the multitude of ways in which a person’s lived experience affects their health and provide compassionate care accordingly. Dr. Kathleen Jordan, SVP of Medical Affairs at Tia, explains, “lived experience is comprised of the elements of identity, upbringing, and daily life that influence health and access or lack of access to care, clinically, psychosocially, and experientially.” Understandings and experiences of health care and treatment can vary among different populations, so we need providers invested in providing customized care with cultural fluency.

Beyond access hurdles, people of color, especially Black individuals, often receive lesser-quality care than their white counterparts. Centuries of medical racism, institutional discrimination, and conscious and unconscious bias manifests in disregard and suboptimal care for people of color. Tesiah Coleman, Nurse Practitioner at Tia, shares, “as a Black patient in the US healthcare system, I have felt firsthand the frustration and exhaustion associated with having healthcare providers who don’t get it. And, as a Black Nurse Practitioner, I have seen the sighs of relief when I walk into a room and a patient realizes they may not have to justify why they are terrified of giving birth in the hospital, or worry if I will believe their pain.”

Why diversity in healthcare matters
Increasing the diversity of health care providers can not only help dismantle the barriers that people of color experience when seeking care but also increase the quality of care they receive. The better a patient is represented and understood, the better they can be treated, and the better the healthcare system functions.

Unfortunately, hiring healthcare providers from marginalized backgrounds is harder than it should be. Long-existing systemic disparities have led to less prevalence of providers of color across the medical field. To have more physicians of color, we need more medical students of color and a more equitable and racially just educational system at large. Dr. Jordan explains, “several decades ago there was an effort to get more women into the medical field which was dominated by men. That shift started through medical school admissions who actively worked to admit more women. The same things must happen now to increase racial and ethnic diversity in the workforce today.”

How Tia is Increasing Representation on our Care Team
In DMs, emails, and old-school phone chats, we’ve received messages from our patients requesting providers that share their identities and experiences. In direct response to these important requests, Tia is committed to building out our Care Teams to better reflect our patient population and provide the inclusive, patient-centered care our communities deserve.

We believe medicine should be local to deliver personalized care that honors the unique lived experience — inclusive of racism — of each patient and that community. Creating Care Teams that mirror the communities we’re serving is critical to ensuring that the care we provide is comprehensive, compassionate and effective at achieving our ultimate goal of helping people get and stay truly well.

As we expand and open more clinics in more cities across the country, we are encouraging diverse applicants throughout the Care Team and across our company.

Across our primary care, gynecology, and mental health teams, we have Black, Asian and Latinx representation — a direct response to patient feedback and the result of our steadfast commitment to increasing diversity

Today, Tia is also invested in increasing cultural competence amongst our staff through monthly training — continuing both the clinical and cultural education of our Care Team beyond a standard residency program. To date, we’ve invested in dedicated training on gender inclusivity, trauma-informed care, and lived experience providing a forum to answer questions like “how do we hear, recognize, and validate each person’s lived experience with compassion and humility in every interaction? And, how do we create truth and safe spaces for people?” explains Jess Horowitz, VP of Virtual Care and Clinical Operations.

Beyond training, at Tia we’re deeply committed to fostering a culture that promotes peer-to-peer learning and information sharing to eliminate the monolithic top-down approach common in our field. This brings an array of voices into leadership and decision-making. We understand that diversity can’t just be a goal in and of itself, but must be part of a wider effort to provide more comprehensive care and to better serve our patients.

Looking towards the future›

Diversity is about ensuring all backgrounds, beliefs, ethnicities, and perspectives are adequately represented in the medical field to provide the best possible care for all patients. We have a long way to go in creating a just healthcare system, but diversifying the healthcare workforce and centering cultural competency in our model is a critical step in building healthcare that works for everyone, not just those with privilege.

We want to hear from our community: What does affirming, inclusive healthcare mean to you? How can we create healthcare systems and organizations that better serve the needs of our community? Send us a note at sayhello@asktia.com