Hospitals are making progress to diversify their C-suites, management and boards, though there is still significant room for improvement, according to a Feb. 28 report from the American Hospital Association.
About half of hospitals reported having a strategy to increase diversity among their boards and leadership teams based on race, ethnicity and sex. Strategies to increase diversity by characteristics such as gender identity (26.7%), sexual orientation (24.1%) and disability (22.6%) were less common.
When asked whether their hospitals have actually implemented specific approaches to increase diversity, responses varied. About half of hospitals had implemented strategies to increase racial/ethnic diversity, while only a quarter said the same for diversity in sexual orientation.
"These findings suggest that targeted, focused efforts are needed to shift from an acknowledgment of the need to pursuing actions that will yield greater diversity and representation in leadership and governance ranks," AHA said.
The insights come from AHA's 2022 DEI Benchmark Survey, which polled 1,356 hospitals between Jan. 19 and June 3, 2022. AHA said the findings should serve as a baseline for future surveys and are not necessarily reflective of the entire hospital field. The association launched a new version of the survey in January.
View the full report here.