Digital HEDI Communications Success

How Johns Hopkins Medicine Created a Winning Digital Solution and Outreach Strategy for Advancing Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion During the COVID-19 Pandemic

A new Strategic Health Care Marketing webinar for health care marketers and strategists

Presented on May 4, 2022 


About Your Presenters:

Suzanne Sawyer
Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications
Johns Hopkins Medicine

Suzanne Sawyer is senior vice president of marketing and communications for Johns Hopkins Medicine where she leads marketing, digital strategy, internal communications, media relations, and corporate communications.

She was previously vice president and chief marketing officer for Penn Medicine and vice president of marketing for IBM Watson Health. She also held leadership roles at three other health systems, the American Enterprise Institute, and the National Wildlife Federation.

Sawyer is the recipient of numerous awards including Top 100 Women Leaders in Healthcare (2021) by Women we Admire, Healthcare Influencer by MM&M and PR Week (2018). She was inducted into the Healthcare Internet Hall of Fame (2017).

Suzanne-Sawyer-Photo

David Simpkins
Vice President of Marketing and Communications
Johns Hopkins Medicine

David Simpkins is the vice president of marketing and communications for Johns Hopkins Medicine in the National Capital Region. Before joining Johns Hopkins Medicine, he served as the national vice president of strategic communications planning and resources at the American Cancer Society.
He has more than 25 years of professional experience in marketing, planning, and public relations. He previously held the posts of vice president of planning, marketing and business development at Saint Agnes Hospital (Ascension Health), and vice president of marketing for Holy Cross Hospital (Trinity Health).

David-Simpkins-Photo

Transcript

0:00
Welcome to today's webinar, Digital Health, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion: Communications Success at Johns Hopkins Medicine.
0:10
I'm Brian Griffin, and your moderator for today, and I'd like to welcome you to the program on behalf of Plain-English Health Care, publisher of Strategic Health Care Marketing and organizer of the eHealthcare Leadership Awards, which, by the way, are now open for 2022 entries.
0:35
As we begin, I'd like to introduce the presenters for today's program.
0:40
First of all, Suzanne Sawyer is Senior Vice President and Marketing Communications at Johns Hopkins Medicine, where she leads marketing, digital strategy, internal communications, media relations, and corporate communications.
0:56
And David Simpkins is Vice President of Marketing and Communications for Johns Hopkins National Capital Region.
1:04
Welcome to both of you this afternoon.
1:09
Today's presentation will be approximately 45 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of Q&A with you, our audience.
1:17
To submit questions, please type them into the control panel and hit Send.
1:22
We'll hold your questions until the end, but feel free to submit them at any time.
1:28
After the webinar, you'll receive an e-mail with a link to access the recording of today's program as soon as it's available for viewing.
1:38
I'd like to set the stage for today's presentation by taking you back almost two years ago to the day to the Murder of George Floyd and the ...
1:49
co-ordination protests, civil unrest, that literally shook the nation.
1:56
As you'll hear from Suzanne and David, the tragedy had a profound impact on them personally, as well as their marketing communications team and the entire John Hopkins Medicine Organization.
2:09
During the webinar, they'll share how the tragedy inspired the organization to strengthen its commitment and bring a heightened health, equity, diversity, and inclusion focus to their Cove at 19.
2:22
Community outreach efforts in internal and external communications, especially to multicultural candidates.
2:31
They'll also highlight the Approach 13 utilize to create and implement an action plan that included setting objectives, developing strategies and tactics, monitoring results to measure success and much more.
2:47
And they'll show creative samples. John Hopkins is used including the development of a dedicated micro site.
2:54
Site was recognized with a Platinum Award in the 2021 E healthcare Leadership Awards in the category of best digital campaign for health equity, diversity, and inclusion.
3:08
And finally, they'll provide you with some keys to success and important takeaways that you can benefit from as you work to advance health equity, diversity, and inclusion at your organization.
3:21
So at this point, I'd like to turn it over to Suzanne and David to share their story.
3:28
Thank you very much, Brian. It's really great to be here.
3:31
And we really appreciate the opportunity to share our experience and some perspective on the role of marketing and communications to help support health equity and diversity and inclusion in terms of the agenda that we have at Johns Hopkins Medicine.
3:49
But first, I'd like to share a little bit about our organization and our marketing and communications team.
3:56
Johns Hopkins Medicine is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, And it consists of a school of Medicine, as well as our health system, which has six hospitals and several other businesses, including health plans and home care, physician groups, Johns Hopkins International, and others.
4:18
Our footprint is primarily in the greater Maryland in Washington, DC.
4:22
Area, as well as saint Petersburg, Florida, and we have other affiliations around the world.
4:29
Next slide, please.
4:33
So I was relatively new to Johns Hopkins and had been in my position or just about nine months when Cov at 19 was reported in Wuhan China. And as we all know, our world changed really just about overnight.
4:52
And what followed was, I think, unimaginable to most of us and devastating to so many.
5:00
I imagine many of you may be familiar with the Johns Hopkins coven 19 tracker, which is shown on this screen in the top right.
5:10
And at that time, curve at 19 had, and this dashboard, this Coburn 19 dashboard, at nearly four billion views and more than 220 billion clicks.
5:27
And it was really sort of marker of the moment.
5:33
Because this pandemic was unique in that it really touched everyone.
5:39
And it seemed everyone was affected by the pandemic and this societal disruption and pain that was present in our communities.
5:50
And we thought also about our own organizations inside and outside how we were faced with turmoil in our communities, both through cov at 19, as well as the societal disruption and pain.
6:07
And while we were really focused and overwhelmed within the hospitals that we serve, in terms of the need to share information about it and resources, it was also a really critical time for us, though, to show our compassion and our empathy and connect with the communities in our shared desire to cope and to heal.
6:31
Next slide, please.
6:34
And then came the killing of George Floyd.
6:39
Cloyd's death was a sentinel event for our country, and it certainly sparked a heightened response during the pandemic and in Baltimore, it struck a particular chord with memories that were still raw from the killing of Freddie Gray.
6:57
And this was the situation that we had on Monday morning, June first, exactly one week after Floyds death, And after many protests across the US, I was meeting with my senior team, like I did every morning, every Monday morning.
7:15
But that morning, after a weekend of intense protests across the US that morning felt very different and in that moment. Admittedly, without a lot of real forethought.
7:31
I decided to set aside our normal routine.
7:34
And I realized that it was important.
7:39
To raise the issue, I realized, too, that I was about to possibly wade into something uncertain, murky, probably clunky on my part and maybe even risky.
7:54
But I wondered if I, if I open this bag and bring this up, will I make matters worse? And I thought, oh, my gosh, how in the world can I make matters worse? How could they be much worse?
8:08
And so I took the plunge and I asked a couple of just simple schuman questions.
8:13
How are you doing?
8:15
How are you feeling?
8:17
And these questions.
8:19
They didn't need an explanation, um, but there was silence.
8:25
Silence at first.
8:27
There was a long, heavy, awkward kind of silence and then 1 by one name a rush of stories and some were very hard to hear.
8:39
Some stories were heartbreaking and shocking and deeply personal and very emotional and the more we listened, the more we heard.
8:51
And I think it's fair to say that we all had experienced various degrees of emotion and confusion and outrage and questions and there were so many questions. What is happening? Where are we going? And what are we going to do?
9:10
Next slide, please, Brian.
9:13
So I think what we realized in this time is that racial inequality is a multi-faceted issue, and we realized that health systems in many ways are at the center of a rising discussion of health equity and social justice.
9:35
And we felt that, or we recognize that we have a moral and ethical responsibility to respond both for the health and well-being of our staff, as well as the communities that we serve.
9:49
So this became a, sort of, watershed moment for our team, it sparked a series of difficult conversations.
10:00
We did quite a few listening sessions, not just within our team, but across the enterprise.
10:08
And we conducted an all staff survey to help us as a department.
10:13
To process this moment, we were all living in and to propel the discussion into action and from this work came both insights as well as discreet areas of focus for our team.
10:31
Next slide, please.
10:35
And so our team decided to come together And to give this serious thought and effort so the marketing and communications team supports the entire Hopkins Medicine Enterprise.
10:52
And our team decided to organize their work and ours are our plans for work in three broad areas of focus.
11:03
The first was to ensure the well-being of our own staff, the marketing, and communications team.
11:10
We've had an Employee Engagement and Diversity Council for many years.
11:15
So that core team and many others volunteered to build out that plan.
11:22
Our second goal was to support and be supportive of our Diversity and Inclusion office, and to think about ways we can be helpful to support that team that was working, again, on behalf of Johns Hopkins Medicine.
11:41
The goal here was to strengthen the organization's mission based D&I initiatives and support for departments during covert 19, and the social unrest, and beyond.
11:55
And then the third goal, which was and remains a stretch goal to be sure, was to become the most trusted health care provider for the communities that we serve.
12:07
We hope to become a preferred, preferred provider of multicultural communities that have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic.
12:17
And we hope ultimately to make the Hopkins health system be both a local and a national leader in D&I, during the pandemic, and beyond.
12:30
Next slide, please.
12:33
So, with these three areas of focus, defined, we thought it would be helpful to establish some guiding principles to help lead and inform our efforts.
12:45
And here they are, The first is true.
12:48
So stay true to our mission and our core competencies, as an m.n.c. tiene. What is our expertise?
12:55
How can we offer that to our organization, and stay focused on what our core competencies are.
13:04
The second is to differentiate, which is simply to say, there's a lot of people within the organization who are involved in this kind of effort. We just wanted to make sure that we don't step all over ourselves if you will don't duplicate what's being done by others at scale.
13:24
The third is to amplify.
13:26
We really wanted to amplify the work of that was being done by our institutional partners, and we wanted to do it through and with the Office of Diversity and Inclusion.
13:38
But there were other partners, as well.
13:41
Government and community affairs, our School of Medicine, our School of Public Health, and others, to really try to identify ways to reach out to the community, which David will talk about in a moment, and ways that we can help and improve the resources for the community in this tough, tough time.
14:02
And then forth, was really to focus on our people first.
14:06
We wanted to ensure the well-being of our staff and to help interact, we have an office of well-being at Hopkins. And we partner with them very closely.
14:20
Next slide, please.
14:25
So as part of our work, we heard from our D&I team, and community relations, and social work, and others, that there were multis socio economic barriers that had existed for a very long time, which, which we knew and understood.
14:44
And that there were barriers for many of these communities in Baltimore, who were seeking testing and treatment for coven.
14:52
We also recognized that communities of color were disproportionately impacted by ..., because nationwide, as well as within Maryland and and the communities that we serve.
15:04
All of this made us think, know, we have a lot of information, we have a lot of resources. We have a lot of content.
15:12
So, it led to this creation of this covered 19 health equity microsite that was launched in March 2021.
15:20
And we developed it working in partnership with our Office of Diversity and Diversity and Inclusion and Health Equity.
15:30
We also worked with the Population Health Department on content and how to best communicate about covert information to the different audiences we were trying to reach answer.
15:42
So, we created this website, Equity for Covered 19, Vaccines, and Care, is the focus, And it was our response in marketing and communications, it was our response to try to address this pressing public health issue.
15:59
So, now I'll hand it off to David to really share a lot of the detail about how we approached health equity for our patients and our communities, and how we've reached out to those communities, and engaged with them in a meaningful way.
16:17
Great, thank you. Suzanne. Next slide.
16:21
So, as Suzanne mentioned, really kind of, our goal for the microsite, was really for it to serve as essential part of an ecosystem, that we were building.
16:32
It really, a central hub of co related information, and resources for the community.
16:38
And it really was a strategy that was born out of collaboration, with the Office of Diversity Equity Inclusion, or Office of Population Health, public health, both on content, and on supporting strategies to drive traffic to the site.
16:53
You say the nice thing about the microsite is that it became a repository of information that was rapidly changing and a vehicle to help dispel misinformation about the virus and vaccines.
17:06
So, our marketing and communications team began to work in tandem with these leaders on a wide range of initiatives, which included leadership forms, development, and dissemination of sponsored content in partnership with some other trusted organizations across the region. So we're talking about Baltimore and in DC.
17:27
And we also engaged and supported our government community affairs teams and our community health outreach teams in direct to consumer health education. And outreach really connect with people and communities at the grass grass roots level.
17:42
Next slide.
17:45
Sure. We first sought to really leverage the momentum garnered by the success of our Coburn 19 tracker.
17:52
Suzanne spoke to a little bit earlier, to use that as a catalyst to build on our reputation as a trusted source of science based information and education.
18:01
And, in doing this, it provided as a platform, to give voice to the growing disparities within our communities, via promotion of our faculty positions. So, we began by creating a speaker's Bureau of diverse experts.
18:13
We use it as a way to insert Johns Hopkins medicine, really into the public conversation and dialog locally.
18:19
We were really intentional about using diverse experts in this work because it was about stewarding the trust that the community had in Johns Hopkins, and we wanted to make sure that the work that we did was culturally competent, relevant, and connected to those communities.
18:35
So from virtual town halls to honor interviews and Facebook Live discussions, we use these opportunities really to promote and drive traffic to the ..., vaccine and care microsite.
18:46
So let's say one of the more notable forms that we can veined.
18:51
We hit close to 2000 attendees was a partnership between Johns Hopkins Medicine and Johns Hopkins University and included keynote speaker, which was doctor Because we do corporate research fellow And the scientific leader for the coronavirus vaccine unit, pathogenesis T at the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease Vaccine Research Center.
19:15
We, in addition to that particular session, we've been hosting a series of similar conversations and dialogs since that time, And so the second thing that we really been focused on, and diligent and continuing is what Suzanne spoke to is it related to kind of the second part of this dual pandemic.
19:36
And so we really remain vigilant and advancing the dialog about racial inequality and the connection between race and health status.
19:44
And so our team partnered with our colleagues on the university side to create a PR strategy that was really focused on the intersection of these issues.
19:51
We created a campaign focused platform, which has been branded as the justice dialogs, conversations with us, and for us.
20:00
So, over the past 12, for 15 months, we've hosted a series of conversations to do I will featuring both local voices and national experts in this space, including Wes Moore, who's the former CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation, which is New York's largest provider poverty fighting efforts.
20:22
Bryan Stevenson, who is the Founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, the individual that's featured here on the page, doctor Catherine page, who is the Director of Latin American Programs for Johns Hopkins Center for Clinical Global Health Education.
20:39
Next slide.
20:42
So as I mentioned, we really sought ways in which we could create innovative partnership as a way to really extend our reach and to amplify the work of our colleagues on the ground doing the grassroots works in the community.
20:56
A few activities I'll mention, I'll speak to the afro american News partnership a little bit later and highlight some of the I think the great outcomes of that particular effort, where we partnered with Baltimore Health.
21:10
On a few initiatives, everything from mass distribution to low income and senior housing, education and navigation to testing and navigation.
21:20
We worked with the mayor's office in the city, can we use and we have content that's all loaded now into the portal that really fits that, features the highlights of that work with, with the mayor, in particular. We were asked to partner with the mayor and the faith community on a curriculum and consulting initiative to help churches re-opened safely.
21:41
And we were very intentional also about partnering and making sure that we connected with the relative Latino Hispanic communities as well, particularly as it related to media partnerships. So we established a relationship with LT ..., which is the largest Spanish Language newspaper, in the Baltimore Washington region.
21:58
For both sponsored content and Facebook Live Event Series.
22:03
We hosted a virtual community forum with the Urban one Radio, which is one of the nation's top urban networks that's really focused on the African American community.
22:13
What are the I highlight.
22:15
There is an event that we did in partnership with Urban one, on the safe re-opening of the black community. It was connected we leveraged our faith leaders, but also use local and national influencers both in the entertainment industry within the faith community.
22:31
To drive home this message around continued religious vigilance as related to masking social distancing, vaccinations, the importance of all of those things as we continue to move from the height of the pandemic into the next phase.
22:49
The other area and body of work that I'm really excited about is the work that we were able to accomplish and partnering with some of our Federal Federally Qualified Health Center across both Baltimore and Washington.
23:02
So the Esperanza Center and the Mary Center or two of those provider networks that are we connected with on dissemination of information and content generation related to testing vaccine hesitancy in the care navigation.
23:17
Next slide.
23:20
So it's a companion to the kogod 19 equity microsite. When that became very apparent for us in the earlier phases of the pandemic, was at the Hispanic population, had the highest rate of infection of any race or ethnic group in Maryland.
23:36
The rates were high due to multiplicity of reasons such as mistrust of medical institutions.
23:44
Occupational exposure, so a lot of individuals, particularly in the, in the communities of East Baltimore, and in pockets of the District of Columbia, We're heavily populated by individuals who were frontline grocery stores that restaurant, workers caretakers, delivery workers. There was also a fear of job loss eviction of individuals' sought out. They felt like they sign up, medical care, lack of insurance, and then of course, the issue of immigration and immigration status.
24:14
So we worked with our internal team and with network of Hispanic serving organizations to create an online portal in language that was intended to educate, to inform and to direct members of the Hispanic community, to covert testing sites and resources, both at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and across our network, but also, who are affiliated partnered federally qualified health centers.
24:43
Next slide.
24:45
So, that's like the site was launched.
24:48
And then we amplify it through the development of a targeted in language PR campaign that was executed across social media and in partnership with our local partner organizations.
24:58
Included, again, Hispanic newspapers, churches.
25:03
So, the clinics and then other non-profits, profit organizations. Both that were care delivery but also within the social service sector As well.
25:12
The information was really socialized internally also because that was important for us to within all of our campuses across Johns Hopkins Medicine and our staff.
25:25
And promoted through our Hispanic Hispanic la Familia which is our internal Employee Resource Group to make sure that our staff will also represent these communities were connected to.
25:36
And we're aware of a critical resource that was now available for them and for their families. So, we leveraged our community based relationships.
25:46
Both are Hispanic serving partners and media, And then we added a lot of assets to the site over time.
25:54
And we're pleased because there were several of our partner organizations that then began to embed the link to the site and to add some of our assets and our resources into their own channels, both through digital and into their social channels as well.
26:12
Next slide.
26:15
one of the things that we did that was particular to highlight, or for our work in this area, particularly as it relates to our work in the Hispanic and Latino community, was that we established program, or strategy, where we came together and partnered with these organizations to develop a series of video vignettes. That was focused, very short, very focused on various topics, topical areas of interest that dealt with everything from information that is information about the vaccine information testing. And also just linkages to care and addressing those issues that were connected to vaccine hesitancy. So, we created this platform is called, Let's Talk Health.
27:06
And over a series of about six months recreated a series of eight short video vignettes.
27:13
That we launched, both on our respective websites and through social campaign. Each of the videos were recorded in both English and in Spanish. So, which really gave us an opportunity to extend our and leverage our reach, not just within the communities that we serve.
27:33
But beyond that, we've actually identified, were formed of some partnerships as partners, even outside of the metropolitan area here in DC. and Baltimore began to leverage the site as well and the assets as well.
27:50
Next slide still.
27:52
So just a couple of highlights on some of the collaborations, just in terms of the outcomes. This is kind of related to our work with the Afro american News. We partner with them with a Facebook or a Facebook Live event that was really around this concept of facts. On the backs.
28:11
As you can see, we have pretty broad reach kind of pre event, but were for the actual day of event, which was pretty impressive, whereas we get close to 20,000 individuals from the community tuned in live and then, through rebroadcast, we were able to reach an additional 2000 individuals across the community as well and we still those assets, and that content still resides both within the ecosystem of African American News and on our site as well. Next slide.
28:42
Our Hispanic media collaborations. So this is where I spoke to a little bit earlier.
28:46
This was the partnership that we establish with LTI Tempo, which had quite an impressive reach in terms of the individual number of individuals that either tuned in, day of event, or clicked on, and enjoyed, and participated in the content post event. And so 131,000 in terms. Of total. total, reach for that activation as well.
29:14
Next slide. Right.
29:17
So, those are things that you, we always like to do, is to be able to, is to look at our analytics and to track.
29:23
Yeah, our performance over time.
29:26
And so, for the three, there are basically three micro sites that I have been created, which are connected to this work in this portfolio.
29:36
one is the Equity For ...
29:38
Vaccine Secure Site, which was launched as my newest site, which was launched on March 20 21.
29:45
And, you can see that, you know, we've had a measure of success in terms of the total number of visits.
29:52
I think probably what's more impressive than the number of individuals that are new to the site and have found value there.
30:03
We continue to IDA ways and opportunities to promote, and to drive traffic to the site, and so we're about to embark on new phase initiatives Beginning in the month of June, with urban radio. That will be specifically focused on targeted on opportunities to continue to drive traffic to the site.
30:25
The second one, which is our equity for proven IT vaccines of Care.
30:29
The Spanish language site is probably one that is, I think, incredibly, I think it surprised, many of us internally, just just how, how the community embraced the site. And how much traffic, how large the base of traffic, has been to the site.
30:47
How many individuals have found value in this. I didn't mean to you, again, with our partners.
30:53
I think a lot of this has been driven by the fact that the site is being promoted, not just to Johns Hopkins medicine channels, but as being promoted through our partner channels, a partner organization channels, as well. And then, the last, which is our diversity, inclusion, and health equity side, although the total number of total visits, extremely high here, a lot of you can see a lot of those repeat traffic back to the site. And, this is both internal and external.
31:21
We try to be intentional, even, internally, to make sure that our staff across our health system are consistently continuously made aware of new content, and it's published. We create a QR codes that we publish through our internal channels that very quickly allows our staff to access the information at any given time as well.
31:46
Next slide.
31:50
Suzanna take this back to you.
31:53
Thanks very much, David. Actually, if we could, there we go. Great. Thank you.
31:59
If we could actually go back one slide, please.
32:03
The one that I'm seeing is the one that you were talking to, But I wanted to also comment a little bit on this idea of the work continues. In many ways, it feels like our work has just begun.
32:18
As a department, we've now formalized a team that's focused on equity communications.
32:25
And this multi-disciplinary team is made up of marketing and communications staff, really from all of our functional areas, public and media relations, strategic communications, social media, digital editorial, patient education, and, and so on.
32:44
And it was really intended to also cover all the markets, sir.
32:49
And in a few weeks, this group will convene with health system colleagues across Hopkins Medicine area.
32:58
And it will include other colleagues, government, and community affairs, they health equity team, D&I teams, patient advocates, and others who are involved in community outreach, to really help us lead and develop together a roadmap for the next fiscal year.
33:19
Next slide, please.
33:21
So, key considerations, these are just some ideas to maybe pull this all together.
33:28
So we'd like to share just a few leave behind ways of working that we prioritized.
33:36
The first really is about bandwidth. So, I'm going to talk really end up in a very practical way here for a moment.
33:44
But this is really important work, and like anything else that's important that we do, it needs to be resourced, and it needs to be resource for staff who have allocated time for this, and passion for it, and, and other resources, of course, as needed.
34:00
I think the second is structure.
34:03
We chose in the hopkins' organization to actually add a person to our team who supports that group that I mentioned a few moments ago, the Office of well-being, as well as our health equity work, to a certain degree.
34:18
And then the third is other resources.
34:21
What else is needed to do to resource this important work well?
34:26
Do we need to do needs assessments?
34:29
Do we need guidance from consultants?
34:31
Are subject matter experts thinking about consultants in this space, you know, where have they had experience, and how could they bring their experience to your organization?
34:43
And are there other resources in the in the community that community partners can bring, rather than trying for us to do it all ourselves? So these, I think, are sort of practical key considerations about bandwidth structure and resources.
35:00
So, next slide, please.
35:04
So we'd like to leave you, then, with, I guess, 3, 3 other takeaways.
35:09
As you give thought to ways in which your marketing and communication team members can engage in this kind of work and in your own market and the markets that you serve, we found that they're sort of out.
35:23
We started with this thinking about the structure and the cadence of how we put this FOA together.
35:33
And we worked on developing a formalized workgroup structure, and a Meeting Cadence, so it wasn't ad hoc.
35:43
It was structured, and it was, we had people with dedicated time.
35:50
The second relates to planning and alignment, and we were really focused on developing an integrated communications work plan, And I think David and I have both sort of real reference, that kind of approach, really trying to brainstorm ideas, but then really documented into a communications work plan, And then progress and outcomes, really, how to develop an integrated communications work plan, and where we can track and measure our progress and evaluate our outcomes.
36:24
So, that's really the, the substance of our program.
36:29
If we go though, to the next slide, there is one more thing that I'd like to leave you with.
36:35
And we, we we tried to be able to share this with you via video, but we'll send out a link, I think, after this.
36:45
But this is a link to a video, and it's related to a demonstration, in fact, that happened on the grounds of the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
37:00
It was on June fifth, 2020, and the medical residents of the House Staff Diversity Council, the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine host of this demonstration.
37:13
And they did it in collaboration with the national group called White Coats for Black Lives.
37:20
And the intent was to take a stand against police brutality, and to pay respects to George Floyd and the many other victims of oppression and racism.
37:32
The demonstrators knelt for 10 minutes and recited the names of victims of police brutality, about 350 medical professionals attended, and many others throughout the Johns Hopkins Health System, participated at their hospitals across the markets that we served.
37:50
And so, I think it's one final example to sort of bring us to current times. And that is of being personal and vulnerable and transparent at all levels.
38:03
And so, as we share the link to this video, that's what I sort of take with me, which is, this video sort of captures the essence of the moment that we have all lived through.
38:20
And the importance of it.
38:23
And I think if you have a chance to take a look at it, you will see that it, in fact, is an interesting mix of students, faculty, other providers, and including the CEO of our health system.
38:42
And so, it really sort of had us all come together in a one hopkins' kind of moment.
38:50
And I think this video captures that moment.
38:53
So personally, I guess I would just say first of all, thank you for giving us the opportunity to share some of our stories about this moment and these experiences during this challenging couple of years.
39:07
I would say that I'm really proud of how our team came together in one of our country's darkest moments.
39:15
And I'm, I'm proud of how it helped to stimulate and support of really good D&I effort across Johns Hopkins.
39:24
But as David shared, it really amplified that work and took it really to the communities that we serve And truly, I think the work truly continues.
39:38
So I'll pause there and turn it back to you, Brian.
39:43
And here are some links to some of the items that we've referenced.
39:51
Yes, Thank you so much As Suzanne indicated, we will be providing that link to the video In a subsequent e-mail follow up that we'll be sending to all attendees today.
40:04
So that you can check that out. It is very powerful.
40:10
So, at this point, we're going to open up the webinar to questions from you, the attendees, Just a reminder that to submit questions, please type them into the control panel on your screen.
40:22
And just hit Send to as simple as that.
40:26
And the first question that we have here is for both Suzanne and David.
40:32
And it reads, I'm Head of Marketing at a health system that's just getting started with taking health equity, diversity, and inclusion to the next level, internally, within our organization, and, externally, in the community.
40:49
What would you recommend as the best first step, both for the executive team and for the Markov chain, in particular?
40:59
And I'm gonna pose this question both to Suzanne and David, Susanne, do you want to start? and then David can respond as well.
41:08
Sure. Thank you, Brian. This is a really great question.
41:14
I think for the executive team, as a, as a marketing or marketing and communications expert and specialist, I would go to senior leadership. I would.
41:29
I would, I would raise the issue of how your team can help the kinds of diversity and inclusion and health equity efforts within your organization.
41:41
Perhaps you're already doing that, or, and maybe you've got a very advanced organization.
41:47
Are there other ways that your team can get involved and be supported, supportive, I should say.
41:55
When we had those kinds of conversations internally, I think the response was overwhelmingly appreciative, so people, the leaders that we worked with and spoke with, and said, how can we help?
42:11
Folks were very, very receptive, and we ended up having some really meaningful partnerships there in terms of the ... team itself. Again, I think it was, for us, really important for us to bring our team members together, and to hear their thoughts.
42:30
Um, every organization is a little bit different, but what we share is that we have expertise in marketing and communications, and how we can help, now, an Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and health equity, and, and other organizations within our own health systems, certainly, probably are already partnering together. I bet you are, in some ways, we were to a certain degree, but this helped us take it to the next level, and they were really appreciative.
43:03
So, I would, again, recommend going to senior leadership, raise it as an, as, as something that you might be interested in helping with. And then, same with your team and see what their thoughts maybe.
43:16
David, any thoughts?
43:18
Yeah, I would agree with Theses and I think the other, you know, the other thing that I think is important.
43:26
And this is really brilliant for the m.n.c. team.
43:30
And really for those that have a passion for the will it work.
43:34
You know, one of the I think opportunities that we had to leverage in terms of our value to the organization was really the sharing of insights.
43:45
Insights about the community insights from data that we've collected through her research and surveys.
43:55
Consumer awareness preference but also, insights into the the multiplicity of channels and methods and tools that we have at our disposal to really help amplify the work.
44:07
Maybe a lot of times, you know, our colleagues, you know, they're there, so focused on it being kind of in the moment, and there really, know, kind of add up for us. It was an opportunity to really align ourselves and really to position ourselves as strategic advisory councils in the enablers to help lift up the work.
44:27
And, I think, you know, positioning or aligning ourselves, but also creating that level of internal literacy, I think brand, or the weather volunteering for their staff, for the team to really partner, to align into collaborations, I think, is key.
44:47
Thank you both.
44:48
Our next question reads, I might have missed that as far as the day and the timeline. When did the micro site launch?
45:06
So the, I think, it was March 2021, David, to say the. Yeah.
45:13
So, March 20 21 was the Equity coven microsite launch.
45:21
So, we're just, it's, it's a little bit over a year, or year old, now, so the anchor.
45:27
The equity micro site, and then the Hispanic language microsite launched within a few minutes of each other.
45:39
Our next question says, Thanks so much for sharing this information, How are you approaching a long term strategy for addressing equity?
45:50
Diversity, and inclusion in healthcare is here.
45:55
Constituency has grown increasingly more fatigued.
46:04
It's a great question.
46:05
It's a it's a It's a great question. It's a, It's a bit of a tough question, right?
46:10
Because I think that point is exactly right. I think our teams are staff members, I think our organization's degree of fatigue.
46:22
I'll just say a couple of words, and then toss it back to you. I think.
46:27
one of the reasons we, no, I'm interested in sharing this is because we were feeling quite overwhelmed, and we have still those moments.
46:40
But we we really did work together to put a plan together that would carry us on.
46:48
And through the moments of that fatigue, this is a real sense of purpose that a lot of people on our team have. Our Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and Health Equity also is extremely dedicated. We're close partners, And so.
47:08
I think we we focus on the work and, and, and, and, and pushed through.
47:15
But again, as Butlers, you might have a little bit more to say on that David .... Yeah, yeah, I think you're spot on. I think it does require. It requires a focused on the work.
47:27
It requires no, or an alignment on the priorities because, you know, a lot of this risks for so much of this work.
47:40
You know, this is in addition to, you know, individuals' day jobs in terms of their roles or responsibilities is so important for organizations to do this work in their communities.
47:50
But, you also have to realize resource and bandwidth.
47:57
I think constraints Ele being strategic, being intentional, that the discipline and identifying and focusing your resourcing allocators your resources, both human and financial resources.
48:11
In such a way that are you able to accomplish know the greatest benefit with with those limited resources And face it over time, I think Bears.
48:23
What we share today is just a snapshot, incredibly large and robust agenda across Johns Hopkins Medicine, where diversity, inclusion, health, equity, social justice, and we need to be measured. And we start, we started small, very organic and we were built and we will continue to build here.
48:44
But I think Suzanne's point, you know, making sure that there's a discipline around planning, monitoring, and evaluating and then then folk and really focus.
48:55
The focus is key.
48:59
Speaking of that, Suzan, our next question asks, how have your goals changed for the next 12 months from this past 12 months?
49:14
Well, I'm not sure that are.
49:18
Well, I would say that our goals have not yet been realized.
49:21
The ones that we've set out, there's still quite a lot of work to do.
49:25
I mean, if you sort of go back to that slide where I showed this triangle.
49:34
First, we want to ensure the well-being of our own staff. Then, we want to also, A supporting the initiatives of the institution, and then we'd like to reach to the communities that we serve.
49:46
It's not meant to only be in that sequence, but there's, but but that the work required to support those things, ARR, bigger when you go from your own staff to all of the markets and the communities that we serve.
50:02
So I would say that we still have a lot to do to deliver fully on these areas of focus that we've identified.
50:11
Um, I do think the point that David just ended with, which was around focus, is very relevant to this question, too, because there are so many new initiatives or needs that come up.
50:26
And it would be very easy to let things go off to the sidelines, but our team has remained focused.
50:33
And we continue to allocate resources to this, to make sure that we deliver on, not just what we raised in the heat of the moment, but what we know we're accountable for, and are able to support. We just need to stay the course.
50:53
In terms of, as you've just been talking about, the impact and the success of your efforts. Have you put together a dashboard that you share with leadership and other constituency groups?
51:18
David?
51:18
I think you say, yeah, I would say that we have it who haven't really formalized a dashboard, source.
51:28
what we, I have done, actually just this past year, with two, develop a report, back to the community, to our community stakeholders that we've partnered with really highlights and demonstrates where them both the, the outputs of our efforts.
51:53
And, I think we're still working with our colleagues, um, in the Office of Diversity Inclusion, Community Health Wellness population health, to really then ever clearer understanding of what that means and what that translates to in terms of impact and outcomes.
52:14
So, I think it's, you know, it's, it's, we're evolving, I think, where we started, where we are today, is, and I think, it's, it's quite impressive, were unhappy if you actually go to the equity microsite.
52:28
There's the report that I just spoke about, which is kind of the report back to the community, that basically the compendium of all of our marketing communications efforts, the portal is a cornerstone of that and that report.
52:40
But, that's where we are today, and I think we have a little ways to go in terms of kind of really defining kind of, outcomes and impact. But I think to that point, you know, Suzanne mentioned the work continues and the formation of our kind of marketing communications, equity, community equity team. That will going to be engaging in a strategic planning process with our stakeholders.
53:05
So to identify both goals, objectives, but also KPIs, outcome, outcome measures and metrics will be part of that process. So we're excited about that. That work will start in earnest next.
53:18
Yeah, 4 to six weeks.
53:21
And we'll be kind of a launch pad for us as we go into our next fiscal year.
53:27
Thank you.
53:28
And as Go ahead.
53:31
Just to say that over this last year and a half or or so, we've really had an opportunity to actually do measures of the outreach effort, and the programs, and so on. So, I think that will go into our strategic planning work moving forward.
53:52
Thank you, and as sort of a closing question here.
53:57
It's very obvious that you've had support and participation from the C suite, and really, all loveliness of the organization throughout this initiatives.
54:09
And moving forward, can you talk just a little bit more, and, kind of summing up how important that is to have that leadership from the top and other key committees, departments, and offices throughout the organization, involved in this, in addition to marketing communications? Just how important that is in the success of the initiatives.
54:40
Well, I think, at, uh, maybe it, you know, at a basic level, first of all, I think what you're, you're describing is extremely important.
54:50
And I think what we bring is, know, the tools of our trade.
54:57
How to understand the markets that we serve, certainly under this situation that I may have mentioned earlier. Or if I forgot to do that, I'll say it now.
55:09
We, we conducted, and also who are they, to try to understand what was important to our internal community in terms of this work.
55:23
And I think, as long as we stay close to leadership and to the different employee resource groups. Some of which David referred to.
55:35
And if we do a good job of listening to the needs of the organization, I think, that'll help us stay relevant current.
55:45
And when that's the case, I think there's, there's a good shot at getting resources. I'll just mention that, in part of my role.
55:58
I have an opportunity to participate in, you know, our medical faculty, leashed leadership group and other groups like this.
56:08
And they asked me to come and present this kind of information.
56:13
So we know that it's important, institutionally, and we know that it's important to our leadership, and I think, again, we just need to stay focused on trying to continue to support these goals that we've already established. And then listen for others, that'll be important to consider and add as we go along.
56:35
Yeah. I think the one thing I would add Suzanne is the importance of allyship.
56:42
So I think the success that we've seen at Hopkins, because it's not, you know, the, this work in, in aggregate, is not just being driven by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion Population.
56:56
Health, Recovery Community Affairs, but there are allies in the executive suite.
57:03
You're removed from the dean to the President of the Health system.
57:09
Many of Suzanne's, colleagues who also have publicly align themselves with this work and speak very eloquently, both at the governance level, but also leadership capacity within the organization, and externally to our communities. And that's, that's been very powerful.
57:28
I think that's, it's that's a needed element or any all system in the community that's going to embark upon this work. It's not just this, isn't it?
57:38
Work that is to be led just by individuals Ribeiro within the communities of color, but it really is the entire system together because they understand that this is a moral imperative and that this is good, this is part of our mission, part of our obligation to the community as a steward of community.
57:59
Thank you both, and I think that's a great place to end the Q&A portion presentation, which I think is always wanted valuable parts of these webinars.
58:10
Thank you all in the audience for your very good questions for today. We really appreciate that.
58:19
I want to close the webinar by expressing our gratitude to Suzanne and David for their time is very important in such a timely issue and sharing insights that our audience will be able to utilize in their organizations to advance health equity. Diversity, inclusion where they are. So, thank you so much.
58:43
And, in the next couple of days, just a reminder that you will receive an e-mail with the link to access the webinar recording as soon as it's available. So be sure to watch for that.
58:55
And, as a reminder.
58:59
Just as a reminder, the call for entries for the 2022 eHealthcare Leadership Awards is now open.
59:08
So, you can find more information at E health care awards dot com.
59:13
Again, that's E healthcare awards dot com, and you see it there on your screen.
59:18
There, you can read about this year's Categories, including best digital campaign for health, equity, diversity, and inclusion, and several new categories, as well. The entry deadline is June 30th, so be sure to note that. So, thank you for joining us today, and please, stay safe.