pared to 69% of white patients. By changing our approach to screen-
ings and offering fecal immunochemical tests (FIT), patients were
offered a more convenient option for completing the screening. By
expanding our communication to include a variety of languages, we
successfully increased the screening rates for patients of color by
67%.
It was this same commitment that helped us to improve our care and
service to LGBTQ patients. We set a goal to ensure that LGBTQ
patients received care that was clinically sound and culturally appro-
priate. This meant modifying patient intake forms to include gender
identity, preferred name and pronoun designations, and also building
colleagues' awareness of these concepts so that they interacted appro-
priately with patients and their family members.
Finally, although managing a diverse workforce and the interperson-
al challenges that frequently accompanies it can be challenging, study
after study shows that diversity and inclusion is a key driver of inter-
nal innovation and business growth. Diverse groups do better at new
product and new market development. They perform better at prob-
lem solving and, according to a McKinsey analysis, organizations that
include women and ethnic minorities at the top levels of leadership
are much more likely to achieve high profitability and excellent long-
term value creation as opposed to companies that are not diverse in
race and gender.
How to increase diversity
HealthPartners, like many other organizations, has a team that helps
to drive the organization's diversity and inclusion priorities. What
makes the organization unique in its diversity efforts is that it has a
highly engaged and committed leadership team that integrates health
equity into the operational practices of the system as well as diversity
1 6 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 9
