Reigniting the Human Connection

“Reigniting The Human Connection: A Pathway to Diversity, Inclusion, and Health Equity is a must-read for those in healthcare and beyond. Healthcare is in urgent need of redesign to eliminate barriers, address inequities, and influence positive change needed to improve health outcomes for all. Dr. Mieres and coauthors not only brilliantly lay out the problem, but most importantly, they provide solutions!” —Don Lemon Anchor, CNN Tonight Author, This Is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism

“My colleagues at Northwell Health, under the leadership of an extraordinarily passionate leader, Michael Dowling, have provided us with an innovative and disruptive forensic dissection of the elements necessary to achieve health equity in any community, nation, or the world. This is a very timely and much-needed work based on their decades of study and multidisciplinary commitment to ensuring that all persons have the opportunity to achieve optimal health. This book should be required reading for all health professionals and elected leadership who are entrusted with generating health-related policy that benefits those citizens that they have the privilege to serve.” ­—Richard Carmona, MD, MPH, FACS 17th Surgeon General of the United States Distinguished Professor, University of Arizona

“Reigniting the Human Connection: A Pathway to Diversity, Inclusion, and Health Equity is a reminder of the importance of the human touch in medicine and healthcare. This book provides a holistic framework for embedding the tenets of health equity into the healthcare delivery system.” —Cheryl Pegus, MD Executive Vice President, Health and Wellness, Walmart

“Mieres, McCulloch, and Wright’s dedication to advancing the cause of greater diversity, inclusion, and equity to ensure high-quality health outcomes for patients and communities served by Northwell Health is inspiring. The pathway described in their practical, powerful book draws from their remarkable experience in offering a meaningful, humane approach for navigating our rapidly evolving healthcare system. For the sake of all our children and all the children to come, each and every one of us must lead, in whatever way we can, and strive to bring others along with us to a better, fairer, more peaceful tomorrow. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from these outstanding members of the caring Northwell Health community how to accelerate that movement.” —Stewart Friedman, PhD Emeritus Professor of Management Practice, The Wharton School CEO, Total Leadership

“DiversityInc has measured effective diversity, inclusion, and equity strategies across all industries in the US for over twenty years. Northwell Health, New York State’s largest healthcare provider and private employer, has made the list for the ninth straight year and remained in the top spot in the 2021 DiversityInc rankings for hospitals and health systems. Northwell is also recognized in four other DiversityInc specialty lists. These ranks are a reflection of Northwell Health’s decade-long journey toward the tenets of diversity, inclusion, and health equity for its team members, patients, and communities. Further, and in partnership with the Healthcare Anchor Network, Northwell is one of the first health systems to declare racism as a public health crisis. This leadership accountability, exemplified at Northwell Health by CEO Michael Dowling, is foundational to achieving and maintaining health equity. DiversityInc celebrates with Northwell Health as Drs. Mieres, McCulloch, and Wright publish Reigniting the Human Connection: A Pathway to Diversity, Inclusion, and Health Equity to provide best-in-class strategies to ensure sustainable equity, diversity, and inclusion outcomes for diverse workforces, patients, and communities.” —Carolynn Johnson CEO, DiversityInc

“Reigniting the Human Connection amplifies the major lessons from COVID-19 in addressing health equity with communities of color disproportionately impacted. It is an urgent call to action for the US healthcare system.” —Rohini Anand, PhD CEO, Rohini Anand LLC Former Global Senior Vice President, Corporate Responsibility and Global Chief Diversity Officer, Sodexo Author, Leading Global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: A Guide for Systemic Change in Multinational Organizations

“We’re approaching an inflection point in healthcare, and we can no longer afford to embrace a partial commitment to accessibility, quality, and equity in an increasingly complex and ever-changing healthcare environment. This book not only lays the groundwork for a transformation in how we think about advancing health equity but will also serve as an essential and practical tool for healthcare change agents. Reigniting the Human Connection: The Pathway to Diversity, Inclusion, and Health Equity is the most important book written on the biggest challenge confronting healthcare leaders and providers.” —Daniel E. Dawes Executive Director, Satcher Health Leadership Institute, Morehouse School of Medicine Author, The Political Determinants of Health

“This book captures the critically important work of advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in healthcare and lays a foundation for other health systems and caregivers who follow this path. As a cardiologist focused on sex- and gender-based cardiology and who has led efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion, I know that those health systems that embrace these changes will benefit the communities they serve, their people, and their patients. Congratulations to Dr. Mieres and colleagues on leading the way for so many others.” —Pam S. Douglas Ursula Geller Professor of Research in Cardiovascular Diseases, Department of Medicine, Duke University Director of the Multimodality Imaging Program, Duke Clinical Research Institute

“In Reigniting the Human Connection, the authors, whom I have had the pleasure of knowing and working with over the years, provide a thoughtful, timely, and much-needed assessment of healthcare, centering diversity, equity, and inclusion in ways that demonstrate this work is a need to do, not a nice to do, in today’s world. Comprehensive, evidence-based, and built on real-world experience, this is a must-read for those in this work now and interested in this work in the future.” —Joseph R. Betancourt, MD, MPH Senior Vice President, Equity and Community Health Founder, The Disparities Solutions Center, Massachusetts General Hospital

“At the beginning of this important and insightful book, the authors explain their bold mission to ask difficult questions about health disparities and the way we approach healthcare in this country. Readers will be inspired by their honest approach in seeking answers and also by their insistence that the way forward will involve efforts to recast healthcare as a partnership involving providers and patients.” —Freeman Hrabrowski, PhD President, University of Maryland, Baltimore County Author, The Empowered University

“What does real diversity look like, and why is it worth working toward? How do we build and sustain systems that work for all of us? In this timely work, leaders from New York’s largest health system detail their decade-long quest to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in healthcare. Healthcare is the profession that first sees how diversity evolves. Drawing from real-world patient experiences and their own lessons learned, they offer practical strategies for building systems grounded in empathy, community partnership, holistic approaches to patients and care, and the recognition of our shared humanity. Optimistic and wide-ranging and reflective of the need for new strategies, Reigniting the Human Connection presents a vision of what a more equitable healthcare system could be and a roadmap for how to get there.” —Steve Pemberton Chief Human Resources Officer, Workhuman Best-Selling Author, The Lighthouse Effect and A Chance in the World

“I applaud the authors of this book as they provide the healthcare industry a best-practice framework based upon a decade of applied experience using the tenets of diversity, inclusion, and health equity within one of the most diverse cities in the world to improve the health outcomes of the patients and communities served. Your leadership in taking on this serious issue and making it a part of your lived mission is exemplary and deserves to be celebrated.” —Howard J. Ross Social Justice Advocate Author, ReInventing Diversity: Transforming Organizational Community to Strengthen People, Purpose and Performance; Everyday Bias: Identifying and Navigating Unconscious Judgments in Our Daily Lives and Our Search for Belonging: How Our Need to Connect Is Tearing Us Apart

“To address our unmet global health disparities, it is imperative that we utilize an equity lens that prioritizes the needs of socioeconomically and racially/ethnically disadvantaged persons. Reigniting the Human Connection: A Pathway to Diversity, Inclusion, and Health Equity offers solutions to embed the equity lens into healthcare delivery.” —Michelle A. Albert, MD, MPH, FACC, FAHA Walter A. Haas-Lucie Stern Endowed Chair in Cardiology Professor of Medicine and Director, Center for the Study of Adversity and Cardiovascular Disease Associate Dean of Admissions, UCSF School of Medicine President, Association of Black Cardiologists

“Why is yet another treatise addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion necessary? This expository work describing a success model fuels those of us seeking equity, especially health equity. Led by established national leaders in diversity, equity, and inclusion, Mieres and colleagues delve into a ten-year journey sourced within a model institution built upon an ethos of change. Too often the justification for important discussions addressing DEI are couched around business imperatives: improving economic productivity; expanding the market; responding to external insistences; and checking the boxes. What’s missing in so many discussions and subsequent initiatives is the human connection. Perhaps that’s why success is either fleeting or nonexistent. This book appeals to our ‘better angels’; the book reminds us not only of the social determinants of health but also the moral determinants of health. We are reminded that, when we change our lens, what we see changes and we are called to rapt attention by the keen awareness that our society, any society, is defined by how we treat those who are most vulnerable. It is our ‘better angels’ who reset the moral compass and ignite more purposeful and more just DEI efforts. We do this not with vapid metrics or hollow strategic plans but by revisiting and then reigniting the human connection. It is our humanness that we crave. Without the human connection, what do we become? Read, study, and actualize the work of these brilliant social architects: Mieres, McCulloch, and Wright.” —Clyde W. Yancy, MD, MSc Vice Dean for Diversity and Inclusion Chief of Cardiology, Department of Medicine Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) and Medical Social Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University

“The dual pandemics of our time, one biologic and one cultural, and academic medicine’s response to them are the subject of the remarkable treatise of Reigniting the Human Connection: A Pathway to Diversity, Inclusion and Health Equity. That human connection is the reality of humanism in healthcare, which we define as compassionate, collaborative, and scientifically excellent care, a gold standard that quiets old understandings in favor of the twenty-first-century possibility of transformation and cure for both COVID-19 and racism. The book, by Dr. Jennifer Mieres and colleagues at Northwell Health, is both an explication of why the wondrous age of medical technology requires an equal focus on humanism and a manual for achieving this transformation in academic health centers. The authors show the way to create this future by sharing a framework for systems and cultures that support humanistic care for all. This lucid work makes an intelligible case for care that sees all patients as humans, not diseases and illuminates the path ahead in high resolution. Its audience is the entire membership of the healthcare team and its administrators” —Richard I. Levin, MD President and CEO, Arnold P. Gold Foundation

“At Northwell Health, we are committed to our mission to raise the health of our communities. We are New York’s largest healthcare provider—and we take that responsibility seriously. We know that caring for people clinically is not enough, so we think creatively to solve for the social, economic, and environmental circumstances of our patients. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated our ability as healthcare leaders to problem solve and to innovate. Based upon this, our call to action, as Drs. Mieres, McCulloch, and Wright highlight in their book, Reigniting the Human Connection: A Pathway to Diversity, Inclusion, and Health Equity, is to build upon this spirit of innovation to continue fostering trusted partnerships with the diverse communities we live in and serve.” —Mark Solazzo President, Strategic Initiatives, and COO

“Reigniting the Human Connection: A Pathway to Diversity, Inclusion, and Health Equity is a must-read for insight on the journey of an organization (and its leaders) in developing best practices in diversity, inclusion, and health equity, the lessons learned over the last ten years, and how the COVID-19 crisis accelerated these efforts.” —Debbie Salas-Lopez, MD, MPH Senior Vice President, Department of Community and Population Health

“This book deals with essential elements of effective healthcare that must be understood and incorporated into both the strategic and daily efforts of our workforce. We must create a diverse workforce that uses equity and inclusivity as major metrics of success. It must start during the education and training of that workforce. Eradicating health disparities can only happen when caregivers and policymakers understand the impact of the social determinants of health, the need for the workforce to come from all of the groups that are our patients, and that this will only happen by intentional efforts, programs, and metrics that will push us to settle for nothing less than true health equity and inclusion. It starts with educating a diverse workforce and ends with our patients feeling safe, trusted, confident, respected, and cared for equitably and expertly. The role of our school is so much a part of this, beginning with our Pipeline Programs, then our curriculum, our culture, and finally the values we try to instill in all of our graduates. This book tells a story of Northwell Health and its efforts at equity and inclusivity and the home it has made for our school of medicine.” —Lawrence G. Smith, MD, MACP Dean, Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell Executive Vice President and Physician-in-Chief

“There’s nothing like sitting down with somebody to ask them about themselves and really caring about them. I think when you make that human connection, it’s so powerful, whether it’s an employee, physician, or patient. With this human connection, we gain a greater understanding of an individual’s life journey and how we might be able to assist them in achieving their wishes moving forward. This is the greatest legacy any of us can leave—assisting others in achieving their dreams, aspirations, and wishes in life.” —Maureen T. White, RN, MBA, NEA-BC, FNAP, FAAN Executive Vice President and Chief Nurse Executive, Margaret Crotty and Rory Riggs Clinical Chair in Nursing

“The path forward requires our commitment to transforming the conditions of historically marginalized communities; improving the quality of housing and neighborhood environments of these populations; advocating for policies that eliminate inequities in access to economic opportunities, quality education, and healthcare; and enhancing allyship among racial and ethnic groups. Reigniting the Human Connection: A Pathway to Diversity, Inclusion, and Health Equity represents a tried-and-true framework to help healthcare organizations in putting the patient as partner, where we can move from being a healthcare institution for the sick to one of wellness and prevention.” —David L. Battinelli, MD Executive Vice President and Physician-in-Chief Vice Dean, Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell

“Achieving equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging is key to delivering on our mission, performance outcomes, and commitment to remaining a great place to work … for all. It defines our character and identity as an organization, and in its absence, we cannot truly claim victory in serving our diverse communities and attracting and retaining a diverse and talented workforce.” —Maxine Carrington, JD Senior Vice President and Chief HR Officer

“When Amanda Gorman, a twenty-two-year-old poet, shared the words of her poem ‘The Hill We Climb’ at the inauguration of President Biden, she spoke that America is a ‘nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished.’ This book attempts to tackle one of the major unfinished challenges that America’s healthcare system must confront in the years ahead: achieving health equity for all of its citizens. The authors of this book recognize that a foundational element of achieving health equity is to develop and support a culture that embraces humanism in healthcare. They identify a framework on how to think about this challenge and provide a number of concrete steps that leaders and organizations can take that ultimately will move our nation closer to the promise of providing equitable care for all. This is an invaluable resource for all health providers trying to address America’s unfinished business.” —Jeffrey Kraut Executive Vice President, Strategy, Northwell Health Chair, NYS Public Health and Health Planning Council