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 Welcome to this Week in Health, it influence where we discuss the influence of technology on health with the people who are making it happen. My name is Bill Russell, recovering healthcare, CIO, and creator of this week in Health. it a set of podcasts and videos dedicated to developing the next generation of health IT leaders.

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If you're interested in either of those services, check 'em out on the website. Today we're starting another of our interviews from the Health and Analytics Summit in Salt Lake City, put on by Health Catalyst If you're trying to apply data as a transformative part of your healthcare strategy, this is a fantastic event.

I had one of those hallway conversations at the Health Catalyst Summit with Trudy Sullivan, the Chief Communications and Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer for Health Catalyst that I wish I'd had the, uh, the recording running and I didn't. So I tracked her down a little later and we, uh, had a great conversation on the journey that many health systems and organizations are on with regard to diversity and inclusion.

Here it is. Hope you enjoy. Here's another session from the, uh, has 19 Health Catalyst Summit and, uh, I'm joined now by Trudy Sullivan, the Chief Marketing Officer and Chief, uh, diversity Inclusion officer. Did I get all that correct? Yeah. Chief Communications and Chief Diversity. Inclusion officer. Yes. Wow.

Is, that's not normally two things that go together, is it? I think they really do, but you don't often see them packaged that way. So this is a unique opportunity, um, as we think about, um, the way in which we communicate and culture and all those variables to bring things together in a different way. That is, that's interesting way to, to, to package it up.

So the reason we're talking is you've, you have a couple sessions, you had a lunch, and now you have a breakout session on diversity and inclusion. And we had a conversation yesterday on diversity and inclusion, and I wish I had had the microphone on. Mm-Hmm. . Um, and, uh, and didn't, and I feel that way a lot of times.

I'll have a conversation in the hall and I think, oh, should have captured that for the audience. Um, but give, give us, uh, an idea of. The breakout session. And, and, um, let's start with this. Let's start with what are you finding as you talk to different healthcare organizations, where they're at in terms of their, uh, journey, their diversity inclusion journey?

Well, I'm finding as I talk to people here, that there is a wide level of disparity in terms of where people are. On the d and I path, and it's fascinating to me, and I think that's what we're gonna really dive into when we have our inaugural panel, our diversity of thought plus data to drive better outcomes.

Discussion this afternoon, we have an incredible group of leaders, a clinician, a. C-suite leader, um, a practitioner in DNI, who's been at this for a decade At freighter, we have, um, somebody from pharma and somebody from a large nonprofit looking at a disease that disproportionately affects women and the outcomes for men actually who face themselves, who find themselves facing that disease and those symptoms.

And so we're gonna talk, and each time I talk with them, . I discover we're all coming at this from a slightly different perspective, with the same end goal in mind, but we're all at different places in the journey. It's interesting, you would think at an analytics conference we're gonna talk about, we always talk about data bias.

Mm-Hmm. , it comes up all the time. What's, what's your background? I mean, how did you, how'd you get started in this space and, and, and how'd you end up in this role? Well, I started a long time ago because there was a really important leader in my life who embraced diversity and inclusion very early on before it was even labeled as such, and that was Mrs.

Elizabeth Dole. So I had the chance to work for her when I was working in biomedical services at the American Red Cross, and I learned so much from her, but she had a very disciplined commitment to ensuring that more women and people of color. Rose to the level of senior leadership positions within our organization, and she had a program, she selected people, she gave funding for education or other opportunities people felt would help them develop and then ensured when they completed whatever they felt would get them where they needed to be from a closed gap perspective, that they were ready to move into a new role.

And I learned so much from her and those that she. Exposed me to, and then I actually left the Red Cross and worked in a company where we had very little diversity and inclusion and, and I was the, usually the only, uh, senior woman in the room. So you went into tech? Mm-Hmm. Yeah, I went into Tech and so I went into the semi, um, semi world and.

It was a, a very different experience and then left there and went to aerospace and defense and had the benefit of the last seven years of practicing as an executive diversity champion in that organization and went on a wonderful journey with our business president. We took our leadership team from two women to nine.

In less than a two year period and totally changed the way in which our business ran, the results we achieved, and the success that we had as a result of the diversity of thought that we brought to the table. So I got a lot of wonderful training in that environment, a lot of wonderful experiences, and I've been mentoring and.

Working on, you know, sponsorship and directed development with specific goals in mind. Uh, in the, in the organizations that I've been a part of. And Dan Burton and I had the privilege of working together at Micron. So he led strategy and I led comms, and that was, I guess, more than a decade ago. And I started talking to him about what might come next and.

And the rest is history. I've been here since May and I absolutely love it. Wow. So you've been here since May. Mm-Hmm. , um, you know, what are, what are, I'm trying to think of what the question is. You know, what are some of the challenges? I mean, so it's, uh, it's Salt Lake City. It's technology, although you're pretty, I mean, I ran into people.

You're now starting to become global. Mm-Hmm. in terms of your, uh, your workforce. Mm-Hmm. . So what are some of the challenges that you face at Health Catalyst in terms of diversity and inclusion? Well, it's really interesting. We have . A remote workforce. So we're spread out all over 50% of our team members work remotely and we have one of the most engaging, um, dynamic cultures that I've ever been a part of.

So there's not much that's broken. Actually. I'm really, really impressed. I'm going through an appreciative inquiry process. To learn more about diversity and inclusion and we're already at what I would probably label 3.0. So we're really focused on implicit bias training, our second round, rolling that out, and we're focused on making sure that as we grow and change that we have a team member population that looks.

Like the patient population that our clients are serving. And so making sure that we reach up and outside the state if we need to or pull others into the state so that again, we have that diversity represented is the, is the opportunity I think we're most focused on. Alright, so what does, you're gonna educate me, okay.

I'm not, I'm not gonna pretend to know more than I I do on this topic, and we talked about this yesterday. I was with a system that was very diverse. , but it was diverse only main, mainly because of the geography it was in and the type of services that it offered. Mm-Hmm. , uh, it was just naturally diverse.

Um, but that doesn't happen usually. I mean, it's, it's something that needs to be worked at. So what is 1.0 2.0? I mean, if you were to sort of say, you know, . People starting their journey. It sort of looks like this. People that are starting to become more sophisticated, it looks like this. What would that be?

Well, I think it's, uh, very similar to the ABCs that Daniel Pink shared with us yesterday. I think the first, I think 1.0 is really attunement looking around and seeing when we focus on the success of our mission, are we best positioned to be able to do it? Do we understand the needs of our clients? Do we understand the needs of our team members?

Do our team members represent the rapidly evolving demographics that we're seeing in the world around us. And there's so many spokes in what, what I like to call the diversity wheel. So there's so many dimensions of diversity and how we define our, define ourselves. So I think first you start in that level of looking up out and seeing where are we really awareness.

And then, and the second level is really, you know, that, um, you know, the, the bee for him was that buoyancy, you know, the ocean of, um, I wouldn't call it rejection, but just awareness. And examples of where, oh my gosh, we're about continuous improvement as a company and we've got some opportunities to improve in this space as well.

So you start to, at 2.0, I think you really start to embrace the, um, where are those opportunities? What do they look like? What could we be doing differently and better to make sure that a couple of things are happening? And there are a couple of really important things that, one, the people that we bring in can bring their full selves to work.

They can feel good, they can achieve their full potential, they can benefit from the respect. The love, the listening that they're given at Health Catalyst. And then you wanna make sure you know that their voice is heard. They can drive strategic change, that they feel empowered and they can make, um, decisions.

But then you also wanna ensure that that's true of every employee, isn't it? It is of every employee. But you that the last. Dimension that's most important is that they have the opportunity to look up and see a path for themselves. So if you look up and so they can see, don't see anyone like you, right then, you don't tend to wanna stay and you don't feel as engaged.

And that's really what takes you to what I would call 3.0. And 3.0 is much more centered around, I'll take the C and just, let's just call it change. And that's where you start with very deep and focused training around your very specific challenges or opportunities and starting to look at, you know, where you might have gaps.

And identifying how to close them versus being aware of where you wanna, where you wanna move in alignment with mission. And then just making sure, again, for us, we wanna make sure that every person on the planet has a great experience and the best prognosis as possible through their, their healthcare experience.

That's what we're here to do. So when we think about that and we, we create that same experience for our team members, we have to have that diversity of thought that comes from everybody being represented in the organization. And one of the things I love about this conference in Health Catalyst is. Um, and Dan talked about this as well on the, uh, uh, interview I did with him.

Um, you, you're not only looking at changing your culture, you're looking at impacting the broader culture of, uh, of healthcare. Mm-Hmm. . So you're willing to come alongside health systems and help them on that journey and be a part of that, and that's, I guess, part of your role. Mm-Hmm. it is part of my role and it's been fascinating.

At the conference, we had a, we had two opportunities to kind of break bread together with people who were really passionate about diversity, no matter where they're in their journeys. We had a great dinner last night and a lunch today and at dinner last night. We found that people are just at a place where they're, um, some are having task force committee meetings, some are hiring and standing up organizations.

Some are still very focused on the patient experience and haven't connected the dots around the team member to patient dynamic. And so it's been fascinating. I've learned so much. There's some really great programs out there. Apparently Mass General has a superb program. I didn't know anything about it Tied to disparity and overcoming.

Disparities. So it's, yeah, we, we wanna learn as much as we can from others and see, you know, how we can improve experiences through this lens as well. And it's, it's really about intentionality. One of the things I wanna come back to, because I want to get this, I wanna record this, okay. For my daughter.

Okay. 'cause you and I had the conversation of my daughter just started in college. Mm-Hmm. . And before she went in, we talked about, we did a lot of college trips just like every other, uh, parent does. And, and we had conversations of what she should do. And she started in forensic science and ended up in Asian studies.

But along the way, she happened to ask me, what do you think is, you know, the next roles? And I talked about, you know, I, I, I talked about the emergence of data, machine learning, analytics, and, uh, robotics and where all this is gonna go. And she's just, uh, and, and I've talked to my kids about this stuff and my, my son's in machine learning and ai.

Because he listens to me. My, my youngest daughter did not. And we talked about that, um, because that's one of the challenges in health It is that you do not see a lot of women Mm-Hmm. in, uh, in key roles within health. It, um, and we specifically set out to hire more women in those roles and found there weren't that many of 'em there.

And, uh, you know, you talk about that, seeing role models. Mm-Hmm. and seeing people in those roles and how that . Limits. Um, I'd, I'd love for you to just go through, you know, some of the things that, some of the research and some of the things that you've seen. Yeah, it's really unfortunate and I would say, you know, in my personal story, the same thing happened.

We really are trying to change the dynamic in America around science, technology, engineering, and math careers. There are gaps. Big gaps, especially as you look at software coders and that kind of thing. There aren't enough people out there, and there certainly aren't enough women graduating with technical degrees for us to close the gaps that we see in the workplace.

And so as you look to where can you make the most difference for young women, what research shows us and what is true for me in my what? In my own experience, and at about 14 things change. They're either. Passionate about it and they love it and they stay the math course or they look up and around and there's nobody that looks like them and there's nobody to interact with that they can, um, find other shared interest in outside of the classroom.

And there's no way for them to understand beyond what you're doing with math in the classroom, how it works in the real world. And so having interactive experiences for folks, letting kids kind of spark the passion around seeing a teacher that looks like them. My daughter goes to an all girls school.

School. She's a freshman, 14, and this is the point where we lose girls. She came home and said, mom, I love my math teacher. And I said, why? And she said, she's, not only is she smart and engaging and funny, but she looks like me. And so she'd had, guess what? In terms of the math teachers that were in front of her.

Yeah, a lot of men until the last couple years, and it's changed her perspective about the subject, and so that is why that is so important. When you look up and see someone doing something interesting, they look like you. They in some other ways think like you. You can connect to them. That's where change will really happen.

But there's so much potential for women also if they can understand science, technology, engineering, and math. It's around us every day and there's lots of. Lots of cool applications, but I think going forward, most of the jobs we know today aren't gonna exist. Right. And so if you're thinking about old school, you know, old school approaches to education, you're gonna be left behind.

Yeah. That's kind of scary that the, the job is aren't going to exist. Uh, I think the other thing that . Really is something that people, you know, we're talking about data bias, but I don't think people recognize how, uh, prevalent it can be and how impactful it can be. Mm-Hmm. . Um, now you, you've cited some, uh, some cases and, and we've talked about some of 'em.

Um, so what's, what's Health Catalyst doing around data bias? Or is this a topic for someone else, or do you feel, I think the data bias element is probably a good topic for, um, for one of our, uh, you know, our . Are other data experts, but I would tell you bias in general is bound in the people who are dealing with the data.

Right. And so, you know, I think there's a, I'll get it wrong, and I won't even remember who the quote belongs to, but I, I saw something that inspired me in the past and it was, you know, people usually only get to see about 90% of us, and that includes our ourself. So when we look in the mirror, we don't really remember, like in my case, my dad was a marine.

You know, I went to Catholic school where discipline was a little different than it was in public school. I mean, all those things shaped us and we didn't know the effect while we were experiencing it. Of that shaping, they all it, all that shaping results in biases and we all have them. Until you really go through the process of thinking and self-reflection and some training and exposure, you don't really understand the bias.

And so the bias enters not from the data itself, but from the interpretation of the data by the analysts. Yeah, so it's, it's the person collecting the data could have a bias. It's the person writing code could have a bias. This person interpreting the, uh, output of the results could have a bias. Um, so all that is a it.

You talked about awareness, then you talked about the buoyancy, and then, so 3.0 is really, um, a intentional. Um, retraining almost. I mean, you're re you would retrain me on, uh, help me to see where I have bias. Help me to see my blind spots. 'cause bias by definition is almost, is a, is a blind spot, right? And we, we would give you the opportunity to just open up the aperture and think differently about yourself, which automatically allows you to think differently about, about others.

And so, you know, um, one of my favorite, one of my heroes, I guess, mother Teresa, one of her best quotes is, you know, if we judge others, we have no place. To love them. And judgment comes from bias. So you get rid of some of the labels. You don't even know that you bring them to bear through really, really good implicit and unconscious bias training.

And, you know, we've been through some a, a round of training at Health Catalyst. There's more to do. And when people start exploring there from an individual perspective, it can be extraordinarily game changing. One of our panelists, um, shared with us that he hadn't really thought about bias. That he introduced into his own practice as a clinician or the bi from the bias that he experienced when he was a kid growing up in a place where he was underrepresented.

Yeah. And he came full circle just by taking the time to prepare for the conference. And sometimes it's those learnings and taking the time to again, look in the mirror and really assess and challenge, um, that take us. To, uh, a much more open place. So we try to be pragmatic on this show. If, if, if somebody's listening to this and they're in the health system and they're thinking, we want to, you know, this is something I wanna bring up or something, we wanna move forward.

Where, where do they get started? Where, what groups of people do they hang out with? Where do they go to talk to someone? Someone, there's so many tremendous resources and it, you know, it depends on strategically where they wanna start. Um, they can certainly reach out to us and we can, we can give them perspective.

You know, one of my colleagues will be here on the pa on the panel. Andreas Gonzalez at F Freighter. They're so far along in their journey. There's a really great organization called Elevate that provides a lot of unique perspective insight, and there's just a, a number of different places to to start, but I'm learning of more and more of those organizations when I'm here and have been talking to people this week too.

So it's . You know, again, starting with, uh, what's the need? What will greater diversity of thought do for us in our organization? And where do we plug in? And once you can kind of ground it and anchor it a bit, then you know, you can figure out do I start with just research? Do I connect with an organization?

Do I find like-minded people? What I'm hearing from most people here is that they're finding like, like-minded people and they're starting with task forces, right? Task forces and committees. It's hard to say. Starting with committees or working groups, right? And, uh, and really kicking around where do we wanna go?

What will. ces look, look like. Where do we have challenges? What are we seeing that's, um, that's either concerning or, you know, even more so from an appreciative inquiry perspective, what are we doing so well that we wanna share with others? Or what are we doing so well that's a best practice in one pocket of the organization that we think others would benefit from?

So there's, again, there's lots of different starting points. Absolutely. Trudy, thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Really appreciate it. Thanks for listening. We have several other great interviews from has 19. Uh, please check them out on the website, iTunes or YouTube, and, uh, please come back every Friday for more great interviews with influencers.

And don't forget, every Tuesday we take a look at the news that it's impacting health. It this shows a production of this week in health It for more great content, you can check out our website at. This week, health.com or the YouTube channel this week, health.com. Just go to the top, click on the YouTube link and it'll take you there.

Thanks for listening. That's all for now.