Health care has been inequitable for generations. Providence is taking steps to advance health equity by dismantling systemic policies and processes that have historically disadvantaged certain populations and have led to significant health inequities.
Providence is putting in the personal and institutional work needed to live our values, speak up against injustice and prevent further harm. The organization has made a $50 million investment over five years to reduce health disparities and achieve health equity. We are working to create robust partnerships with our communities, building needed infrastructure, ensuring caregivers reflect the demographics of the people we serve, and embedding health equity as a strategic priority across the organization.
During 2021, Providence invested more than $10 million of the $50 million total health equity commitment and served 562,000 individuals, including families.
Psychiatry Residency Spokane fully supports the American Psychiatric Association Position Statement on Diversity and Inclusion in the Physician Workforce. Our program is developing clinical programs and systems by which we can recruit and retain a diverse and inclusive workforce, to include residents, faculty and staff.
AAMC Holistic Review
We intentionally select people who demonstrate significant distance travelled, are from under represented minorities in medicine, are first generation college students, come from rural, underserved areas or countries, and who have faced adversity. Our review is mission based and heavily weighted toward life experiences including advocacy, evidence of strong interpersonal skills and work with vulnerable populations.
We know that we can't know whether our strategies are successful without first collecting baseline data, so that is where we started in 2019. For the past few years we have been collecting data about the demographics of our applicants, residents, staff and faculty, and tracking improvement in diversity over time.
Like many programs across the country, we are in the early stages of identifying system based solutions to addressing issues of retention of physicians from diverse backgrounds. We encourage you to ask current residents and faculty about their experiences working both in the program, and for Providence as the larger hospital sponsoring institution.
ACGME Resident Survey AY 21-22
DEI, Community and Cultural Psychiatry Didactic threads that include the following topics:
Providence and STHC GME includes a Diversity Equity and Inclusion subcommittee, chaired AY 22-23 by Cedar Neary, PGY5 child fellow. Representation includes residents from every GME program. To increase collaboration between the institution and the GME programs, there is bidirectional representation of members who sit on both the GME DEI subcommittee and the Providence DEI committee.
