Why we need DEI in healthcare | Bonzo K. Reddick | TEDxSavannah

Summary

In this insightful TEDx Talk, Bonzo K. Reddick delves into the misconceptions surrounding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) within the healthcare sector. He addresses the criticism that DEI simply promotes racism, instead arguing for its crucial role in fostering unity and improving health outcomes. Through a data-focused approach, Reddick elucidates the significant benefits of diverse healthcare teams, equitable access to treatments, and inclusive practices for all, particularly those with disabilities or marginalized backgrounds. His speech emphasizes that DEI, far from being divisive, is a unifying force with the potential to save lives, reduce costs, and enhance societal productivity.

Highlights

• DEI in healthcare dispels myths of divisiveness and promotes unity. 🤝
• Diversity in healthcare teams improves mortality rates and reduces adverse birth outcomes. 👶
• Equitable healthcare aims for the best health outcomes, not just equal results. ⚖️
• Inclusion efforts help integrate people with disabilities into mainstream healthcare. 🌈
• Bonzo K. Reddick argues that DEI can undo past healthcare inequities for a better future. 📈

Key Takeaways

• Embracing DEI in healthcare can significantly improve health outcomes for marginalized communities. 🏥
• Diverse healthcare teams are more productive and innovative, leading to better patient care. 💡
• Equitable healthcare access can prevent costly diseases and improve quality of life. 💪
• Inclusion of disabled persons in clinical trials leads to more accurate and inclusive medical data. 🌍
• DEI practices can save money while enhancing productivity and societal well-being. 💸

Overview

Bonzo K. Reddick takes on a compelling narrative in his TEDx Talk, spotlighting the importance of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in healthcare, despite criticisms labeling it as a divisive force. He asserts that DEI is not about favoring one group over another, but about dismantling pervasive biases and creating equitable opportunities.

By presenting evidence-based studies, Reddick highlights how racially diverse healthcare teams lead to better patient outcomes, including decreased mortality rates and fewer adverse birth scenarios. He also illustrates the cost-saving potential of equitable health interventions, which prove critical in managing diseases like chronic kidney disease.

Reddick further advocates for the inclusion of individuals with disabilities in healthcare discussions, stressing the importance of access to inclusive medical trials and preventive care. Through his engaging and informative talk, he paints DEI as an essential, life-saving framework for modern healthcare that benefits all layers of society.

Why we need DEI in healthcare | Bonzo K. Reddick | TEDxSavannah Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 earlier this year a well-known public figure with more than 175 million followers on the social media platform X formerly known as Twitter made waves with a social media post that said Dei is just another word for racism shame on anyone who uses it now this caught my attention because Dei or diversity equity and inclusion has been a major part of my professional life I spent
• 00:30 - 01:00 years is the associate dean of diversity equity and inclusion at a medical school so if Dei is just another word for racism did I spend six years of my career as the associate dean of racism I explored further in this same social media figure said Dei discriminates on the basis of race gender and many other factors and that it was immoral and illegal after noticing a significant increase in claims such as this one I performed a BAS internet search using
• 01:00 - 01:30 the keyword Dei and I found an abundance of testimonials that Dei was destructive and that it promotes division in our society so if Dei is truly divisive how dare I an admitted fan of Dei stand before you today speaking about a subject purported to cause Divergence my experience with Dei has been that it Fosters Unity so where is the disconnect my assertion to you today is that Dei is has been presented in a way
• 01:30 - 02:00 that has allowed for the concept to either be misunderstood or intentionally manipulated let's start with a D and Dei diversity is often portrayed as taking opportunities away from qualified individuals and just giving them to unqualified racial and ethnic minorities the goal of creating diverse work environments aims to recruit and retain qualified applicants from all walks of life diverse hiring practices are not ways of just doing favors for for unqualified racial and ethic min ities or historically marginalized
• 02:00 - 02:30 groups they ways of creating Dynamic topshelf organizations for example in healthcare an increase in the proportion of black primary care physicians in an area is associated with decreased mortality for black people living in those same communities a population-based study of more than 3.5 million births showed that increased racial diversity in the nursing Workforce was linked to a significant decrease in severe adverse birth outcomes not just for black but
• 02:30 - 03:00 for white Hispanic and asian-pacific Islander patients more than a dozen studies including an empirical study of almost 4,000 hospitals showed that racially diverse hospitals and some non-medical businesses were more efficient more productive and they perform better in terms of innovation and financial returns let's move on to the E and Dei equity and let's let's use the example of kidney disease using County Health Data reported in 2022 you will notice
• 03:00 - 03:30 that in chadam County Georgia where Savannah is located the prevalence of diagnosed kidney disease is a little more than 3% however data from the National Kidney Foundation and from the US renal Data Systems annual report revealed that approximately 14% or one in seven adults was estimated to have chronic kidney disease which we refer to as CKD in addition 90% of people with CKD are unaware of their diagnosis as it does not usually cause symptoms Until
• 03:30 - 04:00 the End stages so we know this estimated diagnosis of CKD in slightly more than 3% of our neighbors in the savannah area it's not accurate the rates are probably four to five times higher the biggest problem with this is that there is a myriad of interventions that are at our disposal that can slow the progression of CKD and lower the risk of death and serious morbidity if someone doesn't even know they have kidney disease then they will not have access to these intervention
• 04:00 - 04:30 that can save their kidneys and their life equity and health or Health Equity is defined by researcher Dr Paula bravman as the attainment of the highest level of Health for all people Equity is not promising equality which would be everyone having the same outcome it's just asking for an opportunity to achieve the best health possible for each person Equity is helping to identify that 90% of people with kidney disease who do not realize they have a problem equity requires increasing
• 04:30 - 05:00 access to high quality health care for everyone so that those at risk for CKD can be tested Equity also means getting rid of an outdated model of diagnosing kidney disease that causes black patients to often find out they have a problem even later than everyone else frequently when it's almost too late you see for years we were told that black people normally naturally have higher levels of creatinine which is a marker for kidney disease because black people have more muscle mass
• 05:00 - 05:30 imagine me walking into a doctor's office next to Arnold Schwarzenegger if I had a higher level of this marker for kidney disease compared to the Terminator I might be told oh you don't have kidney disease that's normal for you because you're black and therefore you have more muscle mass than Arnold why youall laughing no no exactly right Equity is what happened when researchers a few years ago finally
• 05:30 - 06:00 started to question this dubious claim in response to Dei initiatives from across the country a task force developed between the American Society of nephology and the National Kidney Foundation created a new way of of estimating kidney function that more accurately identifies kidney disease and people of all Races now black people and everyone can be diagnosed on time and perhaps have access to some of these life-saving and kidney saving treatments I mentioned earlier implementing this new type of testing universally is not divisive it's
• 06:00 - 06:30 an opportunity for Better Health outcomes for everyone now some of you all might be saying well that all sounds great but all these extra kidney tests and preventive treatments are going to be really expensive who's going to pay for that well I'm here to tell you we as a society are already paying for it the Medicare program funded by us the taxpayers spends more than 24% of his funding on patients with kidney disease
• 06:30 - 07:00 treatment of just the end stage of kidney disease alone accounts for 7% of all Medicare spending even though this patient population only makes up 1% of all Medicare beneficiaries you see a lot of Health Equity interventions cost us money on the front end but they save us a lot of money on the back end by preventing disease more importantly Health Equity saves life and improve the quality of life so on to the i in Dei if you look at certain communities
• 07:00 - 07:30 local communities such as Dutch Island they have relatively low rates of disability with a little more than one in six residents being affected however if we look just outside these walls in this surrounding Community the rates of people living with at least one disability are more than 40% or two in every five people being affected people living with disabilities or different abilities are four times more likely to report being in poor or Fair health
• 07:30 - 08:00 people living with developmental disabilities are often they they have a much lower life expectancy they have a life expectancy that's 16 years lower for men and 18 years lower for women compared to the general population people with disabilities are less likely to receive the basic preventive care recommended by organizations such as the US preventive Services Task Force when disabled people have low vision it's less likely to be detected in a timely manner people living with CLE cell disease have disability rates as high as
• 08:00 - 08:30 69% and they have a life expectancy 21 years lower than people living without this debilitating disease so what does all this talk about disabilities have to do with with the I and Dei inclusion means following recommendations of organizations such as the American Academy of Developmental medicine and Dentistry who recommend inclusion of people with neurodevelopmental disabilities into mainstream clinical trials see currently our medical algorithms and clinical decision making tools are based on
• 08:30 - 09:00 evidence and studies that excluded these populations as a result we are now more likely to miss certain diseases such as sepsis or infections in people living with disabilities inclusion means doing things like Community Health faires Dental screenings Community Dental screenings immunization fairs to increase access for people that have limited Mobility or have difficulty with Transportation or getting to a doctor's office inclusion means for people that are unable to leave their home for example increasing Access to teleah
• 09:00 - 09:30 Health Services or Home Health Services so that they're not excluded and so they'll have access to high quality Health Care inclusion also means in addition to access to Healthcare Services increasing access to Safe places to exercise think about locally our community tied to town Trail it's a beautiful Urban Loop about 30 miles around our beautiful city of Savannah interventions such as that will increase safe places to exercise for everyone with disabilities or not it's a way to create community wellbeing right and
• 09:30 - 10:00 increased access to healthare to exercise which can prevent a lot of things that cause kidney disease these kind of interventions are not immoral or illegal as some Dei detractors might say Dei diversity equity and inclusion it's under attack for being allegedly divisive Dei Ed appropriately can be a uniting force that brings us all together
• 10:00 - 10:30 Dei is paradoxically the perfect way to promote unity in our country some people who argue and detractors against Dei will say well Dei makes people feel shamed because of past mistakes like kidney disease run them up and they don't like feeling shame well I'm here to tell you I've got some exciting news we have a way to undo the mistakes of the past we have an opportunity to promote equity and ensure that millions of people in the future do not end up on dialysis diversity equity and inclusion save us
• 10:30 - 11:00 money and they make us more productive as a society Dei will increase patient and customer satisfaction it'll make our organizations hospitals more efficient more productive and more innovated beginning today rethink what you might have heard about Dei let's look for ways to promote diversity equity and inclusion into all aspects of our person and professional
• 11:00 - 11:30 lives the world will thank us later [Applause]