BDHEA Awarded $1.5 Million to Advance Health Equity Mission

Black Directors Health Equity Agenda Aims to Mitigate Health Disparities With New Grant From Kaiser Permanente

CHICAGO, Sept. 5, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Black Directors Health Equity Agenda (BDHEA) has secured a transformative $1.5 million grant to address health disparities through public hospitals and community health centers. The organization will develop a health equity playbook geared towards board directors and executive leaders in healthcare.

This grant, provided by Kaiser Permanente's fund at the East Bay Community Foundation, will propel BDHEA's mission forward by fostering the education and engagement of board directors and executive leadership.

Kaiser Permanente is the largest integrated, nonprofit health care organization in the U.S., providing high-quality health care and coverage for 12.5 million members in eight states and the District of Columbia.

The grant will also support the BDHEA's Board Diversification and Inclusion Project, which seeks to increase the diversity and inclusion of healthcare boards.

"Our duty as healthcare board members extends beyond oversight; it's a commitment to the heart of care," says BDHEA Board Chair Caretha Coleman. "This grant empowers our shepherds of health equity to forge a path toward justice, ensuring that those facing the harshest conditions and barriers find high-quality, equitable care."

Empowering Change Through Board Governance

An unprecedented 31.5 million people rely on community health centers for affordable care. The grant will significantly advance the BDHEA's goal of eliminating health disparities in Black communities and beyond. Spanning three years, this funding underscores the imperative to champion Black health through healthcare board governance structures.

The award enables BDHEA to expand upon its foundational health equity toolkit. This toolkit includes the Prioritizing Health Equity in the Boardroom Playbook and Health Equity's Essential Role in ESG Conversations, two guides for board directors developed through collaboration between BDHEA and Deloitte Consulting LLP with support from the Deloitte Health Equity Institute.

Supporting boards for public hospitals and Community Health Centers (CHCs) presents a unique opportunity to empower leaders of community-based organizations instrumental in providing access to care nationally, bridging urban and rural areas alike. The grant will facilitate community assessments, strategic framework development, and evidence-based action plans creation culminating in a new health equity playbook for CHCs and public hospitals.

This playbook will be disseminated via collaborative engagements with critical leaders at conferences, webinars, roundtable discussions and other education forums. Through these engagements of Board directors and executive leaders, BDHEA will unify and challenge leaders to listen to community voices and to respond to their critical health needs with forceful and effective action. Deloitte Consulting LLP will also support the creation of this new playbook.

"To achieve health equity, we must commit to working together to make sure everyone has access to high-quality care," says Dr. Ronald L. Copeland, senior vice president and chief equity, inclusion, and diversity officer for Kaiser Permanente. "Through BDHEA's efforts, we hope to strengthen and empower community health centers and nonprofit hospitals to reduce, if not eliminate, all preventable and unjust health disparities, with trustees who are steadfast advocates for their communities."

Addressing the Need for Black Voices in Healthcare Boardrooms
This grant also underscores a commitment to increase, enlist, and engage Black corporate directors through the launch of the BDHEA's Board Diversification & Inclusion Project. This initiative seeks to champion and support increased recruitment and participation of Black board directors who often represent the heart of their communities.

The project reflects the stark scarcity of Black voices in boardrooms, revealed by an Ernst & Young (EY) study for BDHEA, that few healthcare boards have more than one Black corporate director. "Representation matters, and it is crucial to ensure diverse voices are heard in boardrooms across the healthcare sector," notes BDHEA Executive Director Deborah Phillips. "Our work extends beyond representation and invites diverse perspectives and ideas to identify critical health equity solutions." EY will provide support to the Board Diversification & Inclusion Project.

The grant is crucial in building the BDHEA's growth and impact. To realize its ambitious goals, BDHEA is seeking additional corporate and philanthropic support.

Strategic alliances with organizations like Deloitte, EY and U.S. News & World Report help enhance and propagate the BDHEA model for health equity action with educational offerings for its members to refine board governance and to establish health equity programs.

Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of their legal structure. 

About BDHEA
The Black Directors Health Equity Agenda (BDHEA), founded in 2020, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that unites board directors, senior executives, and educators in healthcare from across the country with a common mission: to transform the healthcare industry by closing the gap in care, talent, research and policies for the Black community and, in turn, improve treatment outcomes, innovation and care for the entire nation. By developing a common agenda, continuous communication and shared outcomes—and by centralizing shared resources, data and innovations—the BDHEA will be the first and only national organization led by board directors and executives to address health disparities and outcomes among the Black community. The BDHEA envisions continuous, effective effort and action on eliminating disparities among Black people, where inequities have been the most persistent despite significant efforts by an array of interested parties over many years. As a trusted convener, educator and translator of data that represents and impacts Black communities, BDHEA is pursuing a holistic, comprehensive, national solution to mitigate health disparities and outcomes. The BDHEA's health equity toolkit offers extensive resources for board directors and C-suite executives to facilitate and track productive boardroom discussions and innovative responses to health disparities. Learn more at bdhea.org.

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SOURCE Black Directors Health Equity Agenda