In an effort funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services, St. Louis University (SLU) received over $2 million in federal funds to provide nursing scholarships to disadvantaged students over the next three and a half years. Similar scholarship programs at schools around the country are being put into effect to address issues facing the nursing profession as a whole (i.e. lack of diversity, nursing shortages).
The first year of the grant will provide 20 scholarships to SLU students – 10 to freshmen and 10 to sophomores. Mentoring is part of the award package, a huge benefit to students who are participating in a high pressure program and career. In the future, high school students will be recruited specifically from disadvantaged campuses.
A 2010 Institute of Medicine report titled Future of Nursing specifically addressed diversity as an issue. Compared to the general US population, nursing students show both gender and racial disparities. In 2015 men made up just 12% of the students in pre-licensure programs, and white students were 10% more prevalent in nursing programs compared to the general population, with fewer African American and Latino students being represented in nursing programs.
The current population of registered nurses has even higher racial disparities. Nursing populations now are overwhelmingly white at nearly 75%, but the rising generation has a more representative ratio at just 61% white students. Diversity in the nursing workforce has become such an important issue because of the diversity of those being cared for. Future of Nursing’s Campaign for Action explains, “A nursing workforce that reflects the diversity of the country’s communities and populations will lead to better understanding of the many elements that affect a person’s health and emotional well-being and, ultimately, to improved interactions and treatment.”
“A nursing workforce that reflects the diversity of the country’s communities and populations will lead to better understanding of the many elements that affect a person’s health and emotional well-being and, ultimately, to improved interactions and treatment.”
Scholarships also offer another important aspect in that they form a path that leads to jobs. Many popular degrees in college today do not match up with high demand jobs so incentives to get students into fields that offer high post-graduation success is beneficial to everyone involved. There are 3.6 million registered nurses in the US, but with an aging population, the demand for nurses continues to grow.
Nursing isn’t an easy profession, but for those talented in providing care for others, especially those who thought they wouldn’t be able to afford nursing school, scholarships like the ones being offered at St. Louis University could make a difference. The fact that these scholarships contribute to creating a more diverse nursing workforce in the US is an added bonus.
The University of Florida (UF) College of Nursing has named Dr. Jeanne-Marie Stacciarini, PhD, RN, FAAN, its first director of diversity and inclusion. Created to enhance awareness and dialogue about important issues in diversity, the newly established position was created based on recommendations from UF’s diversity and inclusion task force.
Stacciarini is an associate professor in the college and has been with UF since 2006. Her research focuses on mental health promotion among minorities and community-based participatory research for minority, rural, and international populations. Stacciarini has been recognized for her work with underserved populations with the 2012 Southern Nursing Research Society (SNRS) Award for Research in Minority Health and the 2014 APNA Award for Excellence in Research. Outside the College of Nursing, Stacciarini is a leader on campus as chair of the UF President’s Council on Diversity and she sits on President Fuchs’ leadership cabinet.
In her new position she aims to create better dialogue and educate others about the need for diversity. She will work on student and faculty recruitment to create a better working and learning environment. Leading a new initiative with undergraduate students in the College of Nursing, Stacciarini will be launching a program called Engaging Multiple-communities of BSN students in Research and Academic Curricular Experiences (EMBRACE).
UF College of Nursing Dean, Anna M. McDaniel, says she believes that Dr. Stacciarini’s diversity work will have a positive impact on the entire college and serve as a campus-wide model. Dr. Stacciarini is a tireless advocate for faculty, staff, students, and patients from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds, and as director of diversity and inclusion she will play a lead role in carrying out the College of Nursing’s commitment to diversity and inclusion for all members of the community.
Casey Dillon, a nursing graduate student in the college and former student of Stacciarini says she thinks more diversity in the college will prepare students for nursing careers. Nurses work with a wide variety of people every day, so diversity education is a necessary thing.
As nurses, Stacciarini says we need to be prepared to care for a more diverse patient body. She is honored to fill this important position and work to help more people understand diversity and inclusion to sustain that culture across the College. She hopes to bring ideas from the President’s Council on Diversity to new initiatives in the College of Nursing.
My mother always encouraged me to play with dolls of a variety of shades. She particularly would always want me to play with dolls that had the same complexion as myself. I never quite understood this until recently.
I remember waiting for my women’s health professor to arrive. I expected her to be an older woman and not a minority as most of my other professors were. When she showed up, I only recognized she may be our professor because she wore a white jacket. Then she walked up to us and introduced herself as our professor. She was younger than I expected and of the same ethnicity as myself. For some reason, until then, I had never seen myself as being a nurse educator. But, seeing her standing there and doing such a good job teaching my classmates and I, I suddenly considered nursing education as a route I may take.
When working among a diverse nursing faculty as I do, I hope that we can do the same for our students from diverse backgrounds. Perhaps by seeing someone who looks like themselves, maybe we can inspire our students to go beyond what they ever imagined. I had only thought I would graduate and be a nurse, but this young woman I mentioned was a nurse practitioner and an educator. She made me think suddenly that I could aspire to a similar career.
I wish I could see her today to tell her that her work with me inspired me to be the woman I am today: a minority nurse educator!
As the United States becomes more of a melting pot, encouraging and nurturing a workplace that welcomes the different cultures, ethnicities, and lifestyles of staff are paramount to optimal collaboration, productivity, and success. In health care, where diversity increasingly is exemplified among patients as well as employees, such an embrace is critical to achieving best outcomes.
Health care institutions across the country are heeding the call for inclusion. Many have implemented initiatives to not only attract diverse staff, but also to keep and engage them.
The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, for instance, launched the Multicultural Nurses Mayo Employee Resource Group (MNMERG) in July 2014 to recruit and retain nurses from diverse cultures and offer them professional support and networking opportunities. The MNMERG also mentors and educates Mayo’s diverse nurses and involves them in community programs.
With some 25 members, the MNMERG welcomes all Mayo staff. It meets monthly at the hospital, but this year will add quarterly dinners off site and is evaluating online technologies such as Skype and Sharepoint to “engage a 24/7 workforce,” says MNMERG cochair Deborah A. Delgado, MS, RN-BC, a nursing education specialist in psychiatry.
Mayo Employee Resource Groups (MERGs) have been an important component of Mayo’s overall diversity initiative; the goal is to have the following five core MERGs—African American, LGBTI, Hispanic, Disability, and Veterans—at Mayo’s three major clinical sites. Each MERG has an executive sponsor who is a leader at Mayo, but not a member of the group. For example, the MNMERG’s sponsor is a male cardiologist with experience in developing family/patient advisory groups. All of Mayo’s MERGs have formally chartered to align with at least one of the organization’s strategic diversity goals.
“These range from culturally competent care to inclusion and addressing health disparities,” says Sharonne N. Hayes, MD, FACC, FAHA, director of diversity and inclusion and professor of medicine at the Women’s Heart Clinic at Mayo. She notes that the groups share innovations and hold cross activities. “By that collaboration,” she says, “you get more hands to do the work obviously, but you also get a wonderful side product of some cross-cultural mentoring and some cross-cultural experience.”
While the MNMERG is in its infancy, feedback has been positive. “By being visible, by engaging, and by contributing, it just leads to retainment,” Delgado offers. “People want to stay because they’re able to use all of their gifts and talents to affect the organization’s purpose and goals.”
The Clinical Leadership Collaborative for Diversity in Nursing (CLCDN) at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston has realized recruitment and retention success with diverse students of nursing. A scholarship and mentoring program established in 2007 by Partners HealthCare (PHC), an integrated system of which Mass General is a member, the CLCDN draws applicants from the nursing program at University of Massachusetts Boston.
Students must demonstrate leadership qualities, have cumulative general and nursing GPAs of 3.0 or higher, and must be entering their junior year of study since the CLCDN will carry them through their senior year. They link with racially and ethnically diverse nurse mentors, attend unit meetings and social and educational events, and observe nurses and nursing leaders in action. Additionally, they receive a stipend and financial support for tuition and fees with the expectation they will pursue employment at a PHC institution after graduating.
“When you’re a minority and you’re going into an environment where you might be the only diverse person on your clinical unit, as an example, it can be really challenging; it can be very lonely,“ says Gaurdia E. Banister, PhD, RN, FAAN, the PHC CLCDN liaison to UMass Boston and executive director of the hospital’s Institute for Patient Care. “We wanted to put mechanisms in place to ensure the success of our students and, certainly once they graduated, the best possible [career] alternatives,” she says.
Mass General diverse nurse leaders who have successfully navigated such waters can “provide these wonderful, wonderful pearls of wisdom and support and encouragement and listening skills,” explains Banister, and they serve as mentors, as do CLCDN graduates. Of the 54 mentors to date (32 from Mass General), some are repeats. Other statistics are just as impressive—such as PHC’s 82.6% hiring rate among the 69 graduates thus far (47.8% of whom have been employed by Mass General) and the almost 80% retention rate for these graduates.
“They love being a nurse. It’s exactly what they anticipated their career to be,” says Banister. “They are constantly promoting how positive it has been for them and that they feel like our organizations are becoming much more of a welcoming and diverse place to work.”
At the Cleveland Clinic, location-specific Diversity Councils at each of the enterprise’s community hospitals and family health centers are effectively supporting and sustaining an inclusive work environment. These employee-led councils implement action plans and sponsor activities based on strategies and goals defined by an Executive Diversity Council, all aimed to enhance employee engagement and cultural competence.
While the Executive Diversity Council works “to set the tone and the agenda,” the location-specific councils “serve as the tactical team,” explains Diana Gueits, director of diversity and inclusion. The main-campus council, for one, formed the Nursing Cultural Competence Committee and the Disability Task Force; the task force, in turn, developed the Disability Etiquette Lunch ’n Learn, a program to assist caregivers in their interaction and communication with disabled individuals that has since been taken enterprise-wide. Gueits notes the councils share and cross-pollinate ideas.
Cleveland Clinic’s chief nursing officer sits on the Executive Diversity Council, and many nurses participate in the location-specific councils with several diverse nurses serving in leadership roles (the councils overall represent a cross-section of the clinic’s workforce). Two cochairs and a cochair-elect lead each council, act as local ambassadors for diversity, engage with executive leadership, and provide feedback to the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, which facilitates the business-like, SMART-goals approach of the councils.
“This is a passion for them,” says Gueits of the cochairs, who are selected based on their experience in leading transformative teams and their commitment to diversity and inclusion. “I think that what the councils provide them is an opportunity to see, to actually be part of an initiative and be part of that process from A to Z.”
Cleveland Clinic has 21 location-specific councils, a number that is sure to increase as the enterprise expands. “That is the intention,” Gueits says, “to make sure that we embed diversity and inclusion in our commitment to all our locations and give an opportunity or platform for all our caregivers to be engaged.”
Julie Jacobs is an award-winning writer with special interest and expertise in health care, wellness, and lifestyle. Visit her at www.wynnecommunications.com.
How do you measure the impact of diverse leadership in the workplace?
Part of the answer may be in dollars and cents. A recent study found that large companies with more diverse leaders reported better financial results.
A study of 366 public companies in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Mexico, Chile and Brazil by McKinsey & Co., a major management consultancy, found “a statistically significant relationship between a more diverse leadership and better financial performance.”
Companies with gender diversity that ranked in the top quartile were 15 percent more likely to have financial results above their national industry median. The returns were even better for companies in the top quartile of racial/ethnic diversity. These businesses were 30 percent more likely to have financial returns that outpaced their industry.
On the other hand, companies that ranked in the bottom quartile for ethnicity/race and gender were less likely to achieve above average financial results.
The link between diversity at the highest levels and increased profitability should not be a head scratcher. Highly diverse companies appear to excel financially due to their recruitment efforts and talent pipelines, improved decision-making, strong customer orientation and increased employee satisfaction, the report said.
How does your workplace fare in the diversity arena? Are the decision-makers reflective of an increasingly changing nation, not just in in terms of gender and ethnicity/race, but also sexual orientation and age?
Is there a systematic approach to achieve a diverse talent pool where you work?
Investing in diversity not only increases creativity and encourages personal growth, it can improve your workplace’s competitive edge. Learn more at http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/organization/why_diversity_matters.
Let us know what you think.
Robin writes about health, business and education. Visit her at RobinFarmerWrites.com
