Hospitals in pursuit of excellence

Scorecard Tracks Leadership Diversity

Scorecards aren’t just for baseball and boxing. Health care leaders are using scorecards to track outcomes and improve quality and patient safety—and more. Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare, in southeast Wisconsin, implemented a diversity recruitment and retention scorecard that has prompted several systemwide initiatives targeted to diversify its workforce. One initiative developed by this health care system is the Minorities Advancing in Nursing Scholars Program. Collaborating with area colleges and universities, the program recruits nursing students of color or who are bilingual, during their senior year of college. Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare partners with the Milwaukee Area Workforce Investment Board to fund scholarships that cover tuition, books, uniforms and the national licensure exam for these students. Students, in turn, work part-time as nurse interns while completing their final year of college and are mentored by established nurses. Since this program was launched in 2012, Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare has hired 17 nurse interns for full-time and part-time RN positions and retained 15 of these nurses within the system. In addition, two current nurse interns of color will graduate in May 2015 and join the health system’s workforce, for a total of 19. Within leadership, using the diversity recruitment and retention scorecard has increased the number of racially and ethnically diverse leaders in the health system from 3 percent to 9 percent.

For more information, contact Heather Seager, director, clinical professional practice, at Heather.Seager@wfhc.org or Theresa Jones, vice president, diversity and inclusion strategies, at Theresa.Jones@wfhc.org. You can read the complete case study on the Equity of Care website at www.equityofcare.org.

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