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Center for Care Delivery and Outcomes Research

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Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

To enhance CCDOR’s community with respect to its employees and working environment, CCDOR began three DEI workgroups during 2022. Each group has established leadership, membership, and goals.

Mariah Branson and Alexandra Gowdy-Jaehnig co-lead the Diversity Workgroup, and members include Ann Bangerter, Rebecca Brown, Collin Calvert, Emily Campbell, Steve Fu, Adam Kaplan and Sarah Norman. The Workgroup’s overall objective is to continue and expand CCDOR’s efforts to recruit and retain staff, investigators, fellows, and Without Compensation (WOC) staff from diverse backgrounds. The Workgroup has four goals: 1) develop and implement a plan for CCDOR to recruit and hire more diverse job candidates, 2) create and implement plan to retain CCDOR employees from all backgrounds, 3) identify and provide diversity educational opportunities and resources for CCDOR employees, and 4) review and revise DEIA statement biannually. To date, the Diversity Workgroup has engaged CCDOR stakeholders in the creation of a DEIA statement and completed a literature review to identify strategies to recruit and hire more diverse job candidates.

The Center for Care Delivery and Outcomes Research (CCDOR) strives to foster an inclusive and accessible work environment that honors its employees’ diverse identities, perspectives, backgrounds, values, and cultural practices. We believe that a diverse workforce enriches our research teams and the quality of our research to improve health and healthcare delivery for all. CCDOR is deeply committed to just treatment, equitable opportunity, accessibility, and cultivating a community based on respect for everyone. 

To achieve this, CCDOR encourages applicants of all races, ethnicities, abilities, gender identities or expressions, sexual orientations, ages, ancestries, religious practices, socioeconomic backgrounds, and various work experiences to apply for our center positions. CCDOR welcomes applicants with current or former military service.

The Equity Workgroup is co-led by Brittany Majeski and Ali Woodward-Abel. Members include Maylen Anthony, Tam Do, Denise Duan-Porter, Patrick Hammett, and Brent Taylor. In December 2021, CCDOR conducted a needs assessment that covered several areas, including DEI. CCDOR employees expressed a need for more equitable opportunities, particularly for project staff. As such, the Equity Workgroup’s overall objective is to improve equity for CCDOR project staff (research assistants, study coordinators, and project managers) through transparency and shared knowledge. To move CCDOR toward this objective, the Workgroup’s goals are to 1) develop and disseminate a Career Development FAQ guide for project staff and their supervisors, and 2) develop a Project Staff Peer Advisory Program that would provide CCDOR project staff access to opportunities to connect with other project staff as a way to obtain professional development support, collaborate, and share knowledge. The workgroup disseminated the Career Development FAQ Guide in 2023 and plans to launch the Project Staff Peer Advisory Program in Spring 2024.

Mallee Argust and Emily Hudson co-lead the Inclusion Workgroup. Members include Erin Amundson, Allison Gustavson, Jill Mahal-Lichty, Tracy Sides, Rachel Keenan and Emma Bromley. The Workgroup’s goal is to co-design, implement, and sustain processes and actions to increase community, given the “new normal” hybrid workplace environment. After building a common base of knowledge and soliciting input on workplace values from across CCDOR, the Inclusion Workgroup has begun planning and launching multiple activities, including: developing a “buddy system” for new employees and fellows; hosting a variety of virtual and in-person, drop-in social activities – walk breaks, coffee breaks, chat & treats; and launching a lightly moderated MS Teams @ CCDOR Community channel to create a virtual ‘common space’ in CCDOR’s work environment that supports informal communication and connections across the center. 

CCDORians have also helped to spread DEI efforts beyond VA. Dr. Shahnaz Sultan was named the Vice Chair of the newly-created DEI Council in the Department of Medicine at the University of Minnesota. Along with Associate Vice Chair Dr. Cuong Pham, Dr. Sultan is helping to lead the charge to build community and promote DEI-related work within the Department of Medicine. Faculty and staff from each of the Divisions have been selected to serve on the Council. Drs. Sultan and Pham (along with collaborators from other departments) recently receiving funding from the Office of DEI to better understand how DEI is valued in the promotion and tenure process. Initial work has focused on a systematic review of the published literature to identify modifications to the Promotion and Tenure criteria as well as a review of statements from a range of medical institutions to identify best practices or innovations.