P R O F I L E S I N D I V E R S I T Y J O U R N A L 2 0 0 7 I N T E R N AT I O N A L I N N O VAT I O N I N D I V E R S I T Y AWA R D S
Aw a r d o f E x c e l l e n c e
Profiles in Diversity Journal is proud to honor the following companies with our Award of Excellence for their innovations in diversity. They are presented here in alphabetical order.
Identifying Performance Variation and Addressing it Through Collaboration Blue Cross of California BLUE CROSS OF CALIFORNIA IS A SUBSIDIARY OF WELLPOINT, INC. (NYSE:WLP) that provides health care services to 7.5 million members and employs 7,000 associates. A review of its California Quality Scorecard and supplemental analyses showed that the Inland Empire lagged behind other California regions in most clinical quality and patient satisfaction measures. The reasons for this performance gap were not clear, but Blue Cross senior leadership charged the Quality Improvement Department with looking for ways to improve performance in the area. Blue Cross held a two-day meeting with the Inland Empire’s medical leadership and, with the help of a consultant, facilitated discussions on barrier analysis and solutions development. Representatives from provider organizations, employer groups, local medical societies, government agencies, and multiple Blue Cross departments also attended. Since then, a multi-stakeholder Inland Quality Collaborative was launched to provide monthly training, share best practices, and check in on quality improvement. The company also initiated a five month course that introduced provider group leadership teams to the key changes necessary to improve clinical performance and patient satisfaction, and manage IT implementation across practice sites. Lastly, Blue Cross visited individual provider groups to provide mentoring as needed and will begin to share group specific healthcare disparity data. Over 85 percent of Inland Empire groups were engaged in at least one
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of these initiatives and gave positive feedback such as “Thank you, Blue Cross!” Based on the success realized to date, Blue Cross is working with other health plans in regions with relatively low performance on quality indicators and expect the next roll out in third quarter 2007.
Cardinal Health’s Best Practices Webinar Series THIS INNOVATIVE WEBINAR SERIES was introduced in January 2006 as a forum for Cardinal Health’s diversity councils. The Webinars allow council members from all over the country to share and leverage best practices in diversity and inclusion, enterprisewide. Not long after the company encouraged employees to participate in diversity councils, Director of Diversity Jeanetta Darno recognized that diversity councils were gaining momentum throughout the organization. However, because Cardinal Health is a global healthcare company with 40,000 employees at dozens of locations throughout the United States and abroad, the diversity councils faced a challenge when it came to sharing those successes and best practices with each other. That was the genesis of Cardinal Health’s launching the Diversity and Inclusion Best Practices Webinar Series. Corporate leaders and employees from across the country participate in monthly Webinars from the comfort of their own offices, and the team invites external speakers to attend virtually, as well. “Our Webinars provide a regularly-scheduled, replicable forum for our diversity councils to share the exciting progress they’re making,” said Darno. “They also fuel excitement and continued momentum for diversity efforts across the organization, because employees and corporate leaders really enjoy and become motivated by learning about progress and best practices from other areas of the company.”