Commitment to Health Equity and Anti-Racism
Health Equity and Anti-Racism Action Plan
A group of committed workforce members created the Health Equity and Anti-Racism Action Plan to prioritize the most powerful actions to address systemic racism within Seattle Children’s from late 2021 through 2024.
What is anti-racism?
At Seattle Children’s, anti-racism means that we actively identify, challenge and change the culture, structures and behaviors that perpetuate systemic racism. Being anti-racist requires urgency and stamina.
What is health equity?
Health equity means that everyone has a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible. This requires removing barriers to health including access to quality, equitable healthcare. Learn more.
Taking Action
The Seattle Children’s Health Equity and Anti-Racism Action Plan has eight outcome measures for fiscal year 2023. Learn more about Seattle Children’s commitments over the next few years.
Anti-racism is a Value
Formally include anti-racism in Seattle Children’s values to hold leaders and workforce accountable through the performance evaluation process.
November 2023 progress update
Values and leadership qualities now fully reflect anti-racism revisions. Updates have been incorporated into the performance review process.
Executive Accountability
Link executives’ pay to achievement of HEAR Action Plan outcomes.
November 2023 progress update
The Seattle Children’s Hospital Board of Trustees adopted a revised equity-related executive compensation model, which includes four equity-related goals. Executive pay will be based upon the results of final fiscal year goal achievement as of September 30 with 16% of executive compensation being linked to equity-related goal achievement.
Behavioral Response Project
Replace the previous de-escalation response called “Code Purple” with an equitable and anti-racist structure that is co-created with patients and families to ensure it is culturally responsive and provides psychosocial support to patients, families and workforce members.
November 2023 progress update
As of January 9, 2023, Code Purple was replaced with a system designed with recommendations from workforce, families and community leaders. The new system, Adaptive Social Response, launched at the hospital campus and Springbrook and provides more broad and upstream support. The project team is actively monitoring and tracking data, providing coaching and conducting continuous process and quality improvements, including early intervention if and when disparities arise.
Employee Diversity
Increase employee representation by 3% for a total of 43.4% through hiring and retention strategies to further reflect Seattle Children’s diverse patient population.
November 2023 progress update
While employee representation increased by 2% compared to the year prior, the 2023 results fell short of the goal by 1.4%.
Family Experience Survey
Collect national race, ethnicity and language benchmark data for the Family Experience Survey (FES) from Press Ganey and achieve an overall average score of 81.5%.
November 2023 progress update
Seattle Children’s FES score trended upward in the final quarter of the year. The 2023 result fell short of the goal by .4%. Scores varied widely by care area.
Central Line Infections
Decrease overall non-mucosal barrier injury central line associated bloodstream infection (non-MBI CLABSI) rates and eliminate CLABSI disparities by race/ethnicity and language. Meet 2 of the 3 components of this goal:
- Decrease overall FY23 CLABSI rate to 1.17 infections per 1,000 line days.
- Eliminate disparity of CLABSI rates for Black and African American patients.
- Eliminate disparity of CLABSI rates for patients who use a language other than English.
November 2023 progress update
All goals met and exceeded, including eliminating disparities in CLABSI rates.
Hospital Acquired Conditions*
Monitor Hospital Acquired Conditions (HAC) rate by race, ethnicity and language and maintain or decrease baseline rate of 2.23.
November 2023 progress update
The goal was achieved and the data successfully stratified by race, ethnicity and language. No clear disparities were identified, but Days Away Restricted Transfer (DART) events evaluation is a continued priority as one of the two most frequently occurring HACs, alongside CLABSI.
*A Hospital Acquired Condition is a condition or complication that a patient develops during a hospital stay. The rate is determined by averaging the monthly results of all HACs divided by the total number of all patient days in the hospital.
Research Participant Diversity
Increase the diversity of research participants by 3% for a total of 34% to further reflect Seattle Children’s patient population.
November 2023 progress update
The goal was surpassed. This reflects more than 300+ translation and interpretation requests since spring 2020 with a bilingual recruitment specialist supporting ten active studies in 2023.
Tracking Progress
Beginning December 2021, Seattle Children’s released Action Plan progress updates on a quarterly basis. Although the plan was released less than a year ago, some areas are showing measurable impact. Other areas require establishing the connections and structure needed to build toward long-term impact. View the latest progress update.
We Are Listening and Want to Hear From You
Seattle Children’s is accountable to the communities it serves. Patients and families are invited to provide feedback on their experience at Seattle Children’s via surveys, and family advisors — parents and caregivers from our community — share their perspectives regularly. We continue to look for opportunities to invite patients and families to help design programs and service delivery to better serve those receiving care. Seattle Children’s workforce and community members also provided feedback on the Action Plan and shared their priorities, and ongoing research tracks parents’ attitudes toward Seattle Children’s.
Leadership and Collaboration
Progress toward becoming a leader in health equity and changing racist systems requires action by individuals, teams and at the organizational level. Accountability for direction setting and making change lies with leaders, but progress would not be possible without workforce and community members including the Action Plan Task Force; Health Equity and Anti-Racism Council and committees; and Seattle Children’s Inclusion Networks.
- Dr. Jeff Sperring, chief executive officer
- Myra Gregorian, chief people officer
- Alicia Tieder, senior director and chief diversity officer
Health Equity and Anti-Racism Action Plan
- Health Equity and Anti-Racism Action Plan (PDF)
- En Español: Plan de acción contra el racismo y por la equidad médica (PDF)