Department of Health Equity Innovation
The goal of NICHQ’s Department of Health Equity Innovation (DHEI) is to accelerate strategies that address systemic health inequities. The department supports internal equity engagement, NICHQ projects to more effectively incorporate equity, and evaluating external organizations’ equity systems.
About DHEI
Establishing DHEI was a major step in creating a better internal infrastructure to center health equity throughout everything we say and do at NICHQ. The department’s genesis was making a public commitment to undoing racism as a key driver to improve maternal and infant health outcomes.
The creation of the department began with the Equity Systems Continuum project, which set out a framework for the evaluation of systemic racism within organizations and programs and created tools for equitable change in moving to equity-empowered systems.
Some of the ongoing work the Health Equity Innovation Department will support is the Equity Systems Audit Tool, co-created by NICHQ and the Global Infant Safe Sleep (GISS) Center to assess implicit and explicit bias in healthcare systems. The department will also support internal equity engagement and support existing projects to ensure they are effectively incorporating equity. New projects related to health equity will be identified and prioritized within the next few months.
Meet the Department
Equity Systems Auditing
The Equity Systems Continuum (ESC) Framework
The purpose of the ESC is to describe and define the system that individuals and organizations currently operate within. Through the ESAT, organizations will be able to assess the level of equity within the workplace, consider the effectiveness of existing approaches, and determine necessary actions for improvement. By defining these systems, an organization can identify where they are along this continuum, consider where their current approaches have succeeded and failed, and determine what actions need to be taken to improve.
The Equity Systems Audit Tool (ESAT)
The purpose of the ESAT is to help organizations understand where they are regarding their equity work/practices, ultimately allowing them to identify ways to improve their organization. The ESAT is a tool for internal learning and improvement. Individual responses and corresponding organizational results may indicate a need to reconsider organizational policies and culture to ensure an equitable work environment. The ESAT provides organizations with insight into how employees perceive and experience equity in their work environment. The results of this tool will be used as discussion points for your organization to talk about and take steps to improve along the ESC.
Interested in learning more about working with DHEI? Fill out the inquiry form below:
DHEI Projects
These projects are lead by the NICHQ DHEI staff.
DHEI Resources
These trainings, webinars, and other resources were produced by the experts on NICHQ’s DHEI staff.
