Inclusion, Diversity and Racial Equity at MetroHealth

For MetroHealth to fully live our mission to improve the health of our community and everyone who lives here, Racial Equity and Inclusion must be critical components of everything we do.

That’s what our community deserves. And that’s our promise.

It is our privilege to announce an ambitious new plan to end bias and the injustice it fuels.

We have outlined three first steps in this initiative:

• To listen to all voices as to where to start and what to do
• To honestly identify and call out any behavior, policy or action that obstructs Racial Equity and Inclusion, and
• To commit to fixing them 

We’re starting with our 8,000 employees. With forthrightness and courage, several of them shared their stories of racism and bias in the video series “Healing Begins with Listening.” 

We’ll also continue listening and working toward solutions in a series of upcoming employee meetings.

We’ve compiled a list of videos, books and other resources to help us become more conscious of bias and its consequences. We can’t fix what we don’t understand.

And we’ve set a clear list of hiring, patient care and educational goals to help us reach equity – and sustain it. 

We will continue to invest in our efforts to reduce the high death rate of African-American babies in Cuyahoga County, to help our neighbors overcome the devastating effects of trauma and to prevent illness by helping our patients find healthy food, stable housing, job training, transportation and other services that lead to optimal health. 

We commit to approaching this critical issue in the same way we have helped overcome many other obstacles - thoughtfully, in earnest and with deep respect. 

And we’d like you to help us. If something isn’t right, let us know by sending a note to [email protected]. And if you see or hear good ideas worth sharing, please send those as well.

Our goal is to share what we learn, to take healing where we’ve always taken it – throughout our community.