Take Action
Professional Societies
1. Commit to Acting for Equity
Activities
Sign up to Join the Coalition. You will be contacted with next steps.
The Equitable Professional Societies Network (EPSN) represents the professional societies pillar of the Rise to Health Coalition. Convened by the American Medical Association (AMA) and the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS), in partnership with HealthBegins and Race Forward and a growing number of other organizations, these entities are on a mission to advance a more equitable health care ecosystem—striving to make health outcomes better for all. The EPSN mobilizes professional societies and individuals within professional societies who wish to engage in coordinated group learning and action; coordinates learning; and encourages action for collective impact so that all people have the power, circumstances, and resources to achieve optimal health.
The EPSN is made up of two components:
- Learning Network: A program designed to equip participating organizations with the knowledge, skills, resources, and networks needed to operationalize equitable structural changes within and beyond their organization, aligned with the priority actions listed below. Participating organizations will benefit from access to educational sessions led by experts and early adopters, networking opportunities, and more. The network will host monthly virtual learning sessions from August 2024 – March 2025.
- Action Workstreams: Structured learning and supported/coordinated action consistent with the foundational goals and key priority actions. Example areas of coordinated action include health care workforce diversification and the reconsideration of race in clinical algorithms.
Visit the EPSN page to learn more and submit your interest in joining the Professional Societies pillar. After signing up, a member of the EPSN program team will follow up with you directly.
2. Getting Grounded in History & Your Local Context
Activities
Provide educational and professional development opportunities that equip health care professionals to advance racial justice and health equity
Examine and identify historical and contemporary examples of inequitable harms in national, local, and organizational policies and practices, including reviewing organizational archives
Resources
- IHI TA 104: Building Skills for Anti-Racism Work: Supporting the Journey of Hearts, Minds, and Action
- The Groundwater Approach: Building a practical understanding of structural racism (Free PDF)
- National Health Equity Grand Rounds
- Basics of Health Equity
- American Nurses Association: Our Racial Reckoning Statement
- This statement provides an example of how a professional society acknowledged its own past actions, including those that have negatively impacted nurses of color and perpetuated systemic racism.
- Reckoning with medicine's history of racism
- This short article demonstrates how organizational leadership can reflect critically on the organization's past.
- Equity Matters Video Library
- This extensive course library provides many valuable resources, including examples of organizational self-reflection.
3. Identifying Opportunities for Improvement
Activities
Review all major clinical pathways, algorithms, guidelines etc. to identify those that have caused or perpetuated health inequities in access or outcomes
Resources
- Fact Versus Fiction: Clinical Decision Support Tools and the (Mis)use of Race
- This report from the Congressional Ways and Means Committee provides outstanding background regarding the harmful ways race has been used in clinical algorithms and tools.
4. Taking Initiative
Activities
Address organization-level contributors to inequitable access to health services (e.g., racist clinical algorithms, inequitable advancement within the specialty)
Resources
- New York City Coalition to End Racism in Clinical Algorithms (CERCA) INAUGURAL REPORT
- Review this report to understand the ways that professional societies, health care organizations, public health officials and individual practitioners are working together to advance equity by removing racist clinical algorithms from use.
- ACGME Equity Matters Holistic Recruitment Toolkit
- This practical toolkit provides guidance and strategies for equitable recruitment processes.