Health equity leaders understand that a meaningful health equity strategy requires a two-pronged approach to maximize impact: dedicated investment with protected resources and a clearly articulated, incentivized expectation that every other piece of the business contributes to health equity goals. But most healthcare organizations with health equity investments have focused primarily on the first prong — setting aside FTEs to fund a health equity leadership role, sometimes supported by a modest team.

This approach often leaves health equity leaders spread too thin, as they are asked to lead and contribute to efforts that span the entire organization. It not only weakens the impact of efforts under the health equity leader’s purview, but it also represents a missed opportunity to align and scale investments by embedding equity into cross-department strategic planning and operations.