Boyden: Congratulations on being recognized by the Boston Business Journal as a 2024 Innovator in Healthcare. It has been an honor to work alongside you in the Chief Development Officer search these past few months. Healthcare has changed so much over the years. Can you talk about being an “innovator in healthcare” as the CEO of The Dimock Center?
Dr. Anderson: When we talk about innovation, it is important to understand the context. Health service delivery requires a careful alignment of people, processes, and infrastructure. A disruption in any one of these components destabilizes the entire system. A Health Affairs study in April 2022 revealed that the nursing workforce fell by approximately 100,000 over a one-year period which was the largest drop ever measured in four decades. A poll conducted by McKinsey and Company found that almost a third of current nurses in Sept 2022 were planning to leave their direct patient care positions in the next 12 months. Furthermore, the American Medical Association estimates that roughly 83 million people in the US live in areas without sufficient access to a primary care physician.
These workforce challenges are having a profound impact on our entire system of care, especially for the underinsured and most vulnerable members of our communities that are dependent on our safety net institutions, such as our 1,400 Federally Qualified Health Centers, operating over 14,000 sites, and serving over 31 million people in the US. The National Association of Community Health Centers recent workforce survey found that 68% of health centers reported losing 5-25% of their workforce in the last 6-months with 15% reporting losing 25-50%.
In my opinion, workforce will be the single most critical contextual driver of innovation in healthcare over the next decade. That said, I also think it is important that we reframe what we are calling innovation as more than simply the creation of something new.
I believe our focus needs to be on “positive problem-solving”. Starting with a clear shared understanding as a leadership team that for every problem there is a solution and that as Dr. Oneeka Williams communicated in her Psychology Today article in 2020, with faith, a willingness to work together, and a combined sense of determination, we can find solutions. (“The 5 Habits of Positivity - Coping effectively in times of social crisis and personal loss”).
My role as a leader is to create a culture of “positive problem-solving” where my team does not skip the critical steps involved in fully understanding the problem and then strongly believes in our ability to find solutions including those that are prefaced with “this might be a crazy idea but …”!
Boyden: As a physician, can you talk about how correcting racial health inequities will create a healthier Boston?
Dr. Anderson: The best way to think about this is to work backwards. Based on the World Health Organization’s definition, when we achieve racial health equity “everyone can attain their full potential for health and well-being.” The difference between this future state and our current state is that currently there are members of our communities that are experiencing poor health that will be avoided in a more equitable system. What this means for Boston is that the 23-year difference in life expectancy between neighborhoods in Boston that are separated by only 2 miles will no longer exist (Boston Public Health Commission 2023). What this means is that Black and Hispanic residents will no longer be 60% to 110% more likely to rely on the emergency department for care (Massachusetts Health Insurance Survey Nov 2022). What this means is that Black infants born in Boston will no longer be 3 times as likely to die in their first year of life as White infants (Boston Public Health Commission 2023).
These all define a healthier Boston – All residents having a health and wellness experience that is supported by a system that is actively working to understand the problems and with a “positive problem-solving” mindset is working together to boldly build solutions!
