Sparrow Hospital and Health System could be a case study in diversity. Actually, it already has been. A 2009 benchmarking survey report from the Institute for Diversity in Health Management, an affiliate of the American Hospital Association, determined that at Sparrow, diversity is seen as an opportunity and not an issue.

The all-inclusive workforce strategy of this area’s largest health system, which has two Lansing campuses and three affiliate hospitals, is to create an environment that aligns with the communities it serves, says Jacqueline Thomas-Hall, director of diversity and inclusion/pastoral care at Sparrow.

“When we look at the service Sparrow provides to the community, which is healthcare, it is critical that we serve our communities in a way that is inclusionary. The communities we serve are very diverse. We have to really understand who they are and part of that is having a workforce that is inclusionary,” Thomas-Hall says.

Sparrow’s human resource department monitors its current workforce against available reports provided by census data, according to Thomas-Hall. The organization currently is at 13.5 percent minority representation while the regional eight-county availability is 11.4 percent.

Sparrow, which has 733 licensed beds, first implemented a workforce diversity plan in 1992. The health system has approximately 7,300 employees, which makes it the area’s largest private employer, and nearly 1,600 volunteers.

Most people define diversity in its primary sense of race, age, gender and sexual orientation, to name a few. Thomas-Hall explains while those characteristics define us as individuals, the healthcare spectrum in which Sparrow operates is much broader than that.

“In our setting it has to do with our operating systems, our functions, services and who we employ. We have a global sense of who we are and how we operate. It really encompasses all the ways we serve and interact with our communities,” she says.

Thomas-Hall says the diversity department’s role is that of the “eyes and ears” of the hospital. “We look at Sparrow from not only an internal perspective, but from outside in the community.”

New employees at Sparrow are required to sign a statement that says upon employment they commit to the hospital’s core behaviors and expectations. New employees attend Diversity 101 at orientation, she says, to learn the hospitals core values.

“That really sets the foundation. Respect is one of our core values and represents inclusion and working well together. The training explains why diversity and inclusion are important to us.”

Sparrow, which had 33,906 patient admissions and 139,812 emergency room visits in 2010, has recently instituted cultural competency training for all employees, which is standardized online e-learning training.

“[The training] talks about the role of being culturally competent to deliver quality services,” says Thomas-Hall.

The diversity tools and training are available to all Sparrow employees including those at the St. Lawrence campus, Sparrow Clinton Memorial Hospital in St. Johns, Sparrow Ionia Hospital in Ionia and affiliate Carson City Hospital.

The mid-Michigan region is very ethnically diverse, Thomas-Hall says, due in part to Michigan State University and the international appeal. An example of that ethnic diversity is Sparrow’s language interpreting service, which includes Spanish, Somali, Russian, Burmese and Swahili to name a few.

Part of Sparrow’s diversity focus is external, too. The Capital African American Parade and Heritage Festival, Lansing Cinco de Mayo Day celebrations and MLK Day dinner at the Lansing Center are examples of events Sparrow has helped sponsor.

Sparrow also has two employee-based diversity advisory councils, Thomas-Hall says. “We have one that focuses on external, which we call our Champions Community Partnership Council. They gather data on how we are perceived and use that data to make strategic priorities and decisions to make improvement. Meanwhile, our Champions Diversity and Inclusion Council advises the organization on strategies and tactics that will align and address the most significant organizational challenges and looks at the integration of diversity and inclusion and how we operate. It’s an internal view of how we can make this a strategic priority in our operations.”

Sparrow’s goals of global diversity begin at the top of the organization. “[CEO] Dennis [Swan] and the board have a clearcut commitment to diversity and inclusion. Dennis has talked about the importance of what we are doing and the need for diversity to become an external focus and not just internal. He is always stressing to keep diversity issues in front of our management teams here. It really is an everyday commitment,” Thomas-Hall explains.

“We are taking a journey and our journey is toward inclusion, so that it is not really seen as a strategy, but is implemented every single day. We deliver quality care to patients but can even deliver better care through inclusion. We are creating intuitive programs to help us along this journey. We continue to grow. We will have success and failures along the way, but we are focused on putting the right message out there.”