Will Health Execs Have the Courage to Pursue DEI and ESG?

Doing what’s right for your customers is always good for your business. Your workforce should reflect the composition of your customer base. Diversity is a strength, not a weakness. These are but three truths in business. If healthcare is a business, and it is, they must be truths in healthcare, too.

But the current MAGA-spawned backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and environmental, social and governance (ESG) is telling you not to believe what you know is true. Like how the Trump-ordered violent attempt to overthrow the government on Jan. 6, 2021, was a peaceful protest that crossed paths with a guided tour of the Capitol.

Like Ezra Klein said in his Feb. 2, 2025, podcast, don’t believe him.

The healthcare system in the U.S. is at a crossroads. One of many, really. At this particular intersection, healthcare can go left and continue down the path of DEI and ESG or go right and head back to the 1950s. The question is whether healthcare system leaders will go left, which is both morally correct and good for business, or right, which is both morally bankrupt and bad for business.

Do healthcare system leaders have the courage to make the right choice?

Two reports released last week suggest that healthcare system leaders are, at best, struggling with their decisions. At worst, they don’t care one way or the other.

In this misleading-headlined report, “Health equity remains a business imperative in the life sciences and healthcare industries,” released Jan. 28, the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions tried to put a positive spin on some of its recent survey findings. The report is a mashup of three separate surveys taken last fall of health system, health plan and life sciences executives.

Here are some of the unflattering survey results:

• 58% of surveyed health equity leaders said they had little or no involvement in their organization’s artificial intelligence strategy.
• 44% of surveyed health equity leaders said they had little or no involvement in their organization’s workforce recruitment, retention and benefits decision-making.
• 32% of surveyed health equity leaders said they had little or no involvement in their organization’s care, service and product design.
• Separately, only 23% of the health system and health plan executives surveyed said health equity was a priority in 2025.

The Commonwealth Fund released the second report, “Health Care Workers in Canada, the U.K., and the U.S. Report Racial and Ethnic Discrimination in the Health Care System,” Jan. 27. Like the Deloitte report, the Commonwealth Fund report is a mashup of separate surveys: one with 9,526 primary care physicians in 10 countries; the other with 3,000 employed healthcare workers in the U.S., including both primary care physicians and medical specialists. Both surveys are from 2022.

Here are the unflattering results:

• 40% of the U.S. physicians said the U.S. healthcare system “often” or “very often” treats people unfairly based on race or ethnic background compare with 26% in Canada and 25% in the U.K.
• 50% of the U.S. physicians said one or more patients have told them that they felt they were treated unfairly or that their health concerns were not taken seriously because of their race or ethnic background compared with 49% in Canada and 39% in the U.K.

When you mashup the two reports, you have a healthcare system in the U.S. with a poor track record of health equity with no urgent plans to do anything about it. A profile in courage, it’s not. Patients with life-threatening medical conditions are braver.

It’s time to grow a spine and do what’s right for all your patients and your business.

Thanks for reading.