A message from athenahealth
At athenahealth, we are firmly opposed to racial injustice and stand in solidarity with our Black team members and all of our team members of color within athenahealth and our communities. Recent and ongoing events of racial injustice in the United States reinforce the importance of athenahealth’s commitment and unique position to challenge the systemic barriers to accessible, high-quality and sustainable healthcare for all. We believe actions speak louder than words. For the past few weeks, we have been listening and engaging in active dialogue as a team to develop a meaningful plan of action and a list of promises we can keep. Today, we want to share some of the further steps we are taking – starting from inside athenahealth.
Exposing Network Insights
We believe it’s our responsibility to use the power of our ecosystem to expose data and insights about racial inequities in the healthcare system. We are proud to announce our extended partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation - the nation’s largest philanthropy dedicated solely to health - to focus together on making data available for research on racial disparities with the goal of advancing racial justice in healthcare. From today forward, we will add the lens of race to our athenaResearch publications and insights.
Social Engagement Efforts
As an organization, we are enhancing our corporate giving, volunteerism and community partnerships to substantively expand access to high-quality healthcare for all. We have donated our products and services to more than a quarter of the free and charitable clinics in the United States and will expand the depth of our research and collaboration with these clinics. We are also in the final stages of identifying a small number of organizations that we will partner with on a long-term basis to advance healthcare equality. Additionally, we will assist in developing a more diverse next generation of healthcare professionals and technologists, by expanding our existing partnerships to offer Black students internship and full-time employment opportunities, and by working with a broader base of STEM educators to advance the representation of Black people in technology and healthcare.
Ideation For Change
In one call to action, our team – athenaNation – has recently stood up an ideation space, to develop radical new thinking to expand inclusion within our organization, as well as root out and eliminate racial bias and its insidious impact on healthcare inequality in society. Ideas will be vetted by a Diversity and Inclusion task force, which includes our D&I leader and a diverse cross-section of athenistas. We are committed to achieving meaningful and sustained progress against our diversity agenda in collaboration with this task force.
These efforts are just the start, as we will continue to listen and learn from our talented team and from our communities, share progress and look forward to the day when our bold vision is a reality.
athenahealth,
we are here to create a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible,
high-quality and sustainable healthcare for all.