Community, Culture & Inclusion
ACHE of North Texas' Statement on Community, Culture & Inclusion
As the area’s leading professional association dedicated to advancing the field of healthcare leadership, ACHE of North Texas strives to be a model of equity and inclusion. Our members will embrace, value, and respect the power of inclusion in all of its forms, while holding each other accountable to these values as described in the ACHE Code of Ethics.
We are steadfastly committed to supporting our members in advocating for equity and inclusion in their organizations. We passionately speak out against any action or speech that degrades, diminishes, or devalues a person based on ethnicity, race, sex, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental ability, or religious beliefs.
We embed these values into the fabric of our organization through our intentional selection of leaders, our focus on listening and open communication, our attention to the content of our educational offerings, and our dedication to community outreach.
Recent ACHENTX CCI Accomplishments
ACHE of North Texas takes community, culture & inclusion extremely seriously.
The mission of the ACHENTX CCI Committee, formed in 2017, is to drive equity and inclusiveness within all aspects of healthcare through empowering, educating, and engaging healthcare executives.
Some recent accomplishments of the Committee have included:
- Working with the chapter’s Education Committee to make sure each year we have one or more ACHE Face-to-Face credited panels focusing on inclusivness related topics.
- Reminding the event-planning ACHENTX committees to make sure they are keeping equity & inclusion in mind when selecting not only their topics, but their panelists and moderators as well.
- Creating a varied healthcare speakers list – making it easier for event planning committees to organize their educational panels to truly reflect the varieties of people within our local healthcare community.
- Meeting monthly. The CCI Committee also plans its own events – which have included such offerings as happy hours and networking mixers, joint programs with external and internal ACHE national communities and networks. This includes partnering with and supporting:
- Our own ACHENTX Women’s Healthcare Executives Network (WHEN)
- ACHE national’s Asian Healthcare Leaders Community
- ACHE’s PRIDE Community
- The National Association of Health Service Executives (NAHSE)
- The National Association of Latino Healthcare Executives (NAHLE)
- Communicating with the full membership on a monthly basis about various CCI related causes or observances, such as:
- Black History Month – February
- Women’s History Month – March
- Activate Your Allyship: 4 Ways to Drive Inclusive Outcomes – April
- Asian Pacific American Heritage Month – May
- Pride Month: In Recognition of our LGBTQ Colleagues and Community – June
- Etc.
- Establishing the ACHENTX CCI Award to be presented annually, recognizing those in the DFW area healthcare community who are making a difference when it comes to CCI.
Our WHEN group has become especially active since it’s creation a few years ago – offering an annual Women’s Conference, overseeing our popular annual Women’s Breakfast and providing other educational and networking programs focusing on the unique challenges women face as they climb the ladder and move into healthcare leadership roles.
In 2021, the ACHENTX Board of Directors created a CCI Ad Hoc group, pulling together a varied team of members (including representatives from the Board and the leadership of the chapter’s CCI Committee) – to specifically hone in on how the chapter could improve. This has already included rewriting our CCI statement and proactively seeking ways to make a difference within the community. We have also conducted unconscious/implicit bias training for our Board and Committee leads. The plan is to continue to explore additional avenues through which our leadership can help lead the way and our chapter can raise the bar for how the healthcare community is addressing disparities and inequities.
While we are pleased with the strides we are making on the CCI front, ACHENTX recognizes we still have a long way to go. We know our leadership on this front is pivotal in helping the DFW healthcare industry move forward so everyone within our community feels and truly is equal.
Helpful Link
The University of South Carolina Aiken’s Department of Diversity Initiatives has come up with a list of recommendations to help incorporate more inclusive language when referring to others. Note: U of SC Aiken acknowledges these are recommendations, it is always best to ask individuals how they prefer to be referenced.
