by Reagan Reese
An Ohio hospital is setting diversity quotas for its employees in leadership positions, despite failing to reach a previous diversity threshold in 2022, according to documents obtained by medical watchdog Do No Harm and shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
As a part of its 2023 Objectives and Key Results (OKR), the has set diversity quotas for several of its leadership roles, including in its finance and Clinical Transformation departments, according to documents obtained by Do No Harm and shared with the DCNF. The clinic recently partnered with OneTen, a group focused on getting black people hired, to focus “its skills-first [hiring] lens on racial equity” noting that the hospital “has experienced a significant gap in attracting, retaining and promoting Black talent.”
“This is bad for healthcare because it places all the focus on identity and race-based criteria instead of weighing merit and achievement for all applicants,” Laura Morgan, program manager of Do No Harm, told the DCNF. “Cleveland Clinic has a reputation for world-class patient care. It needs to maintain that commitment instead of engaging in policies that promote the ideologies of the DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion narrative.”
In 2022, the clinic CEO set a goal of 26 percent for “diversity of new leadership” among caregivers, a public clinic document showed. However, the clinic appeared to only reach 15 percent diversity that year, with the clinic CEO setting their “leadership diversity” goal for 2023 to be 16 percent, according to the clinic’s Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) for 2023 obtained by the DCNF.
“The 2023 CEO OKRs from the Cleveland Clinic show that the organization was not successful in reaching its 2022 ‘Diversity of New Leaders’ goal of 26 percent,” Morgan told the DCNF. “Because the actual 2022 result was 15 percent, Cleveland Clinic set a very modest goal of 16 percent for 2023. But why is a 1 percent point increase good enough for an organization that has invested in initiatives like OneTen and apprenticeships to develop ‘a diverse and inclusive workforce?’”
Despite this, the clinic appears to have doubled down on diversity quotas in other areas of its organizations.
The clinic’s chief financial officer set a goal of 18 percent to “improve” its “diversity of finance leadership” in 2023, the Do No Harm document showed. Similarly, the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic’s Florida location set its “leadership diversity” goal in 2023 to 37 percent.
The chief caregiver officer set two quotas, one of 16 percent for “leadership diversity (enterprise)” and the other of 13.5 percent for “leadership diversity (caregiver office),” the document showed.
Throughout 2023, the Clinical Transformation department aims to have 100 percent of its employees “participating in leadership development supporting engagement, performance management and diversity and inclusion,” the document stated. One objective set by the department was to “hire and retain diverse leader pipeline.”
Moreover, under its objective of “diversity, equity and inclusion,” the clinic’s legal division noted that it is aiming to “support DEI efforts in the organization and community” as well as “develop DEI OKR initiatives with unconscious bias and inclusive language team training.”
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Reagan Reese is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Cleveland Clinic” by HealthMonitor. CC BY-SA 4.0.
