JULY: HEALTHCARE

Take me to:

  1. Program Day Information
    • Objectives
    • Agenda
    • Pre-work
    • Module
    • Expert Speakers

  2. Leadership Commitment Office Hours

Program Day

Date: Wednesday, July 13
Time: 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM
Location: Zoom

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81495587378?pwd=JnPhPmfQ9UU_kZfWueeX7Avyrnr536.1

Meeting ID: 814 9558 7378
Passcode: LB2022

Objectives

Our objectives are to

  • Understand inequities, challenges, and opportunities related to healthcare in Boston.
  • Reflect on and discuss what work, resources, and tools are utilized or needed to drive change in the area of healthcare.
  • Engage with fellow participants, facilitators, moderators, and/or guests in discussions, networking, and activities.
  • Name how healthcare inequities relate to your workplace and what you could do to create a more inclusive organization.
Agenda
  • 9:00 Welcome and opening
  • 10:00 Expert Speaker Panel: Dr. Thea James, Dr. Betancourt, and Benjamin Perkins
    **Break**
  • 11:15 Discussion & Activity
  • **Break**
  • 12:00 July Leadership Commitment Prep Group
  • 1:00 Close
Pre-work

Optional Pre-work

skim https://www.boston.gov/sites/default/files/file/2021/03/The%20BPHC%202020-23%20Equitable%20Community%20Engagement%20Plan.pdf

Dr. Thea James video https://whdh.com/news/we-have-to-be-transformative-boston-doctor-says-juneteenth-an-opportunity-to-fight-effects-of-racial-trauma-on-health/

Module 5

Questions:

What are the innate skills that you bring to supporting yourself and others during challenging times?

Expert Speakers

JOSEPH R. BETANCOURT, MD, MPH

  Dr. Joseph Betancourt, MD, MPH, is the Senior Vice President, Equity and Community Health of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), the founder, senior advisor and faculty of the Disparities Solutions Center (DSC) at MGH, Faculty at the Mongan Institute, an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a practicing Internal Medicine physician. He has also served on the leadership team of the MGH Center for Diversity and Inclusion. Dr. Betancourt is a nationally and internationally recognized expert in health policy, health care disparities, diversity, and cross-cultural medicine, and has served on several Institute of Medicine Committees, including those that produced the landmark reports, Unequal Treatment and Increasing Diversity in the Healthcare Workforce. Dr. Betancourt has secured grants and contracts that have led to over 60 peer-reviewed publications, and advises private industry, government, and not-for-profit health systems on approaches to eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health care. He sits at on the Board of Trinity Health, a large national health system; and sat on the Boston Board of Health and the Board of Neighborhood Health Plan in Boston. He is a 2015 Aspen Institute Health Innovator Fellow. He is the current chair of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee of the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association and sits in its Board of Trustees. He is also a member of the City of Boston’s COVID Advisory Committee.
Dr. Betancourt received his Bachelor of Science from the University of Maryland, his medical degree from Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School, and completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. Following residency, he completed The Commonwealth Fund-Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy, and received his Master’s in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health.

DR. THEA JAMES

Thea James, MD, is Vice President of Mission, Associate Chief Medical Officer and Executive Director of the Health Equity Accelerator at Boston Medical Center. She is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine. As Vice President of Mission Dr. James works with caregivers throughout BMC. Additionally, she has primary responsibility for coordinating and maximizing BMC’s relationships and strategic alliances with a wide range of local, state and national multisector organizations including community-based organizations, foundations, economic development organizations, housing advocates, financial institutions and others that collaborate and partner with BMC to meet the full spectrum of patients’ needs. The goal is to foster innovative, upstream, and effective new models of care that are rooted in equity, economic mobility and health justice. This approach uses an intentionality that is essential for patients and communities to reach their full potential and to thrive.

BENJAMIN PERKINS

A native Los Angelino, avid social-justice practitioner, intellectual, and creative thinker, Benjamin
recently completed his tenure as CEO of Wholesome Wave, a national nonprofit organization that
creates partnership-based programs that enable underserved consumers to make healthier food choices
by increasing affordable access to healthy, locally and regionally grown foods. He has worked in public
health for over two decades, first specializing in disease prevention and research education to
communities vulnerable to HIV infection, where he held numerous positions, from community advisory
board chair, to founding director of a CDC-funded HIV-prevention and wellness center, to project
director of an NIH-funded HIV-prevention feasibility study. He then shifted focus to health disparities
and inequities in cardiovascular disease and stroke rates among communities of color and other
underserved populations, where he worked for the American Heart Association as Vice President of
Multicultural Initiatives & Health Equity as well as Vice President of Health Strategies for the Greater
Boston Area.
Benjamin received his Master of Divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School and is an ordained
minister, serving Hope Central Congregational Church in Jamaica Plain, a wonderfully multicultural
community. In addition to his education at Harvard Divinity School, he received his Master of Arts
degree in clinical psychology from Antioch University, Los Angeles, and his Bachelor of Arts in geography
from the University of California at Los Angeles.
Lastly, Benjamin has an amazingly post-modern family, co-parenting 3 young adults with his husband
and a same-sex couple, along with Cody, a mischievous Chiweenie, and Middy, a chill but somewhat
antisocial cat.