The Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association is urging hospitals across the state to diversify the membership of their governing boards to better reflect the patients and communities they serve.
Earlier this year the hospital association surveyed its members, which include the vast majority of the state’s hospitals, and found that 81 percent of hospital board members are white, while 19 percent are people of color. Thirty-eight percent are women and 62 percent are men, though the numbers vary among hospitals.
The association sent a letter to its members Wednesday calling on hospitals to add more women and people of color to their boards, but stopped short of setting specific targets for increasing diversity.
The boards of trustees for hospital systems typically include doctors and executives from health care and other industries. They oversee and provide direction to leaders responsible for running day-to-day operations.
“Our communities that we serve are incredibly diverse across ethnic lines, across socio-economic lines,” said Dr. Kevin Churchwell, chief executive of Boston Children’s Hospital. “How can we do the best job we possibly can to care for them if we don’t reflect them and understand where they are in terms of their lives?”
At Boston Children’s, 27 percent of its 18-member board is Asian, Black, or Hispanic, and 18 percent are women.
“The goal,” Churchwell said, “is to intentionally continue to increase the numbers and be able to step back and ask the question: Is it reflecting who we’re taking care of?”
Churchwell, the first Black chief executive of Boston Children’s, co-chairs the hospital association’s committee on diversity, health equity, and inclusion with Dr. Joseph Betancourt, senior vice president of equity and community health at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Of the 19 members on the MGH board, 47 percent are people of color and 42 percent women, according to the hospital. The 23-member board of the hospital’s parent organization, Mass General Brigham, is less diverse, though an improvement from two years ago, with 30 percent people of color and 35 percent women.
The hospital association has been working to diversify its own board, which is comprised of hospital CEOs and other executives. Since 2017, its board’s share of racially and ethnically diverse members has grown from 7 percent to nearly 25 percent, and women now make up about 50 percent of the board, up from from 31 percent.
“Achieving diversity in governance isn’t about sacrificing talent for diversity, it’s about being intentional and deliberate about finding the best talent,” Betancourt said.
In addition to diversifying leadership, he said, hospitals need to collect better demographic data on their patients, analyze that data, and develop programs to address disparities.
“We won’t achieve equity unless we’re firing on all cylinders,” Betancourt said.
Priyanka Dayal McCluskey can be reached at priyanka.mccluskey@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @priyanka_dayal.