IHA Health Equity Action Day

Event Details

Health Equity Action Day was May 13. Building on the success of last year's inaugural event, the 2022 Health Equity Action Day sought to enlighten and inspire your efforts to advance health equity across Illinois.

During the virtual morning programming, bestselling author Heather McGhee delivered an impactful keynote address, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.

Use this link to view and share the video recording of the program.

Also during the action day, IHA launched the 2022 Racial Health Equity in Healthcare Progress Report. Hospital videos and panel discussions showcased best practices focusing on the four pillars of the Progress Report:

• Our People
• Our Organization
• Our Patients
• Our Community

After the morning programming, hospital leaders were encouraged to participate in on-your-own health equity activities with other leaders and key staff. See our event flyer.

Health Equity Action Day celebrated your successes and was designed to inspire you to continue working toward equity!

Keynote Speaker

Heather McGhee, JD, Author, Educator, Commentator and Public Policy Expert
McGhee designs and promotes solutions to inequality in America. Over her career in public policy, she has crafted legislation, testified before Congress and helped shape presidential campaign platforms. Her book The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together spent 10 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Her 2020 TED talk is entitled “Racism Has a Cost for Everyone.”

For nearly two decades, McGhee helped build the non-partisan think tank Demos, serving four years as president. Under McGhee’s leadership, Demos moved their original idea for “debt-free college” into the center of the 2016 presidential debate, argued before the Supreme Court to protect voting rights in January 2018 and helped win pro-voter reforms in five states.

McGhee is a visiting lecturer in urban studies at the City University of New York. She has held visiting positions at Yale University and The University of Chicago. McGhee regularly appears on NBC’s Meet the Press and MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Deadline White House and All In. She has shared her opinions, writing and research in numerous outlets, including the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, POLITICO and National Public Radio.

McGhee is the chair of the board of Color Of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice organization. She also serves on the boards of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Open Society Foundations’ US Programs and Demos.