In the summer of 2020, each of your hospitals and health systems signed on to MHA’s fieldwide commitment to racial equity. Since that time, your organizations have been hard at work improving diversity, equity, and inclusion. You have built-in new ways to address social determinants of health and improve the health of your patients, communities, and employees.

To further these critical objectives, Meritus Health, with sponsorship by AARP and in partnership with MHA, is launching a Leaders in Equity and Diversity (LEAD) Collaborative.

The LEAD Collaborative aims to act as a forum for action-oriented learning and implementation, to leverage peer-to-peer support and transparency, and to focus on specific outcomes. Each organization joining the collaborative will commit to run a measurable improvement project. Hospitals engaged in this work will share data and report back on progress. They will also receive support from other participants.

Collaborators will pick one or more of these focus areas:

• Make measurable improvements reducing health disparities for the aging population
• Increase the diversity of leadership to reflect the communities they serve
• Reduce one social determinant of health in the local population.