April 21, 2023
Dr. Thomas Shockley, Jr., TriHealth orthopedic surgeon and Associate Chief Medical officer for the Bethesda North region, has been appointed to the newly created role of Chief Health Equity Officer for TriHealth, effective immediately.
Over the past year, TriHealth has worked to accelerate our efforts to proactively eliminate health disparities and achieve greater health equity – both within TriHealth and throughout the larger community. Health disparities are “preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence or opportunities to achieve optimal health that are experienced by socially disadvantaged populations.” As part of this work, Tira Williams, RN was appointed to the newly created system role of Director of Health Disparities a year ago. Since her appointment, she has partnered with Chief Diversity Officer Tashawna Otabil, our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion + Belonging (DEIB) team and senior leadership to identify and adopt health equity best practices. This team has also consulted with industry experts and thought leaders to assist in formulating our own Health Equity Roadmap, with the resources and organizational structure to meaningfully address health disparities.
As Chief Health Equity Officer, Dr. Shockley will join the Executive Leadership Team, will work collaboratively with Tira Williams, and will help to guide the development of a new Center for Health Equity at TriHealth. The Center for Health Equity will house new and leverage existing system resources and competencies, ranging from analytics and data management to LEAN and performance improvement to care coordination and community organizing/advocacy. The new Center will enable us to prioritize and then proactively address social determinants of health (SDH) and health disparities in order to achieve better health outcomes and greater health equity for all patients cared for here at TriHealth and across the community. Dr. Shockley will closely collaborate with Tashawna Otabil and the DEIB team to coordinate our system’s highly interdependent health equity and DEIB initiatives.
A respected member of our medical community for many years, Dr. Shockley is a passionate and tireless champion for improving safety and reliability, quality, and health equity. And, as a physician, he understands, firsthand, the direct and very significant impact SDH, Health Equity, and DEIB have on access, the process and experience of care, clinical outcomes, and the overall health of our patients and community. He is ideally suited to serving in this new system role and we’re grateful he’s accepted this expanded leadership opportunity! Congratulations, Dr. Shockley!
Congratulations!
Posted by: Lovey Forte on July 24, 2023
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Hello Dr. Shockley,
Congratulations on your newly appointed position.
Posted by: Peggy Hardy on July 24, 2023
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