New Mexico Healthcare Executives (NMHE) is an independent chapter of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE). The chapter serves New Mexico, a majority-minority frontier state. NMHE's diversity policy aligns with ACHE's, embracing diversity within the healthcare management field and recognizing that issue as both an ethical and business imperative. We encourage healthcare organizations in New Mexico to cultivate and foster diversity and inclusion across the ranks of healthcare personnel. NMHE considers diversity to be an inclusive term, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, sex (M/F), gender (LGBTQ), geography (urban/rural/frontier), and age.

NMHE Statement on Diversity and Inclusion

The New Mexico Healthcare Executives (NMHE) organization gratefully acknowledges our responsibility and opportunity to guide the development and practices of health care leaders in our beloved state. We cannot fulfill our responsibility to inform ethical healthcare leadership without addressing racism in our society and in our healthcare system and affirming our commitment to develop anti-racist healthcare leaders. 

The calls for racial equity and the Black Lives Matter Movement is clearly aligned with the mission, values and goals of NMHE. We want to share with you how we are committed to doing our part to help foster healthcare equity and inclusion. NMHE is committed to take stronger action on eradicating racism from our industry.

Statements of support for the Black Lives Matter movement and in promotion of equity in communities of color run the gamut between obligatory corporate glossies to sincere and reflective statements of support. NMHE feels that it is essential to come from a place of humility, honesty, solidarity, and commitment. We want to acknowledge the part that healthcare leaders and healthcare institutions have contributed to perpetuating racial inequities. We also acknowledge our part in the historical trauma and current trauma that communities of color have suffered.

As we consider racism in 2020, we strive to build an organization that prioritizes healing in all its forms, and we commit to continue our work to develop and implement strategies that advance organizational policy and practice to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in the delivery of health care and in healthcare management of valued employees. This work contributes to the larger goal of achieving equity in health care through an identity-based cultural lens. NMHE honors the rich traditions of New Mexico which includes distinct language needs, an acknowledgment of Tribal sovereignties, culture, and histories, our rural composition as a frontier state, and also our position as US/Mexico border state.

NMHE has an active working group focused on equity, diversity, and inclusion. This group takes the lead in guiding NMHE on how to demonstrate its commitments to:  

• Identifying and addressing health inequities in healthcare and health outcomes in New Mexico

• Fostering diversity in healthcare leadership

• Encouraging healthcare organizations in New Mexico to cultivate and foster diversity and inclusion across the ranks of healthcare personnel

• Prioritizing inclusion and diversity in the selection of topics and speakers for our educational programming and community service events

• Providing tailored resources for the state in developing best practices in culturally responsive care through our online repository

Our goal as an organization as we move forward is to:

• Provide resources and support for healthcare leaders committing to addressing racism in healthcare

• Organize capacity-building sessions in anti-racist leadership practices

• Compile resources for addressing priority areas of inequities (such as Racism, COVID-19 & Indigenous Communities, Understanding the Relationship among Racism, Policing & Healthcare, Resources for Healthcare Equity Audits)

• Conducting a Member Needs Assessment

NMHE’s Diversity & Equity Committee welcomes you to visit our repository at http://www.nmhe.org/repository ; let us know if you wish to participate in our committee and  take the following assessment through Project Implicit, as found at http://www.nmhe.org/statement-of-diversity-and-inclusion .

We know that healthcare organizations have a primary role in addressing the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. NMHE promises to do its part by supporting those who are leading our healthcare organizations by leveraging this time of crisis into opportunities for transformation.