About this Webinar Training

Building Health Equity Readiness Through Mobilization of Resources and Community Engagement 

This course focuses on Building a Diverse Staff and Promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Among Staff.  Organizational infrastructure, training and readiness is a common gap for organizations building their equity strategy. This curriculum package will outline assessment gaps, strategies and tools for building a strong equity training program and infrastructure..

What You Will Learn

At the conclusion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Overview of current-state recruiting and hiring gaps, with clear solutions for promoting diversity in recruitment and retention.
• Describe how to identify inclusive, equitable, diverse and cultural humility gaps, with the strategies and tools to develop effective training and interventions for staff, leadership, committees or governance bodies. 
• Outline how to deliver highly impactful training to all employees on culturally and linguistically appropriate practices, reducing bias or promoting inclusion. 

Who Should Attend

• Healthcare caregivers
• Employers
• Payers
• Providers
• Industry
• Decision-makers
• Purchasers
• Mid-level management

Faculty

Vanessa Guzman, ME, MS, CEO

Mrs. Guzman is an expert in health equity and population health strategies, including patient and physician engagement techniques, clinical reporting, health IT, quality management models, and CEO at SmartRise Health. With her personal story as a Latin American woman of color and diverse credentials in engineering, science, and coaching - Vanessa brings incomparable humility, authenticity, intellectual harmony, objectivity, enthusiasm, and commitment that inspire teams, participants, and facilitators to become part of the change they want to see.

With almost 20 years of industry experience and an approach centered around person-empowerment, she works closely with individuals, health systems, Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), payers, and technology and community partners to promote equitable care. Her unique approach includes closely collaborating with physicians and hospitals to implement data-driven tools, payers, clinical infrastructures, pharmaceutical companies, and community partnerships to promote wellness and improve patient health outcomes, and a collaborative learning platform to promote health equity while integrating value-based care and change management concepts. The framework uses stakeholder engagement as a fundamental component to enable a culture of change while building the infrastructure necessary to drive change over time and evaluate the impact of activities focused on advancing equity, improvement in health outcomes, and quality of care. 

 Mrs. Guzman also served as the Associate Vice President at the Montefiore Health System (MHS), overseeing physician partnerships, community engagement, population health and quality improvement, clinical performance, and health information technology and reporting.

Her business model facilitates revenue and sponsorship opportunities toward, Created to Thrive, a foundation she formed to promote enrichment programs servings thousands of children, women, and homeless adults worldwide. Created to Thrive allows her true mission, coaching, and transformation experience to shine through her advisory, products, and services.

Kayla Salazar Poncet,

Kayla Salazar Poncet, currently serves as CHPW's Director of Health Equity & Quality overseeing a team dedicated to CHPW’s health equity member programming and leading CHPW’s health equity strategic vision. During her ten years at CHPW, Kayla has spent her time building a Health Equity Program centered on internal and external equity efforts. Kayla successfully supported CHPW in setting up their health equity program to receive NCQA’s Multicultural Health Care distinction in 2018, 2020, and most recently, Health Equity Accreditation in 2023. Kayla also co-created CHPW’s first Equity Council to focus on internal diversity, equity, and inclusion opportunities. Kayla's team lives within CHPW's Quality Department, which reports to the Chief Health and Medical Officer.

Kayla’s area of expertise is healthcare disparities analysis and equity data governance, she thrives on developing inclusive data sets and using data to advance health equity in quality improvement. Currently, Kayla co-leads the Washington Advancing Health Equity team that is designing an alternative payment model and care transformation to reduce disparities in care at FQHCs across the state. She also has experience in member advisory committees, diversity equity and inclusion initiatives, and other quality improvement initiatives. 

Kayla holds a Masters of Social Work from the University of Washington, which she believes heavily influences her perspecive and career goals of aiming for social justice, actively dismantling systems of oppression in healthcare, and elevating the voices of those most impacted. Kayla’s other identities include being a third generation Mexican-American woman, being a native Texan, and also being a wife and mother.   

Continuing Education

In support of improving patient care, the National Committee for Quality Assurance is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) to provide Interprofessional Continuing Education for the healthcare team. 

This educational activity is approved for: 1.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit^TM.

This educational activity is approved for 1.0 nursing contact hour.*

This live course grants 2.0 Continuing Education Unit (CEU) points for PCMH Certified Content Experts.  

* Please note – You must attend the entire program to be eligible for total number of contact hours.

Disclosure of Relevant Financial Relationships

The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) endorses the Standards of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education which specify that sponsors of continuing medical education activities and presenters at and planners for these activities disclose any relevant financial relationships either party might have with commercial companies whose products or services are discussed in educational presentations.

For sponsors, relevant financial relationships include large research grants, institutional agreements for joint initiatives, substantial gifts, or other relationships that benefit the institution.  For presenters or planning committee members, relevant financial relationships include the receipt of research grants from a commercial company, consultancies, honoraria, travel, or other benefits, or having a self-managed equity interest in a company; or having an immediate family member or partner with such a relationship.

Disclosure of a relationship is not intended to suggest or condone bias in any presentation but is made to provide participants with information that might be of potential importance to their evaluation of a presentation.

Relevant financial relationships exist with the following companies/organizations:

Faculty:
Vanessa Guzman: 
Kayla Salazar: 

Additional Planning Committee Members:
Crissy Crittenden: