Workshop – Confronting Racism Denial: Tools for Naming Racism and Moving to Action

Racism is a major driver of health inequities in the United States. For most of our 30 years, Healthforce Center at UCSF has been working to advance health equity by building pipelines of diverse health leaders, strengthening the cultural competency of clinicians, and centering equity in quality...

Supporting Access and Equity in Primary Care Through New Payment Models

This panel discusses how Californians can work together to realize a future vision for primary care that addresses the issues of unequal access and disparities in health outcomes. The recent National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) report on “Implementing High-Quality...

A Retrospective of 2021 Progress at Healthforce Center

If 2020 was the year of a collective reckoning on racial injustice across the nation, then 2021 was the year of laser-like focus on how to redouble our efforts to advance equity and become more anti-racist. As Healthforce Center at UCSF will celebrate our 30th anniversary in 2022, we are taking...

Well-Being Strategies for the Health Care Workforce

Health systems are uniquely positioned to advance health equity by ensuring that their own workers are well, supported, and equipped to deliver high-quality care. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how work environments in health systems affect the well-being of workers, whose capacity to deliver safe...

Dr. Elizabeth Mertz to Lead Research at Healthforce Center at UCSF

Healthforce Center at UCSF is excited to announce that Dr. Elizabeth Mertz has been appointed Associate Director of Research to succeed Dr. Joanne Spetz. In this role, Mertz will be responsible for developing new research opportunities and cultivating faculty connections.

You Can’t Just Be Anti-Racist at Work

“Structural racism.” “Institutional racism.” “Societal racism.” These are phrases that we commonly hear today that signal acknowledgement of the breadth and depth with which white supremacy maintains power in our lives.

Is Cultural Competence Training a Solution to Structural Racism in Health Care?

One of my passions in my work here at Healthforce Center at UCSF is advancing culturally competent care for all patients. Having served on multiple panels and boards, including the Joint Commission’s Expert Advisory Panel to develop standards for culturally competent care, I believe this is one...

OpEd: COVID-19 Reveals Need to Increase Diversity Among California Physicians

COVID-19 has revealed serious flaws in our health system, but none is more distressing than the deep racial and ethnic inequality exposed by the pandemic. With Latinx and Black people dying at higher rates than the rest of the population, communities of color are much more likely than other groups...

How Adverse Childhood Experiences Shape Health Care: In Conversation with Dr. Nadine Burke Harris

On September 24, the state of California’s first-ever Surgeon General, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, spoke to the alumni of the California Health Care Foundation’s (CHCF) Health Care Leadership program about her frontline experience with trauma-informed care, including her focus on Adverse Childhood...

The Equitable Future We Need

While I usually use this space to talk about leadership and increasing capacity in health care, now is not the time for that. Now is the time to talk about the despair and pain that is in the forefront of my heart and mind; despair and pain that I know from my conversations with colleagues, friends...