Conclusion

In the five years since TCWF’s Champions of Health Professions Diversity Award was first presented, significant thought, strategy and effort have gone into creating a comprehensive communications strategy. By blending earned and paid media and with an open mind toward the application of new media technologies, the Foundation’s Communications Department has built a successful strategic framework that uses the compelling stories of individual honorees to raise awareness of important health care workforce issues in California.

We also hope that by generating coverage of the issue, we can add value to the work of the Foundation’s grantees who receive funding to work in this field – and that the importance of their work will be more readily apparent to reporters, editors, policymakers and opinion leaders in their communities.

When we first began strategizing an approach to this communications challenge, it often seemed as if we were blindly feeling our way down a long corridor. However, in the last several years, we’ve become more cognizant of which messages will help us effectively frame the health issue in ways that lead to feature story coverage in general market and ethnic media and that speak to policymakers in ways that encourage them to look more deeply into the issue of the health care workforce and its diversity.

The Foundation’s communications strategy in support of the Champions of Health Professions Diversity Award will continue to play a role in raising awareness of the issue, remaining mindful of new opportunities to expand its reach or embrace new tools to engage its target audiences. In 2007, it is heartening to find so many other entities – insurance plans and HMOs, chambers of commerce, university chancellors and community college boards, elected officials and professional associations – also participating in robust discussions about the future of California’s health care workforce.

Since the announcement of the champions award, I’ve received congratulatory notes from elected officials. I’ve used them as a tool to begin a dialogue about diversity with their staffers, some of whom I haven’t met before.

— Dr. Hector Flores, ’07 champions award honoree

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