Creating a culture of respect

At Michigan Medicine, patient and employee safety is made a priority every day.

With that in mind, and in alignment with the recent universitywide initiative to address issues of sexual misconduct, Michigan Medicine has taken several significant steps to improve its culture and environment to ensure it maintains a safe and respectful community.

The ongoing projects include:

• The development of mandatory harassment and discrimination training materials for faculty and staff that will launch next month. Stay tuned to Headlines for more information as it becomes available.

• Ongoing efforts to promote and reinforce existing venues to voice concerns — through improved supervisor awareness, the compliance hotline and campus resources like the Office for Institutional Equity.

• Enhanced transparency during provider credentialing processes for any information about required behavioral remediation or behavioral concerns.

• The implementation of a chaperone policy to offer third party presence for sensitive examinations and adolescent examinations.

• The launch of an accountability task force to facilitate improved accountability in ongoing initiatives.

In addition to these activities, efforts are also underway to ensure coordination with the organization’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and Healthcare Performance Improvement (HPI) initiatives as they relate to respect and safety in the workplace.

To learn more about these efforts — and why they are so important — check out the video above for a message from Marschall Runge, M.D., Ph.D., executive vice president for medical affairs and dean of the U-M Medical School.