Building Trust through Diversity, Health Care Equity, & Inclusion in Internal Medicine Training

Building Trust through Diversity, Health Care Equity, Inclusion and Diagnostic Excellence in Internal Medicine Training 

Now in its third year, this joint grant program supports projects that will integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) into the fabric of internal medicine education and training. A half a million dollars in funding is designated to support inter-professional projects that are led by internal medicine residents and faculty focused on improving trust and advancing health equity in the health care system.

Diagnostic Excellence Track: As a result of new support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, one-fifth of the funding pool ($100,000) is dedicated to grants that support projects designed to promote diagnostic excellence and address diagnostic inequities based on factors such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, geography (rural vs. urban), age, and disability, and to foster greater diversity equity.

Volunteer to be an Innovation Grants Project Coach

AAIM seeks volunteers to serve as Innovation Grants Project Coaches. The project coach is asked to provide guidance to grant applicants who have been selected to submit a full proposal. Grant writing or grant mentoring experience is a plus. Coaches will work with applicants in February and March, assisting them with developing research methodology, measurement tools, and a grant budget. Time commitments vary, but it is estimated at two hours per week and communication between coaches and grant applicants can be done via email or online meeting platforms like Zoom or Teams.

At the end of the grant cycle, a thank you letter will be sent to each coach and their department chair person. The correspondence will contain information on winning projects that the coach participated in. In addition, all coaches will be recognized on the Innovation Grants web page.

If you are interested in volunteering, please complete a brief form by March 3, 2023. If selected, you will be notified to whom you have been assigned.

For questions about this form , please contact innovationgrants@im.org.

Suggested Themes

Projects that could be funded under this program include:

• Training programs that incorporate DEI, and in particular those that employ inter-professional education best practices
• Innovative curricular approaches
• Quality improvement programs and program evaluations that advance trustworthiness through health equity
• Projects to enhance diagnostic excellence and address diagnostic gaps that disproportionately harm members of the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color population
• Ideas on building trustworthiness and psychological safety among teams, including an intentional focus on recognizing bias, lack of diversity and the barriers to being heard due to hierarchical structures
• Innovative approaches to create collaborative partnerships between health systems and community-based service organizations in under-resourced communities
• Trust and a sense of belonging within racially/ethnically diverse inter-professional groups
• Approaches that foster and support diverse and equitable pathways into medicine and faculty and leadership positions

(This is not intended to be an exhaustive list.)

Evaluation

Projects will be evaluated based on the:

• Novelty and innovativeness of the proposed intervention
• Utilization of collaborative relationships with community-based organizations
• Feasibility and potential impact, and description of the approach that will be used to evaluate impact
• Replicability and scalability
• Project leaders’ ability and commitment to communicate their project to external audiences
• Support in existing literature/evidence
• Integration of multiple disciplines on project team
• Presence of intentional focus on building trust and equity within inter-professional teams
• Whether the proposed project fits within and contributes to a robust inter-professional education program

Sponsoring Organizations

American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM): Since its founding in 1936 to answer a public call to establish more uniform standards for physicians, certification by the ABIM has stood for the highest standard in internal medicine and its 21 subspecialties. Certification has meant that internists have demonstrated – to their peers and to the public – that they have the clinical judgment, skills and attitudes essential for the delivery of excellent patient care. ABIM is not a membership society, but a physician-led, non-profit, independent evaluation organization. Our accountability is both to the profession of medicine and to the public.

ABIM Foundation: The ABIM Foundation’s mission is to advance medical professionalism to improve the health care system by collaborating with physicians and physician leaders, medical trainees, health care delivery systems, payers, policymakers, consumer organizations and patients to foster a shared understanding of professionalism and how they can adopt the tenets of professionalism in practice. 

Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine (AAIM): The Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine promotes the advancement and professional development of its members who prepare the next generation of internal medicine physicians and leaders through education, research, engagement, and collaboration.

American College of Physicians (ACP): The American College of Physicians (ACP) is a diverse community of internal medicine specialists and subspecialists united by a commitment to excellence. With 161,000 members in countries across the globe, ACP is the largest medical-specialty society in the world. ACP and its physician members lead the profession in education, standard-setting, and the sharing of knowledge to advance the science and practice of internal medicine.

About the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation: The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation fosters path-breaking scientific discovery, environmental conservation, patient care improvements and preservation of the special character of the Bay Area. Visit www.moore.org or follow @MooreFound.

Josiah H. Macy Foundation: Founded in 1930 by Kate Macy Ladd in memory of her father, the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation is the only national foundation dedicated solely to improving the education of health professionals. The foundation’s guiding principle is that health professional education has at its core a strong social mission: to serve the public’s needs and improve the health of the public. The Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation fosters innovation in clinical learning environments by investing in projects which promote diversity, equity, and belonging, increase interprofessional collaboration, and prepare future health professionals to navigate ethical dilemmas.