Trenton, July 17, 2024 ― The HealthCare Institute of New Jersey held a panel discussion focused on diversity in the healthcare workforce on Tuesday, July 16, 2024, featuring Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman as the keynote speaker and panelist. The panel discussion was moderated by Assembly Health Committee Chairman Dr. Herb Conaway.
HINJ, a trade association which represents the world’s leading research-based biopharmaceutical and medical technology companies, many of which make New Jersey their global, North American, or U.S. headquarters, held the event to identify ways in which the frontline healthcare workforce and the innovation ecosystem can further our commitment to better reflect the patient and caregiver communities we serve.
“Congress navigates many critical issues on a daily basis – education, the environment, affordability, national defense – but one of the most critical things people personally navigate is their own individual health,” said Rep. Watson Coleman. “Diversity in the healthcare workforce ensures that patients receive high quality care tuned to the unique, individual, cultural and life experiences that shape their distinct healthcare needs. New Jersey is one of the most diverse states in America and ensuring the medical caregiver sector reflects the patient population it serves is a necessary part of strengthening the overall health and well-being of our communities of color.”
“As a physician and policymaker, I have been fortunate to witness firsthand the intersection of public policies and how they translate to actual application,” said Chairman Conaway. “When patients engage the healthcare system, there is clearly clinical and behavioral benefit in having trusted members of the patients’ own community help them as they navigate the critically important and deeply personal pursuit of addressing their or their loved ones’ medical needs. Discussions such as the one held today are vital to ensuring that the medical field – from frontline workers such as physicians, nurses, doulas and others, to those who drive medical innovation – from researchers and clinical trial administrators – even better reflect the communities they seek to serve. Whether public policies, corporate cultures, healthcare providers or New Jersey’s wonderful education system, it’s clear we all need to work together to increase diversity in the healthcare workforce.”
HINJ President and Chief Executive Officer Chrissy Buteas said, “New Jersey’s life sciences is dedicated to saving lives and advancing global health while simultaneously driving New Jersey’s workforce and economy. This sector has historically been a leader in reshaping the fabric of corporate culture to better reflect the diversity of our communities, our workforce, our research and development activities, and the patient communities, but more needs to be done.”
Buteas added, “An industry with so noble a calling as ours, to find new treatments and cures in New Jersey that save lives around the world, is dependent upon the variety of thought and solution-driven paradigms that are only found in the robust amalgam of life experiences, geographies, backgrounds and cultures that make New Jersey one of the most diverse states in our nation.”
