Celebrating Health Equity Week & Our Commitment to Care for All
April 7, 2025
Dear Colleagues,
This week marks our annual Health Equity Week celebration across Penn Medicine. Our work to provide excellent care to all patients is a daily responsibility across our organization, and this week is a special opportunity to focus on our commitment to tackle disparities and promote a culture where every patient has opportunities to achieve their best health.
This year, Health Equity Week events will focus on a range of topics critical to advancing this mission, such as improving cultural competency in patient care, engaging academic-community partnerships, and leveraging technology to enhance health literacy. No matter your role, there are activities for everyone: film screenings and panel discussions that emphasize real-world challenges faced by marginalized communities, including issues surrounding disability, food justice, and post-discharge care. The week also features sessions on restorative justice and the growing intersection of artificial intelligence with healthcare. These initiatives are just one snapshot of our longstanding commitment to creating inclusive care environments and advancing systemic change to provide optimal care across the diverse populations we serve. Please peruse the agenda to learn more, including information about how to obtain CE credits for participation.
Our own health system’s geographic footprint, which stretches from the Susquehanna River to the New Jersey shore, underscores why these pursuits are essential. Despite living in an era when advances in medicine have made everyday work out of treatments and cures that were once unthinkable, too many patients continue to face barriers to care. Access to the tools for good health can be a struggle for those in rural communities as well as urban neighborhoods.
While Penn and Penn Medicine have needed to revise some of our diversity and inclusion policies and programs in light of this winter’s executive orders and other federal policy changes, we remain deeply committed to supporting programs and research that help us work toward true health equity both in the regions we serve and across the globe. It’s important for our faculty, staff, and students to know that they can count on Penn Medicine to be a supportive community where everyone can belong and where scholarship, inquiry, and teamwork around health equity can continue to flourish.
Please join us in celebrating Health Equity Week and taking time to come together with colleagues to learn, grow, and renew this shared commitment. Thank you for all you do.
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Jonathan A. Epstein, MD Dean, Perelman School of Medicine and Executive Vice President, University of Pennsylvania for the Health System |
Kevin B. Mahoney Chief Executive Officer University of Pennsylvania Health System |