SURVEY: BLACKS IN HEALTH-CARE FIELD FACE WIDESPREAD BIAS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 7, 1993                   TAG: 9303050224
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: F-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MICHAEL L. MILLENSON CHICAGO TRIBUNE
DATELINE: CHICAGO                                LENGTH: Medium
SURVEY: BLACKS IN HEALTH-CARE FIELD FACE WIDESPREAD BIAS
Black Americans who choose management careers in the health industry must contend with widespread discrimination and are denied opportunities to get the best-paying jobs, a new survey finds.
The survey indicated that blacks of the same age and with the same level of postgraduate education as whites were far less likely to be chief executives or report to the CEO.
Consequently, black managers at hospitals, nursing homes and in other health-service jobs were being paid 21 percent less than white counterparts with comparable backgrounds, according to the survey of black and white health-care executives.
White health-care managers in 1990 earned a median total compensation of $67,000, compared with $53,000 for blacks, the survey found.
The survey, released Wednesday, was jointly sponsored by the Chicago-based American College of Healthcare Executives and the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Health Services Executives, a group representing blacks.
Among other signs of racial disparity in the survey:

White health-care executives were likely to begin careers as managers of departments, while blacks most often started in staff positions.

Blacks tended to be employed in organizations that serve black communities and that employ other blacks. Still, about half of black health-care managers say their most influential mentors were white.

Blacks in health-care services are more likely to work in consulting firms and trade associations than in health-provider organizations such as hospitals. Though the American Hospital Association reports that the average U.S. hospital had about 180 beds in 1990, the survey found that whites were far more likely than blacks to get their first management positions at hospitals with fewer than 200 beds. Blacks were much less likely to get their first management jobs at not-for-profit church hospitals; blacks' first jobs were more likely to be at not-for-profit secular institutions.

An overwhelming 96 percent of blacks believe whites have greater opportunities for advancement in management. Forty-three percent of whites agree.
"I was disappointed by the results, [but] not surprised," said Thomas C. Dolan, president and CEO of the American College of Healthcare Executives.
"Discrimination is there," said Percy Allen II, president of the National Association of Health Services Executives and CEO of the University Hospital of Brooklyn in New York. "We look at the situation in its reality."
The executives' groups vowed to take steps to remedy the disparities. These include encouraging health-care organizations to more actively recruit and promote blacks by employing such strategies as giving financial aid to black students and encouraging more recruitment efforts by blacks in the field.
The groups promised to undertake a comparable study in three to five years to measure progress.
Though today's hospitals stress openness to all, many were founded to serve ethnic groups that desired an institution sympathetic to their culture, language and customs. So, for instance, a Chicago hospital set up by Polish Catholics stands a couple blocks from a hospital founded by German Jews.
"There's a tendency in organizations to go in for self-replication," noted Rosemary Stevens, a dean at the University of Pennsylvania and author of an award-winning history of hospitals.
Health care, she added, is similar to fields such as Major League Baseball, in which "it's harder for minorities to be perceived as executives when there are certain images of what a successful executive is like."
Hilmon S. Sorey Jr., a vice president at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, points out that the number of black-owned hospitals in the U.S. has declined from a peak of more than 100 to perhaps a half-dozen. Sorey, who has more than 24 years of experience at hospitals and health-care organizations, says he hopes the latest survey will make white hospital managers more aware of discrimination.
"Leaders are more responsive when they have an objective view," he said. "I believe [the survey] will do some good."
The survey received about 850 replies, or roughly a 60 percent response rate, from a group of white and black health-care executives. It was presented in conjunction with the annual Congress of the American College of Healthcare Executives, now under way in Chicago.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB