Olivia Thomas Email & Phone Number

I am the Chief Diversity & Health Equity Officer at Nationwide Children's Hospital, the country’s largest pediatric hospital and research network. This new diversity and health equity role is an opportunity to help all employees understand what diversity and inclusion mean. To me, it is about valuing every employee for their differences, because those differences make us a better and stronger organization. We should all value that. I also have an opportunity to see patient outcomes and make sure children are getting equitable care. It is important to me that they get not just equal care, but whatever they need to make them healthy and achieve the best health outcomes, whether it’s modifications in treatment, resources or removing barriers to care.Some of my days are spent meeting with our leadership and management across the organization, advocating for Nationwide Children’s diversity, inclusion and equity efforts, and determining how staff can get involved. I ask our leaders and staff to look at all their programs and projects, their quality improvement initiatives and research projects through diversity and equity lens. We can help staff assess data, search for gaps in care, services or programs, and establish interventions if any gaps are found.I enjoy spending much of my free time with my three grandchildren - that includes library time, going to COSI, the zoo, and other outings with them. I drive them to many of their school activities, too. I like to travel all over the world and while I have done some, there’s still a lot more to see!

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  The Ohio State University College Of Medicine