The LGBTQ+ Colleague Resource Group at HealthPartners created a safe and supportive space for LGBTQ+ colleagues through building relationships, offering professional development opportunities and acting as a resource for businesses. Katie Paro, a resource group leader and the specialty and operations manager at our Burnsville clinic, shares the CRG’s vision, how it engages with colleagues and stories from her own experience and journey.
The LGBTQ+ Colleague Resource Group at HealthPartners created a safe and supportive space for LGBTQ+ colleagues through building relationships, offering professional development opportunities and acting as a resource for businesses. Katie Paro, a resource group leader and the specialty and operations manager at our Burnsville clinic, shares the CRG’s vision, how it engages with colleagues and stories from her own experience and journey.
Hosts: Kari Haley, MD, and Steven Jackson, MD
Guest: Katie Paro
HealthPartners website: Off the Charts podcast
Got an idea? Have thoughts to share? We want to hear from you. Email us at offthecharts@healthpartners.com.
Kari Haley:
He's a rehab doctor from Chicago.
Steven Jackson:
She's an emergency medicine doctor from the Twin Cities.
Kari Haley:
Together we're examining the health equity emergency.
Steven Jackson:
Inviting voices for changed without the cue cards.
Kari Haley:
I'm Dr. Kari Haley.
Steven Jackson:
I'm Dr. Steven Jackson.
Both, together:
And this is Off the Charts.
Steven Jackson:
Welcome to our show. We're really happy to have with us Katie Paro, who's a specialty and operations manager at the Burnsville Clinic, but also the co-lead of our LGBTQ+ Colleague Resource Group. Welcome.
Katie Paro:
Thank you.
Steven Jackson:
Welcome. We talked kind of previously, in full disclosure, give you guys an inside track when we have our pre-production, and one of the questions came up when we think about a why and a what is well, how do we show up for each other and our culture where we want our colleagues and we want our patients to feel welcomed, included, and valued leads us to a conversation that we're going to have with Katie Paro. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Katie Paro:
Katie Paro. I have been with Park Nicollet and HealthPartners for about five years now. Recently, I guess it feels like yesterday, but it was actually about a year ago, started at the Burnsville Clinic, but I have been really involved in health care administration since I got out of undergrad in Chicago and ended up here, worked at Planned Parenthood for a few years where I really started to understand a lot more about how myself, as someone who doesn't have that same touch or desire to practice medicine, can be involved in a lot of those front lines and supporting patients as well as our colleagues. I think more about myself, even just outside of health care, which is usually where my brain goes to, I live in Eden Prairie. I have a 2-year-old daughter, which having a baby during a pandemic, I don't know if it's something I'd recommend, but we loved it.
Steven Jackson:
It's a podcast in and of itself, I'm sure.
Katie Paro:
Yes.
Kari Haley:
Yeah, so many stories.
Katie Paro:
But other than that, I mean, I grew up bouncing around the country quite a bit, but I like to say I spent my formative years in Fort Lauderdale. I know, your eyes-
Steven Jackson:
That sounds horrible. Oh, my god. Fort Lauderdale.
Katie Paro:
Thank you. A lot of people say, "Oh, it must be awesome growing up in Florida." I'm like, "You know what? When your whole family is very classic Midwestern German culture, getting a little bit taste of East Coast is a little different."
Steven Jackson:
I bet.
Kari Haley:
It's not the same.
Katie Paro:
My passion around the work that I do in supporting other people I think has really just come from having a lot of diverse experiences growing up, always having, for various reasons, moments where I felt like the odd one out, and I think that's just something that's really carried through for me in my entire career.
Kari Haley:
Can you describe a little bit more about what your role is, both with the colleague resource group and your role with the Burnsville Clinic?
Katie Paro:
At the Burnsville Clinic, I serve as the specialty and operations manager, and for those who don't know, the Burnsville Clinic's a multi-specialty center clinic. We have pretty much every specialty you could kind of throw a dart at, you could find us. We have a surgery center, a large primary care, and when we have these large sites, traditionally a lot of that care of the facilities, the operations, the frontline rolls up to the primary care manager. But because we're so big, they kind of created this secondary role where I support all of our specialty care teams as well as when a pipe bursts, who's going to be there to call maintenance and manage patient flow? That's me.
Steven Jackson:
Go, Katie.
Katie Paro:
It's nice to be needed. I'll say that. Then with the colleague resource group, so myself and Deena Magnuson are the co-leads for that group. Our role is really ... it's to create a space for anyone that wants to be a part of the colleague resource group. We have people that are part of our planning team that take on different initiatives. We have people that kind of just come for the social aspects, but we kind of just take on that onus of hosting the meetings, creating space, creating agendas, but it's a colleague-run group. That's part of what makes a colleague resource group a colleague resource group. We are just really honored and excited about having engaged folks that want to give back and really create a better environment for everybody here at HealthPartners.
Steven Jackson:
As a point of reference, we have other colleague resource groups, right?
Katie Paro:
We do, yes. Currently there are three. We have obviously the LGBTQ+ colleague resource group. We have the Black and African American Colleague Resource Group, and we also have a Leaders of Color Colleague Resource Group. I know speaking for our diversity, equity and inclusion colleagues, what is nice is they would love to have as many resource groups as there are interested colleagues.
Steven Jackson:
Sure. I like that it's colleague run. I think if it was run by big wigs, dare I say, then maybe something will get missed. I think it's important that people with lived experience can come together to find that solidarity and also to grow individually and collectively. I think that's probably one of the bigger things that stands out to me that it is colleague run because colleagues know what colleagues need, I think. That's awesome. What is the origin of this particular colleague resource group?
Katie Paro:
This does predate me being on the group, so you'll have to excuse me if I misspeak, but prior to being a colleague resource group, we were the LGBTQ+ Business Engagement Network and really what that was was it was only for leaders, and it was more about how HealthPartners as a business as an entity really supported LGBTQ-related initiatives. More than just necessarily health equity, but also what's our presence when we talk about equity as an employer. As we had some, I would say, newer blood into diversity, equity, and inclusion on that team, there was a lot of desire to say, "Hey, how do we get colleagues, any colleague involved?" Because really being on the CRG, we call it an extracurricular. We take our own time to do it, but it's really important to make sure we're engaging everybody, not just leaders.
Think a big piece of this too is that the development opportunities and so really when the two leaders at the time of the business engagement network were first approached about making it a CRG, that was also around the time that they brought me in too because I wasn't a leader at that point, and so they really wanted to get more of that individual contributor type of experience in the leadership.
Kari Haley:
What kind of things does the CRG do? You mentioned a couple of the events or social aspects of things, but what kind of things do does it do in order to support colleagues or give information to other colleagues who also want to be supportive?
Katie Paro:
A colleague resource group can take many different paths. I'm speaking just from the LGBTQ CRG, but we have tried to take a balance between what we call kind of behind the scenes initiatives. We have people on our team that work on work groups, for example, getting pronouns on our badges. They work on things like ... we're creating spaces or better pathways for people to update and change their names in Outlook and Epic. We also take a look at what's our kind of engagement with other health care organizations, other CRGs. We have that kind of behind the scenes that we try to work with our HR and IT and operations leadership to make just a more supportive environment for our colleagues. But then we also want to have these social aspects. A big piece of really any sort of safe and supportive environment is having those connections.
We kind of host regular get togethers. Thank you to TRIA for giving us some ... they were so kind enough to gift us box seats at the wild game, so we got to invite our CRG members to that.
Steven Jackson:
OK.
Katie Paro:
It was pretty nice. We had a great time. But I think we have this opportunities for social, but then we also have opportunities, quite frankly, if we're struggling with something. We have group members that say, "Hey, I had this experience. I felt hurt by a colleague," or "I wasn't sure how to support someone else when they were going through something." We have the very lighthearted community connection, but we also have these really deeper heartfelt problems that we support each other through.
Steven Jackson:
I know that the concept of being welcomed, included and valued, it's not just word speak, it's not just talk. I mean, that's a heavy lift because in many of our episodes before we talk about shifting a culture, which starts with a mindset of the individual who forms a group, who forms an organization, who forms a society. Got real big, real quick, right? I'm curious to know in the LGBTQ+ colleague resource group, what have been some of the challenges, not only in its inception, I know it kind of predates you, and from what you understand, what's been some of the challenges regarding its inception and then just its maintenance and the day-to-day?
Katie Paro:
I think that one of our biggest challenges will always be ... it's funny because it's a challenge, but it's also the beauty of the group is that it's colleague run, it's extracurricular. People are taking time out of their busy days to support this work. I think a lot of it is just finding the right people that want to be involved and have the time and energy and, quite frankly, emotional strength to tackle a lot of these things.
Steven Jackson:
[inaudible 00:10:58] capacity.
Katie Paro:
It doesn't come easy. I think sometimes just finding people that want to get engaged has been a big ... and we're lucky, we're sitting pretty nicely on our planning team right now because that's kind of what it takes to run the rest of the CRG, but I think the biggest thing that we have been trying to tackle and this year especially is how do we engage more diverse colleagues? I say that in many ways that we experience diversity, but a big one has been we have one hospitalist, one frontline team member that tries to make it when she can, but the rest of us are more administrative roles. We have HR, IT even chaplaincy, lots of operations folks. But when we think about who we're trying to support, a lot of us in our administrative roles already have a lot of privilege that allows us to be on this group, and so trying to find ways to engage and support those that don't have the same flexibility in their role.
Kari Haley:
That makes sense. What are ways that you have kind of done ... so trying to engage, is there an outreach component to the CRG or is there thoughts of having any sort of outreach? Because I think as a colleague who would like to be supportive or be an ally, I'd love to hear a little bit more about what are some opportunities that others can do even if they're not on the CRG themselves?
Katie Paro:
The first thing I'm going to say is that as a CRG, we are open to allies as well. We have quite a few folks on our group that identify as allies. For us, that was a very intentional piece to include. A, because it's not always a parent who is LGBTQ+ and who's not and we wanted to make sure that we didn't feel like there was really any policing in that. But also we know that, and this is a lot of what Deena and I do, is understanding what those boundaries and barriers are between allyship and the LGBTQ+ experience. But we know that we need partners. We know that we need people in positions of formal or informal power to help us. When we talk about how do people support us or what does that outreach look like, the biggest thing that we do is spread through word of mouth.
We have many LGBTQ+ colleagues that recommend the group to others. We have a lot of leaders that just casually mention it to their team in a weekly email or during a huddle. I think that getting people into our ... we have a teams channel where we kind of post things and have lots of discussion, but that's really the biggest thing that has helped us really get folks involved. But one of the pieces that we're really trying to spend some energy launching this year is also what we call a peer support network, and what that is a group of individuals who might identify as LGBTQ+, might not, but they are essentially signing themselves up to serve as resources for anyone in the organization that is looking for support, whether they identify as LGBTQ+ or not.
This is a list of people that can say, "Hey, I am thinking about coming out at work and maybe I work in security, or I work in lab. I don't know how to navigate that environment. Is there someone that could help walk me through it?" Or you could say, "I'm a leader and one of my team members is looking at transitioning or displaying their gender identity or expressing their gender in a different way. How do I support them through that process?" We have kind of ways that we can connect folks with resources to help ask questions and have that support.
Steven Jackson:
What is the role of partnerships not only with other CRGs, but also, I guess, other groups where there's intersectionality. I'll just give a quick example, being one of the co-leaders of the cabinet, we've met many a times to develop a terminology guide because people need to be educated and know what's up. How do things like that sort of help in maybe an indirect way, maybe in some direct ways? How does that help support what you guys are doing in your CRG and your big vision?
Katie Paro:
I think that anytime that we are focusing on equity, whether it's in the workplace, in the medical workplace, or with our patients, we are highlighting the experiences of the disenfranchised or marginalized. I know exactly the terminology guide you're speaking of-
Steven Jackson:
Indeed.
Katie Paro:
And we were very happy and excited to share it with our CRG because we know that there is visibility to our experiences as LGBTQ+ people, and we know that there is also action. So when we talk about partnering, we partner with our other CRGs quite a bit, especially when we think about intersectionality and those of our colleagues who may identify with or belong to both CRGs or multiple different CRGs. Because we know that myself, I am a white woman, and so my experience as an LGBTQ+ white woman is going to be very different than a lot of the other CRG members and so there are things where I'm going to say, "Hey, you know what? I am, I'm here to support you. I'm a little bit outside my depth because I don't have that lived experience, but I would love to partner with another CRG leader who can really help with that mentorship and support.
Steven Jackson:
I would imagine, again, partnership, and this is a health equity podcast and so health equity transcends race, color, creed, gender identity, et cetera. Because at the end of the day, we want the playing field level so everybody has equal access to being healthy and not just physically healthy, but mentally healthy. Obviously that's a podcast in and of itself as well, along with the one about your 2-year-old. We're definitely appreciative of the partnerships that we can garner across the aisle, so to speak, because at the end of the day, one of the things that we talked about in pre-production is that the outcomes of one particular group likely helps the outcomes of all the groups. It's not just it's us and this is your silo and this is your silo, but we're all hopefully moving in the same direction and wanting most of the same things, at the very least similar things. So interesting.
Kari Haley:
I really like this idea of this colleague resource group because I feel like we're all members of this health care organization and kind of relating this back in general to health equity. We're all part, administrative, clinician, everything and anything in between who all work here and that if we have to be healthy in order to take good care of the patients, and that the lessons that we learn interpersonally as well also just transcends in how we're treating our patients and treating others that we meet in our other roles. I think that this type of thing only brings ... even though it's focused on colleague to colleague, it still does make a big impact on how our patients are treated as well.
Katie Paro:
Absolutely. A big piece that we talk about is in order to help serve our diverse population, we have to make sure that we're supporting our diverse workforce.
Steven Jackson:
That's a great point.
Katie Paro:
We have a great depth of diversity within our workforce and within our communities, and so the more that we can leverage and engage those colleagues to help support our health equity mission, the better. When we have a diverse workforce, but especially looking at our LGBTQ+ colleagues, when we're looking at process improvements or operational rollouts or communications, we are looking at it through a different lens. When we design our systems, processes, and practices with that diverse lens in mind and with those views, we are going to have better outcomes for our patients and members.
Kari Haley:
I know we were just talking in one of our resident conferences about ... so that when patients show up on Epic, when you can click into their chart and you can see their pronouns that they want to go by, but if you're looking at just what our ED board is, the quick ones, the quick reference that you might just glance at, they don't have the proper pronouns. Just those types of things and just knowing and that there's a group that even working with IT and everything that is just feels like it's a much more supportive, inclusive environment so people don't have to double click in or think too hard about it or feel uncomfortable ... I mean, it's going to be uncomfortable, but they don't have to go that extra step in order to make the patient feel more comfortable.
Katie Paro:
It's interesting you bring that up because one of the things we've been working through with Epic in our systems, so we do have actually a separate work group, the LGBTQ+ health equity group run by Greg Fedio, that really helps support the patient facing aspects of this. So how do we impact health equity from a patient focus? Of course, a lot of what Greg does is engage with us as the CRG to make sure that we're getting that diverse lens on his work. When we look at Epic, for example, we have the SOGI form, we have opportunities for patients. We still don't have those opportunities for colleagues. It's very difficult to update any colleagues' names or add pronouns or anything in Epic unless you have a legal document associated with it.
For people that are deciding, maybe they haven't gone through a legal name change or they're going by a different nickname, we don't currently have a way to do that. It's interesting where we are really ... the two groups are tackling a lot of the same issues and are working together to find that right balance of how are we supporting our colleagues and our patients, but it was an interesting example that you brought up because we talk about it a lot.
Kari Haley:
The same thing. Yes.
Katie Paro:
Yeah.
Steven Jackson:
Well, I think from a big picture standpoint, when you talk about culture, it starts with, again, the mindset of the individual and I think having spaces like this to talk openly and honestly about, "Well, what is our culture?" And again, how do we show up for each other? How do we want to be shown up for? Those kinds of things are very important to consider. I think something you said earlier, Kari, about ... and I don't know if this was ... this might have been another episode, a recent episode in fact, but you talked about how sometimes there'll be an eye roll if you have to go find an iPad interpreter, and it's like, "Well, how do we do away with the eye roll? How do we make it so that serving our diverse populations isn't a hassle, it isn't extra, but it's simply what we do?", which is the definition of culture, what we do and how we do it.
I think that obviously we have a lot of work to do in terms of changing mindsets and applying different lenses so that we can see things a little more clear. I want to quote our chief diversity officer, Toweya Brown-Ochs, shout-out to you if you listen to this episode, she often says that we're all on that moving ... and I always mess it up. It's not a stairway, the moving ... what's the thing when you're in the ...
Katie Paro:
Like in the airport?
Steven Jackson:
Yes. The moving sidewalk, the moving walkway, there we go. You have some that are in the walk lane where they're walking, you have some that are in the stand lane. You have some that choose not to get on. You have those that are running while they're on it, and that just kind of characterizes the different parts of the journey that we're all on, but hopefully we're all on it and trying to better ourselves. Where do we go from here, now that the work is done and everything is perfect now?
Katie Paro:
It's so much easier from here on out. I think for us, when I think of what Deena and I are trying to do with the CRG, it's how do we make this not an extracurricular? How do we make this really part of everyone's thought? It's actually funny, Dr. Jackson, when you were mentioning about the iPad, because with that eye roll, we think about the impact on the patient who's ... oh, my gosh, well now we have to support this patient, and this patient is probably seeing that and is now concerned that their care is going to be affected. But also think about the colleagues that are surrounding you in that moment.
I think of a colleague that I work with that is often asked to interpret when the iPad is taken by another person. It's often situations like that where we have to realize, you know what? Everything we do, we are obviously looking through it from a patient lens, but we also need to be looking at it through a colleague lens. When I think of that embedded idea, really just making sure that we are highlighting the experiences of our colleagues through everyone in this organization, making sure that everyone thinks, "Hey, if I do ..." because we have long days, we have busy days, there are some things that make our workflows more challenging, but as we look at this, how do we have that almost switch in our brain that makes us say, "You know what? I might be thinking that, but that's my bias? How do I feel? How do I manage that, swallow that down so that I can still support my patients and colleagues?"
Really, from an LGBTQ+ lens, unfortunately, I think we have a ways to go, but just seeing how many more people we can engage, how many more people can understand that we're here because even our presence and the communication of our presence is validating and advocating. We have a space, we are valid, we are appreciated. We are welcome, included and valued in this organization, and the more that people can hear that, the better.
Kari Haley:
What can we do on the outside, outside the walls of our hospitals to help support? Because there's a lot of legislation out there now. There's a lot of unfortunate politicalization of real humans' lives. What can we do to help our colleagues know that we're supporting them, and what can we do outside the hospital walls to do that?
Katie Paro:
When we talk about what being an ally is like, it's different for every relationship. If you are an ally to your child, if you are an ally to your coworker, or if you're an ally to a friend or sibling, it's always going to look a little bit different. In these scenarios, these unfortunately very real scenarios that we're still experiencing, we are looking at this from how do we just listen? How do we really highlight the experiences and the voices of others? A lot of what that looks like is sometimes just calling things out. For example, on our CRG meeting, if there is sort of passing of any specific legislature or an experience, anything violence related, we will always take moments just to call that out and say, "Hey, we're going to take the next five minutes or 15 or 20 or 30 to either discuss or sit in silence," or whatever.
We just create that space for however anybody wants to engage in it. I think acknowledging, having the moment where we're saying these words out loud, we're speaking the truth. But another piece too is then how do we, especially if as an ally, if you don't have all the information, if you're trying to look for other perspectives, there's a lot of things we talk about, we talk about the burden of education, how people who are members of a certain identity often have that burden of educating other people about their experiences.
Kari Haley:
Yes.
Steven Jackson:
Right. Oh, yeah.
Katie Paro:
What I honestly like to think of it a little bit differently, and this is for me in my role where I am in my identity and my experiences, is I think of it as not just the burden of education, but the burden of education in replacement of readily available resources.
If someone wants to ask me about what does LGBTQ stand for, I'm going to be a little bit more frustrated than if someone asks me the question, "Well, Katie, as a queer woman who is married to a man, what is that experience like for you?" Those are two very different questions that have very different responsibilities around that. When we talk about things that are happening in the world, I don't say, "Well, did you hear about this thing?" Or just "How are you feeling?", there's a lot of information out there about what's happening and education about ... again, to me as an LGBTQ person, it's just pretty basic. But when we think more nuanced, think more about our intersectionality, I think that's where the allyship conversations can really make a difference.
Steven Jackson:
I think three words, do the work. It's not any individual's job to educate the world. There are books, there are resources, terminology guides.
Katie Paro:
Yes. Google.
Steven Jackson:
I mean, there's a lot out there though. Google. Do the work, and that's what it comes down to. That that's one of the many building blocks to changing a culture, doing the work. The necessary work, I'll add.
Katie Paro:
I want to tell a story about allyship because it was a really magical moment for me when I ... I didn't actually come out to my dad. My dad asked me an amazing question, and this is what I think when I ask people about how to be an ally. I think this is a great story. This is my first year of college. I'm coming home for the summer, and my dad says, he's like, "Katie, you know what? I know that going to college, it's a time of learning and exploration and experience." He's like, "Have you kind of have an idea of what your orientation might be?" I just in that moment immediately felt safe coming out to my dad. Again, it was this moment where he wanted to know me and my experience and how I saw my identity, not labeling me or making any assumptions based on my gender expression.
Steven Jackson:
You seem like you got a little emotional thinking about it.
Katie Paro:
Yeah. It always makes me cry a little bit, because I'm really fortunate and not everybody is.
Steven Jackson:
Well, I think ... I mean, going back to that original question, how do we show up for each other, that's a very powerful example. I think as we think about closing, when we think about our HealthPartners' vision, mission and value statement, it talks about relationships built on trust, and we usually put a period there, but it also says in service for all. When you think about service, it tends to be about the other person. Not thinking about yourself in that moment, but creating space for others. I think that's a perfect example of you were served in that moment And sounds like it's impacted you greatly. So appreciate you sharing that.
Katie Paro:
Thank you.
Kari Haley:
Well, thank you so much for one, being a leader and letting us know more about your work and what we can do and just being here and keep it up, man. I mean, [inaudible 00:30:32].
Steven Jackson:
Thanks so much for your time.
Katie Paro:
Thank you both so much.
Steven Jackson:
Off the Charts is a production of HealthPartners and Park Nicollet.
Kari Haley:
It is recorded by Jimmy Bellamy, with creative by Peggy Arnson, Tina Long, Tim Myers and Jeff Jondahl.
Steven Jackson:
Production service is provided by Matriarch Digital Media.
Kari Haley:
Our theme music is by Ryan Ike.