Diversity and Inclusion Meets Quality and Safety: It’s Not Quality Unless It’s Quality for All

By Theresa Malin • August 23, 2018

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John Knudsen, M.D., discusses the impact of systemic discrimination, bias, and racism on the quality and safety of health care. He calls for data to drive action on inequities and measure the success of interventions.

Dr. Knudsen is the Medical Director of Mayo Clinic’s Office of Health Equity and Inclusion. Dr. Knudsen works to support and ensure Mayo Clinic’s commitment to promote inclusivity and health equity to all patient populations that Mayo Clinic serves. His responsibilities include creating awareness about inclusion and health equity in the clinical environment. He also partners with institutional resource teams and clinical care teams to develop strategies and interventions to improve the care and outcomes for patient populations that face health care inequities. 

Dr. Knudsen has a specific focus on improving the care and health of LGBT patients. He is actively involved in educational efforts to increase LGBT health awareness through continued medical education, "grand rounds" meetings, and other teaching venues. He is partnering with clinical teams to develop a more inclusive care environment. He is also supporting changes to allow LGBT patients to voluntarily disclose their sexual orientation and gender identity within the electronic health record. Dr. Knudsen is an Assistant Professor of Radiology with the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine. He also serves as Chair for the Division of Ultrasound in the Department of Radiology.

What Is a "Sketchnote"?
A sketchnote is a graphic representation combined with text as a form of note-taking. It was coined by Mike Rhodes and also goes by graphic note-taking or graphic recording. The premise is to create a graphic record of an event that is engaging and informative. For the note-taker, it also serves as a tool to help with retention and recall of the information. By associating text and image (Dual Coding Theory), we help to create additional neural pathways to information, making it more accessible later on, and learning becomes more durable.

Theresa Malin

Theresa Malin is an Education Specialist in Transfusion Medicine at Mayo Clinic. She is a faculty member of the Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences and serves as an educator for a wide variety of medical students and clinicians from the Mayo Clinic School of Graduate Medical Education. She has worked as a Medical Lab Scientist in hospitals across the country and found her way back to Mayo Clinic in 2014. Outside of work, Theresa loves to explore the seemingly ordinary through the creative lenses of her three children.