Brenda Battle, ’81, ’96, began her career as a nurse, moving quickly into a broad spectrum of administrative positions. She currently directs multiple departments focused on the healthcare needs of urban populations.<\/p>\n
As vice president of care delivery innovation at University of Chicago Medicine for the past four years, Battle directs community health initiatives. Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵAPP 300,000 Chicago residents of all ages benefit from the programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I do insures that a patient has access to the resources they need across the full continuum of care,\u201d Battle says. \u201cWhen I can see that patients start connecting dots around what they do in their environment and what they do in their home that could potentially create risk for them around their health \u2014 and they learn how to avoid those risk factors \u2014 it\u2019s gratifying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Battle is also the medical center\u2019s chief diversity and inclusion officer. Her team promotes health literacy by translating documents into plain language, provides cultural competency training, and identifies variations in healthcare outcomes so programs can be developed to close those gaps.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we convey complex healthcare language in terms that persons understand, they have a greater chance of being adherent and actually engaging in their healthcare,\u201d Battle says. \u201cOur efforts also support workforce development and employee engagement strategies, by recruiting and attracting diverse talent; promoting efforts to ensure inclusion, such as diversity training and employee resource groups; and cultural competency.\u201d<\/p>\n
Battle\u2019s career has given her deep experience across healthcare settings, including home care, hospitals, clinics and health disparity centers. She has also worked on the insurance side of the industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have always been in healthcare access and a large part of it has involved working to eliminate health disparities,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Battle earned her MBA<\/a> from Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵAPP15 years after graduating from the nursing<\/a> program.<\/p>\n \u201cHealthcare is a business, and getting my MBA was tremendously helpful,\u201d Battle says. \u201cI was fortunate to make it to a director\u2019s level without an MBA, but I was doing a lot of work like profit and loss management and developing people and teams and programs. I decided I could use the theoretical knowledge while already doing this work. Without a doubt it has been helpful in understanding and developing a business acumen.\u201d<\/p>\n