Ethisphere Announces MetroHealth as One of the 2021 World's Most Ethical Companies for the Second Time
Recognition honors those companies who understand the importance of leading, making hard but values-based decisions, and their overall commitment to integrity
The MetroHealth System has been recognized by Ethisphere, a global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices, as one of the 2021 World’s Most Ethical Companies.
MetroHealth served the community at an unprecedented level during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It immediately set up and operated a free hotline for people with questions about COVID, which has handled 77,000 calls, resulting in 40,000 visits with healthcare providers. MetroHealth performed more than 80,000 COVID tests in homeless shelters, at group homes, in church parking lots and in under-resourced communities. The regional hospital system performed COVID vaccinations at homeless shelters. It announced plans to build a $42 million, 110-bed hospital focused on behavioral health. MetroHealth also elevated discussions about racial equity and inclusion.
MetroHealth has been recognized for two years in a row and is one of only seven honorees in the Healthcare Providers industry. In 2021, 135 honorees were recognized spanning 22 countries and 47 industries.
“We have been challenged like never before by COVID-19, but I have never been prouder of our organization. We also are leading discussions about equity, diversity and inclusion, and creating a new hospital to help our community with mental health and addiction,” said MetroHealth Chair of the Board of Trustees Vanessa Whiting, Esq.
“These past months have provided us an unprecedented opportunity to demonstrate our ethics and values. Whether it was setting up a hotline for calls from worried people, directing them to quarantine, delivering food and medicine to their homes, testing them and now vaccinating them, MetroHealth has stood by the community every step of the way,” said MetroHealth CEO and President Akram Boutros, MD, FACHE.
“Earning recognition on the World’s Most Ethical Company list is an extraordinary achievement that involves the collective effort of the entire workforce,” said Cheryl Forino Wahl, Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer at MetroHealth. “Our values and culture of ethics permeate everything we do at MetroHealth. We work together to improve the health and well-being not only of our patients, but our employees, our business partners and our neighbors. We are proud of our long history of caring for the people in need. And we do it because this is who we are.”
“While addressing the tough challenges of 2020, we saw companies lead – above all other institutions – on earning the trust of stakeholders through resilience and a commitment to ethics and integrity,” said Ethisphere CEO, Timothy Erblich. “The World’s Most Ethical Companies honorees continue to demonstrate an unwavering commitment to the highest values and positively impacting the communities they serve. Congratulations to everyone at MetroHealth for earning the World’s Most Ethical Companies designation.”
Methodology & Scoring: Grounded in Ethisphere’s proprietary Ethics Quotient®, the World’s Most Ethical Companies assessment process includes more than 200 questions on culture, environmental and social practices, ethics and compliance activities, governance, diversity and initiatives to support a strong value chain. The process serves as an operating framework to capture and codify the leading practices of organizations across industries and around the globe. This year, the process was streamlined and the question set expanded to gauge how applicants are adapting and responding to the global health pandemic, environmental, social, and governance factors, safety, equity, and inclusion and social justice.
The full list of the 2021 World's Most Ethical Companies can be found at https://worldsmostethicalcompanies.com/honorees.
About the Ethisphere Institute
The Ethisphere® Institute is the global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices that fuel corporate character, marketplace trust and business success. Ethisphere has deep expertise in measuring and defining core ethics standards using data-driven insights that help companies enhance corporate character and measure and improve culture. Ethisphere honors superior achievement through its World’s Most Ethical Companies recognition program and provides a community of industry experts with the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA). More information about Ethisphere can be found at: https://ethisphere.com.
Founded in 1837, MetroHealth is leading the way to a healthier you and a healthier community through service, teaching, discovery, and teamwork. Cuyahoga County’s public, safety-net hospital system, MetroHealth meets people where they are, providing care through five hospitals, four emergency departments and more than 20 health centers. Each day, our nearly 9,000 employees focus on providing our community with equitable healthcare — through patient-focused research, access to care, and support services — that seeks to eradicate health disparities rooted in systematic barriers. For more information, visit metrohealth.org.
