Podcast Summary

Podcast: Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Guest: James Burroughs, Senior Vice President of Government and Community Relations and Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer, Children’s Minnesota
Host: Chris Sosa
Date: February 10, 2026
Duration (content): ~20 minutes

Overview

This episode features James Burroughs, a senior leader overseeing government relations, community engagement, and equity at Children’s Minnesota—an exclusively pediatric healthcare system and one of the nation’s largest. The discussion explores organizational transitions, strategic priorities around equity and inclusion, responses to shifting federal policies, community engagement, internal and external reactions, and vision for future growth.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. About Children’s Minnesota and James Burroughs’s Role

• Children’s Minnesota is the largest pediatric-only healthcare system in Minnesota, focusing solely on the health and wellbeing of children and their families.
• James Burroughs’s responsibilities span three domains:
  • Government Relations: Navigating federal, state, and local policy for children’s health.
  • Community Relations: Developing partnerships to extend care and support beyond hospital walls.
  • Chief Equity & Inclusion Officer: Building a diverse staff and an environment prioritizing quality, cultural inclusion, and belonging.

  "We consider ourselves the kid experts because we want to focus primarily on kids and their families and making sure that we have healthy families for our children." (James Burroughs, 01:17)

2. Major Initiative: CEO Transition

• In 2025, leadership transitioned from Dr. Marc Gorelick to Dr. Emily Chapman (previously Chief Medical Officer for 22 years).
• The focus was to ensure:
  • Continuity at the executive team level.
  • Commitment to strategic planning.
  • A seamless experience for families, patients, staff, and the community.
  • A balanced budget outcome for the fiscal year.

  "That changing in leadership, making sure we kept the continuity of our ELT team and made sure that we stayed made relevant for our patients, families, and communities was the major thing that we had going on in 2025." (James Burroughs, 03:48)

3. Equity and Inclusion: Leadership Voice and Integration

• Dr. Emily Chapman prioritized maintaining and deepening the organization’s work in equitable care.
• Key priorities she articulated as CEO:
  • Equitable Care: Integrate equity as a domain of care quality.
  • Empowering Staff: Enable nurses, providers, and teams to experiment with inclusion, embracing linguistic, cultural, generational, and socioeconomic diversity.
  • Community Engagement: Remain responsive to challenges faced by families, e.g., immigration issues or access barriers.
  • Technology Integration: Link equity and community concerns into the new Epic (EHR) rollout (Eclipse project).
  • Succession Planning: Aspire for equity and inclusion to be so well-integrated that the Chief Equity Officer role becomes obsolete.

  "When they want to try different experiments for whether it be different languages or different aspects of community and culture, different economic or generational differences between families... they can feel comfortable trying those experiments, learning from those, and then also to implementing that going forward." (James Burroughs, 05:31)
  "I always joke that the role of my Chief Equity Inclusion Officer will hopefully at some point in the next 10 to 15 years, disappear, and that folks will just have integrated that into the work that we do." (James Burroughs, 06:59)

4. 2026: Headwinds and Tailwinds

• Headwinds:
  • Federal and Policy Changes: Shifts in executive orders and Medicaid are affecting care delivery, particularly around equity and diversity. In some states, similar systems have scaled back equity efforts; Children’s Minnesota remains steadfast.
  • Documentation Challenges: Policy changes influence how outcomes are measured and reported.
• Tailwinds:
  • Internalization of Equity: Providers and nurses increasingly embed equity in their workflows and projects without needing direct oversight.

  "Some of our children's systems in other places, in other states, have made a lot of changes... We have not. We're still committed to providing equitable care through our equity inclusion office..." (James Burroughs, 08:30)
  "One of the tailwinds is that sometimes it doesn't even have to be a call to my office or call to my team...They can make this part of the work that I do as well." (James Burroughs, 09:24)

5. Community and Staff Reactions

• External (Community):
  • Positive response for maintaining commitment to equity when others have stepped back.
  • The Community Advisory Council meets quarterly, providing input and guiding reinvestment (e.g., $250,000/year) in underserved patient & family strategies: behavioral health, vaccine access, mental health, gun violence.
• Internal (Staff):
  • Nurses, providers, and employee resource groups (eight currently, expanding) are actively engaged in equity initiatives, finding meaning in how their identity and experience shape better care delivery.

  "Externally, folks have received it very well... They were pleasantly surprised that we weren’t backing away from the work." (James Burroughs, 11:01)
  "Our employee resource groups... bring awareness to not only their identity, but also to how their identity can shape and mold and help us provide better care and services for families in community." (James Burroughs, 12:26)

6. Biggest Challenge for 2026

• Sustaining Momentum:
  • Keeping organizational motivation high for equity work despite policy setbacks.
  • Inspiring innovation and adaptation—even when terminology, methods, or political environment change.
• Addressing External Barriers:
  • Community safety and access issues can prevent families from seeking care; thus, new strategies like virtual care must be augmented by further creative approaches.

  "I think the hardest thing to do is convince people that in spite of headwinds, we can send you the motivation to do the work." (James Burroughs, 14:44)

7. Opportunities for Growth & Long-term Vision

• Succession Planning: Preparing the next leader to take equity and inclusion work to “version 2.0.”
• Embedding Equity Everywhere: Ensure equitable care becomes standard across patient, employee, and community experience.
• Broaden Community Partnerships: Expand from 8–10 partners to reach more urban, rural, and regional communities (Upper Midwest and beyond).
• Policy Advocacy: Advocate that children’s and family health are fully integrated into health policy, addressing social determinants like housing, education, and economic development.

  "How do we make sure that policymakers consider the health needs of kids and families not as a separate and apart thing from the adult system, but how does that integrate into the work of moms and families?" (James Burroughs, 18:33) "I can't say we're going to have a healthy child, go back to a neighborhood that's unsafe, doesn't have proper running water, doesn't have proper housing, and then the child is going to have great healthcare needs." (James Burroughs, 19:37)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the vision for equity:

  "I always joke that the role of my Chief Equity Inclusion Officer will hopefully at some point in the next 10 to 15 years, disappear, and that folks will just have integrated that into the work that we do as a healthcare system." (James Burroughs, 06:59)

• On resilience:

  "I think a lot of people get discouraged sometimes by what laws or policy tells you you can't do or not supposed to do... as opposed to looking at as an opportunity to say, okay, how can we creative, innovative and strategic about how we do it work differently?" (James Burroughs, 14:17)

• On community feedback:

  "Externally, folks have received it very well... They were pleasantly surprised that we weren't backing away from the work." (James Burroughs, 11:01)

Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-----------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:13 | James introduces Children’s Minnesota and his role | | 02:45 | Describes the CEO transition as 2025’s key initiative | | 04:46 | Discusses the CEO’s vision for equity and inclusion | | 07:58 | Outlines headwinds and tailwinds entering 2026 | | 10:54 | Community and staff reaction to ongoing equity work | | 13:58 | The hardest challenge for 2026: sustaining momentum and adapting | | 17:03 | Vision for growth: succession, expansion, and integrating social matters | | 19:37 | Addressing social determinants of health |

Conclusion

This episode offers a candid, comprehensive look at how Children’s Minnesota weathers leadership transitions while keeping equity and inclusion core to its mission. With clear-eyed assessments of challenges, unflagging commitment to community engagement, and a focus on making equity intrinsic to all organizational practices, James Burroughs provides a compelling blueprint for lasting, systemic change in pediatric healthcare.