making the business case for culturally and linguistically appropriate ...

The State of CLAS in Health CareIn response to publication of the CLAS standards, a number of public and privateorganizations have adopted the standards and conducted studies on culturally competent care,language access services and organizational supports for cultural and linguistic competence.The vast majority of these activities have focused on language access.Peer-reviewed health studies have documented that communication with physicians presentsa problem for one in five Americans receiving health care. The percentages among non-American-born or LEP patients are even higher (27 percent for Asian Americans and 33percent among Hispanics). 7 Interpreter service activities have been given attention since 2000and have been consistently documented to promote CLAS standards in health care. This isevident from training initiatives and publication manuals for interpretation services,including:• A Patient-Centered Guide to Implementing Language Access Services in HealthcareOrganizations 8 ;• Guides to assist managed care plans in planning and providing culturally andlinguistically appropriate care;• Functional Manual for Providing Linguistically Competent Health Care Services asDeveloped by a Community Health Center 9 ;• Best practice recommendations for hospital-based interpreter services;• A health plan report card for minority populations;• National Health Law Program (NHeLP) description of language interpretationservices in healthcare settings. 10In addition to these initiatives, many states have also made CLAS a requirement for healthcare organizations that wish to provide care to publicly supported beneficiaries.Progress has been made in implementing CLAS in America; however, much of the work isstill in the early stages. Although language services are the most common focus of CLASstandard implementation, wider success in reducing health disparities and providing care forLEP and minority populations will require both linguistic programming as well as broadcultural competency programming.Importance of the Business Case for CLASAs part of an effort to provide technical assistance to (then) Medicare+Choice Organizations(M+COs), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in 2002, in conjunctionwith the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,sponsored a national conference on “Best Practices in Culturally and LinguisticallyAppropriate Services in Managed Care.” The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality7 Minority Americans Lag Behind Whites On Nearly Every Measure Of Health Care Quality. CommonwealthFund. 2002 http://www.cmwf.org/newsroom/newsroom_show.htm?doc_id=2236088 A Patient-Centered Guide to Implementing Language Access Services in Healthcare Organizations. Office onMinority Health. www.omhrc.gov/Assets/pdf/Checked/HC-LSIG.pdf9 Functional Manual for Providing Linguistically Competent Health Care Services as Developed by ACommunity Health Center The Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO) andthe Asian Pacific Health Carehttp://www.aapcho.org/altruesite/files/aapcho/Publications_FactSheets/LEPManual.pdf10 Language Access Kit. http://www.cmwf.org/usr_doc/LEP_actionkit_reprint_0204.pdf10