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

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONSThe rapid increase in minority and LEP populations in the United States, coupled withincreased understanding of the importance of patient-provider communication in achievingquality health care, underscores the imperative for health care organizations to developCLAS interventions. However, many organizations that implement CLAS Standards do sobecause they have a culture where equity - not the bottom line - is the goal. They implementthe projects because they are the right thing to do, not because they expect to achievesavings. As a result, some excellent examples of CLAS projects were not included in thisreport because the implementing organizations did not have any business benefit data aboutthese projects.There are two areas for which business benefits were sought but not found. It is particularlydisappointing that there was nothing included on the business benefit of improving thecultural competency of physician office visits, nor the benefits of collecting racial and ethnicdata. Each of these areas is important for different reasons and seems a logical candidate formore work on developing business benefits information.This report presents examples of business benefits achieved by organizations that haveimplemented CLAS projects. Other areas that may yield useful information in the future orthat could be useful adjuncts to this project include:• Benefits and financial costs of implementing a comprehensive, organization-wideapproach to cultural competence.• Factors or forces that encourage management to commit to CLAS initiatives.• Peer-reviewed papers in journals on business successes of CLAS programs that reachclinicians.SummaryThis project was designed to provide information useful for health care organizationsconsidering CLAS Standards-related projects or initiatives. The findings andrecommendations of Making the Business Case for CLAS provide examples that reinforce theidea that there are financial and other business reasons to pursue the provision of culturallyand linguistically appropriate health care services. We set out to capture and provideinformation that would support new and continued implementation of projects addressing theCLAS Standards.Collectively, the demographic and market forces that make CLAS in health care anincreasingly important enterprise are only one part of the landscape. Equity in access to anduse of health services, as well as reduction in racial and ethnic health disparities, are theultimate objectives. In beginning or continuing the pursuit of these goals, health careorganizations need not wait for better or more information about whether to invest in CLAS.There is much work to be done in this area, and to focus on only the potential businessbenefits from implementing the CLAS standards is an unnecessary constraint to progress.28