Second National
Conference on
Quality Health Care for Culturally Diverse Populations:
Strategy and Action for Communities, Providers, and a Changing Health
System
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Second National
Conference on |
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| October 11-14, 2000 |
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Wed., October 11 | Th., October 12 | Fr., October 13 | Sat., October 14 | Poster Presentations | ||||||||
3-6. Assessing Cultural Competence Across OrganizationsThe objective of this presentation is to introduce participants to a new questionnaire developed to measure the linguistic and cultural competence of health plans. This instrument was designed with the explicit purposes of allowing comparison among various health plans and assisting consumers - particularly diverse racial/ethnic groups - in the process of selecting a health plan that could serve their special needs the best. This questionnaire could potentially be used for quality improvement purposes. In this session, the rationale that guided the design of the health plan questionnaire will be explained. The steps taken in the process of its development, the results of preliminary pilot studies, and the conclusions reached after this first phase of testing will be presented. Finally, the changes that are being made to the instrument based on its initial evaluation and the process that will be followed for validating the questionnaire in the near future will be discussed. The health plan questionnaire was designed as part of "A Report Card on Health Care for Minority Populations" - a collaborative project between Henry Ford Foundation in Detroit, Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, and the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston. The main purpose of this project is to develop health-plan measures of quality of health care for minority populations. The Commonwealth Fund in New York sponsors this project. Dr. García received her PhD in Community Health Science from the University of Texas School of Public Health with a concentration in Management and Policy Sciences, Epidemilogy, and Biometry. She received her M.A. from Rice University in Social and Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Her primary research interests are in Health Services, Minority Health, Program Planning and Evaluation, and Quality of Health Care. Dr. García is responsible for directing in Houston "Improving the Effectiveness of Care for Minority Populations, Phase Two: Cultural and Linguistic Competence of Health Plans" - a collaborative project between Henry Ford Foundation in Detroit, Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, and the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston. The main purpose of this project is to develop health-plan measures of quality of health care for minority populations. The Commonwealth Fund in New York sponsors this project. Dr. García has published and made presentations in the areas of gender discrimination, HIV testing of pregnant women, and cultural competency. She has designed instruments for evaluating HIV programs and evaluating the cultural and linguistic competence of health plans. Dr. García participated in the "Diversity and Communication in Health Care” conference sponsored among others by The Commonwealth Fund in New York and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC. Recently, she made a presentation on performance measures of cultural competence at the "Picker Institute's Sixth Annual Symposium” in Boston. Dr. García is a member of the American Public Health Association and the Association for Health Services Research.
This presentation will describe the methodology and preliminary outcomes of a regional survey on practices and policies used within public health settings that reflect on the integration of cultural considerations into the delivery of primary health care. The survey included 200 health care providers, health administrators, and patients from city and county health departments, community health centers, and non-profit health organizations in an 11-county area in Southwestern Ohio and Northern Kentucky. Participating health organizations serve large numbers of low-income ethnically/culturally diverse patients, including African American, Asian American, Latino, Native American, and Appalachian. Service settings include urban, suburban, and rural locations. Funded by the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati, the survey was carried out as one component of a broader project to provide information to the Foundation and the public health community on how to improve the capacity of primary care providers to offer culturally competent health services in the public health sector. The presentation will describe the survey implementation approach and will highlight in particular the challenges in selection of the survey tool. The survey instrument will be shared with participants in a handout copy. Preliminary findings will be described, focusing on differences in-patient and health care provider or administrator perceptions of the cultural appropriateness of the health care received. Policy and practice changes and training needs suggested by the survey outcomes will be described. Recommendations will provide guidance on replicating the survey successfully in other settings.
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essentials | models
and practices | policy |
legal issues | networking |
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Diversity Rx is sponsored by: |
 The National Conference of State Legislatures |
 Resources for Cross Cultural Health Care |
 Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation |
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