The national Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) standards issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Office of Minority Health (OMH) were developed as a means to improve access to health care for minorities, reduce disparities, and improve quality of care. These 14 standards are organized by themes: Culturally Competent Care (Standards 1-3), Language Access Services (Standards 4-7), and Organizational Supports for Cultural Competence (Standards 8-14). You can access the standards at http://www.omhrc.gov/templates/content.aspx?ID=87&lvl=2&lvlID=13.
Cultural competence is the ability to understand and work with patients whose beliefs, values, and histories are significantly different from one's own, and includes elements of awareness, knowledge and skills. Recently published studies have found cultural competence training to be effective in improving patient satisfaction as well as cross-cultural attitudes, knowledge and skills among health care providers. In addition, the integration of cross-cultural education into the training of current and future health professionals was one of many recommendations made in a report from the Institute of Medicine on health care disparities.
As part of its commitment to reduce health care disparities, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services launched the CLAS initiative. This is a national initiative that will assist clinicians and physician practices in implementing the national CLAS standards while promoting cultural competency training. IPRO, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for New York State, has brought this initiative to New York State physician practices through the Practice Cultural Quality Leaders (PCQL) initiative. PCQL participants will work on provider training and practice site systems changes related to the CLAS standards and cultural competency.
IPRO offers free technical assistance to clinicians and physician offices serving minority populations. For more information about how IPRO can assist you or your practice with the PCQL and other performance improvement initiatives, contact Shelly Roberts at sroberts@nyqio.sdps.org.