“[T]he biggest challenge is making certain that staff and employees [practice] cultural sensitivity. This is a people business and as much as the CEO might issue an edict… It does not happen unless you invest in your employees.”
- CEO from a western region hospital
As our nation’s demographics continue to change, more hospitals will find it necessary to consider devoting significant resources to providing culturally and linguistically appropriate services. Some hospitals have already committed to set forth millions of dollars to improve care through the provision of language services, cultural competence training, and improved data collection methods, while others have not. Given that the cost-benefit of providing culturally and linguistically appropriate services is difficult to quantify, we are seeking to understand what factors organizational leaders consider when making the decision to invest now or wait.
Project Overview
The HLC study provided a unique opportunity, allowing researchers to sit down with 60 hospital CEOs and other top leadership to discuss issues related to the provision of health care to culturally and linguistically diverse patients. This investigation, done in collaboration with Sunita Mutha, MD, at University of California, San Francisco, will look at CEO perspectives on providing health care to culturally and linguistically diverse patient populations. It will explore what drives some to embrace cultural and language services as “the right thing to do” while others see it as a “burden” on an already taxed health system. Our goal with this effort is to better understand what motivates hospital leaders (CEOs) to embrace and or champion efforts to improve the delivery of health care for culturally and linguistically diverse populations, while others remain ambivalent, resistant or, worse, unaware.
Research Questions
- What drives hospital CEOs to make the provision of culturally and linguistically appropriate care a hospital priority?
- Are there differences in the perspectives of the CEOs from the HLC stratified sample and the HLC judgment sample? (See the HLC study design for a description of the hospital sampling method)
- Are there any indicators that demonstrate CEO commitment to these issues can impact the safety and quality of care to patients?
- Are there any differences or similarities in the perspectives of CEOs in California hospitals to those of CEOs across the nation?
For more information on From the Perspective of the CEO: What Drives Hospitals to Provide Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Care?, contact Amy Wilson-Stronks at awilson-stronks@jointcommission.org.