Cultural Competency and Health Literacy Workgroup: A Collaboration between the Division and NewYork-Presbyterian Performing Provider System

DODI MEYER, MD • Clinical Lead • ddm11@cumc.columbia.edu RACHEL A. NAIUKOW, MS, MPH • Program Coordinator • ran9031@nyp.org

Mission and Goals

The overarching goal of the Cultural Competency and Health Literacy Workgroup is to provide guidance in cultural competence, language access, and health literacy to the Hospital and its community partners to enhance the quality of care and address healthcare inequities at the individual and population levels.

The underlying principles for this work are to adopt a person-centered, cross-cultural approach that does not stereotype individuals; to use a population health approach that applies targeted interventions to populations in need; and to promote cultural competence, linguistic access, and health literacy standards as articulated in The National Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) Standards.

The workgroup utilizes a multipronged approach to accomplish its goals. Work to date includes:

•Multiple in-person and web-based trainings. Topics of these trainings are identified though a community-wide collaborator survey.

•Creation of a framework to capture clinical data through an equity lens.

•Dissemination of best practices in health literacy.

•Participation in the NewYork

Presbyterian Diversity, Inclusion, and

Belonging Committee.

The first annual Cultural Competency & Health Literacy in-person training event was held in fall 2017. Entitled “Instituting Agency Transformation for LGBTQ+ Inclusion,” it was well attended by Hospital and community agency representatives. There was also a bilingual community health talk for parents of young children. Webinars

and tip sheets have been co-developed with collaborators and distributed across the Hospital and community-based organizations with which the Division partners.