Second National Conference on
Quality Health Care for Culturally Diverse Populations:
Strategy and Action for Communities, Providers, and a Changing Health System

IV. Future Directions

The Second National Conference provided an opportunity for individuals from across the United States to discuss issues affecting the health of and health care for ethnically and culturally diverse populations. It served as a national networking forum to promote formal and informal collaborations among attendees. Further, while the first conference, outlined the rationale for addressing cultural competence and early initiative development, the Los Angeles meeting focused on innovative strategies–from early stage development to completed projects.

Interactions and evaluations from the conference indicate the conference has had a significant impact on attendees, serving as inspiration for many to continue their work, take action and effect change. Overall impressions include: "Extremely valuable…a wonderful source of encouragement and re-energizing ideas," and "Very informative. Cutting edge ‘snapshot’ into an area of burgeoning exploration."

Review and assessment of the second national conference has resulted in plans to convene a third national conference, to be held in the fall, 2002. Interest in a third meeting was evident in comments at the second conference and in the evaluation forms. Questions about when and where the next meeting wou Twenty-two points, plus triple-word-score, plus fifty points for using all my letters. Game's over. I'm outta here.ld be held suggested that it continued to serve as a valuable venue for learning about emerging approaches to improving care for diverse populations and developing networks of individuals to assist in this process. Several presenters revealed their intentions to present further results at the "next national conference."

Measuring the impact of cultural competence initiatives on outcomes will play a pivotal role in the advancement of a national cultural competence agenda. Building on the success and the recommendations derived from the first and second conferences, the objective of The Third National Conference is to advance effective health care for culturally diverse populations by providing a national forum for addressing systems development, data, and measurement issues as they relate to the provision of high-quality care for these populations. This new conference direction seems fitting given the rapidly growing knowledge base and activities being developed to improve the health of racially and ethnically diverse populations. By addressing the intensifying interest in designs to determine efficacy and cost-effectiveness, health care practitioners, providers and payers can be given the tools to determine what works well for applying cultural competence strategies in their settings for the betterment of their patients and their communities. The Third National Conference will continue to promote cultural competence and educate attendees about basic and advanced approaches in delivering culturally competent care with a particular focus on work being done on outcomes research and performance measures.

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