Diversity Rx: Policy: Welcome!


		Policy In recent years, more policymakers are trying to address language and cultural issues in health care. The range of responses is broad--from Federal civil rights laws to voluntary accreditation standards for managed care organizations to hospital interpreter service protocols. This section will cover a variety of these kinds of policies, and include not only the texts of the policies themselves, but also analyses, reports, and critiques. It will also include overviews and discussion of some general topics of interest to policymakers, like cost and quality.

Federal Laws		Features summaries and analysis of Federal laws that address the responsibilities of health care providers to provide access to health care for diverse populations.

Organizational Policies and Protocols		This section covers the wide variety of ways that health care organizations choose to implement and manage linguistically and culturally competent services. It contains subsections that focus on specific kinds of organizations, like hospitals, state and county health departments, and home health care providers.

Costs		As research is completed in this cutting edge area, this section will contain information on the costs, efficiencies, and benefits of programs that address language and cultural barriers in health care delivery.

Coming soon:		State Laws Contains original texts, summaries, and analyses of state laws and regulations on health care provider obligations to assure health care services that meet language and cultural needs. A special emphasis will be given to Medicaid managed care rules. Accreditation Standards Covers the accreditation standards developed by NCQA, JCAHO, and other review bodies with respect to performance measures of the linguistic and cultural competence of health care providers. Quality Of Care Features front line stories and research about the importance of addressing linguistic and cultural needs from the perspective of consumers, benefit purchasers, and others concerned with the quality of health care services.


		As with the rest of DiversityRx, this section is a work in progress and we welcome information on other efforts, programs, and reports that will expand upon the information offered here. Please let us know if you have other examples to include here.
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DiversityRx is sponsored by:		The National Conference of State Legislatures		Resources for Cross Cultural Health Care		Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation