Office of Minority Health

Grantee

Texas Health & Human Services Commission
Austin, TX 78751

Project: Texas State Partnership Grant Program to Improve Minority Health Initiative
Amount: $149,343

The Office for the Elimination of Health Disparities was created in 2003 by the Texas state legislature and is currently housed within the Health and Human Services Commission. The office’s primary focus is to optimize the health and wellness of Texans by developing and strengthening systems and services to monitor and assess the health needs of the state’s underserved populations.

Project Abstract

The Texas State Partnership Grant will be used to improve culturally competent care in Medicaid service areas with known health disparities.  The main purpose of the project is twofold: 1) to promote the voluntary adoption and implementation of the National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health and Health Care (National CLAS Standards) by providers in targeted managed care organizations in the Hidalgo STAR+PLUS Medicaid service area (including HealthSpring, Molina and Superior) and in the Dallas STAR Medicaid service area (Amerigroup, Molina and Parkland); and 2) to support the development of a state-level online certification program requiring completion of cultural competence training and adoption and implementation of the National CLAS Standards. 
This project will:

• Engage participating managed care organizations by providing cultural competence training and orientation on the National CLAS Standards
• Raise community awareness about the State Partnership Grant to Improve Minority Health and the National CLAS Standards through town hall meetings and partnerships  with faith-based organizations
• Identify Medicaid managed care providers for participation in the project
• Assess participating providers’ existing strengths and cultural competence against the National CLAS Standards
• Implement project training in both target service areas
• Verify yearly adoption of National CLAS Standards by providers in participating managed care organizations
• Create a mechanism to identify and recognize providers in managed care organizations who adopt and implement the National CLAS Standards through an online certification program
• Implement a certification pilot 

The two main outcomes from this project will be the results of a community stakeholder survey from 100 community members and a survey of providers participating in the National CLAS Standards adoption and online training program as well as those who did not participate.  The success of the project will be measured through the number of:

• Providers adopting the National CLAS Standards
• Certifications awarded through the online system
• Managed care organization providers receiving cultural competence training
• Individuals attending community town hall meetings
• Providers identified for participation in the project
• Providers certified on the National CLAS Standards

A post-test-only design will be used to assess community survey responses, agreements to participate and certifications, while a quasi-experimental approach using a pre-/post- test of participating and non-participating providers for each target market will assess improved cultural competence.

Objectives

• Increased awareness, education and outreach to address racial/ethnic minority health and health disparities problems
• Improved access to, and appropriate utilization of, health and other community-based services and systems through user-centered design for racial/ethnic minorities (e.g., health IT, culturally/ linguistically appropriate services, service provider education/ training, workforce diversity)